King Hu: A Touch Of Zen

King Hu: A Touch Of Zen

(Taiwan, 1971)

Sublime and sprawling, A Touch Of Zen is perhaps the greatest in King Hu's series of ground-breaking, metaphysical period dramas.

In the most elusive fashion, A Touch Of Zen is a martial arts film, and it's greatest influence was on other wuxia films (and later international crossovers like Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, Hero and House Of Flying Daggers). But it approaches martial arts as Tarkovsky would have done it - the film is set up in three methodically paced, long sections (it's a 3 hour film), which all feature a bit of action but devote considerably more attention to character, landscape and narrative. In this, Hu is expanding and advancing ideas hinted at in landmark earlier films Come Drink With Me and Dragon Inn (or Dragon Gate Inn, as it is occasionally known); the collective influence of all three films has only grown with the passage of time.

The focus of each section falls upon different characters, with the central character in each section embodying different virtues: the humility and creativity of the artist (the focal point in the first act), courage and confidence in the second act, and an assured, intuitive enlightenment in the third. The three acts are linked by tightly controlled and far more explosive bursts of action in an otherwise meditatively paced film.

Hu emerged as a director after stints in the 1950s and early 60s writing and acting in Hong Kong, and his background was in music and comedy - seeming unlikely beginnings for a seminal action auteur. But here - and in other films - those roots are evident in subtle ways: Hu's groundbreaking sense of choreography incorporated aesthetic sensibilities drawn from a knowledge of Chinese opera, and his very sharp sense of musical rhythm and comic timing informs action sequences that - carefully placed within lengthy meditative or mystical narrative excursions gives them an explosive yet artful intensity that was at the time a striking new development (though it should be noted that Kurosawa and numerous westerns would be precedents, and Hu was conscious of both).

Hu explores other elements as well - the first act, mostly devoted to the artist, eases viewers into a framework of intrigues that will shape the plot; this section of the film is very slow, but in hypnotic (and definitely not dull) fashion, with an abundance of careful set detail and some rather astounding landscape photography. A Touch Of Zen was loosely adapted from a number of Pu Songling's gently surreal stories, collected in the anthology Strange Tales From A Chinese Studio; Songling's proto-magical realism (17th century, specifically) is another significant influence upon all of Hu's work. Thus, palace intrigues and suggestions of the supernatural drive the slowly coalescing plot. Intriguingly, the ghost story elements explored early in the film are satirized a bit later, adding a discrete layer of obtuse irony and genre spoofery to the overall proceedings.

Gradually shifting into a second act, which moves the focus to an imperial fugitive (Yang Huizhen) who is being tracked in the area. Here another of Hu's advances surfaces - Hu made strong and complex female characters a trademark, and the fugitive seen here is one of the most memorable; definitely a touchstone for memorable future characters in films made by Ang Lee and Zhang Yimou, among many others. A Touch Of Zen is divided with an intermission (on the DVD - more on this later) into two halves, and this 'second act' is split by this division. A semi-famous, and much imitated, action sequence is to be found here.

During the third act, the focus shifts again, to a group of monks that make a brief but memorable appearance earlier, and - as the level of action gradually rises, so does the level of mysticality, with Hu's complex and highly personal take on Buddhism recalling Andrei Tarkovsky's similarly mystical and oblique Christianity. Throughout, we have Hu's sense of humor, a sort of greatly modified slapstick providing extra charm - the very playful sense of humor (sparingly used) would seem to be a strange addition, but it somehow works, giving an otherwise slow, meditiative film a breezy sense of rhythm. Again, I would point out the influence of Pu Songling, whose work blends spiritualism, surrealism, unexpected humor, political intrigues, horror and hints of the erotic - and Hu is unafraid of blending these seemingly disparate qualities into a vast, and sublime, cinematic endeavor.

This is a beautifully shot film, on my personal short list of the most gorgeous ever, even if the US/R1 DVD is a serious disservice to its' real glory. The Tai Seng DVD does present the film in widescreen (which beats all currently available international editions), but the film seems to be otherwise unrestored, with an indistinct print and several spots of faded colors distracting from some exquisite compositions and landscape shots, of a variety that would've made John Ford jealous (with at least one explicit visual reference to Kurosawa as well). I would hope to see a fully cleaned-up DVD available at some point in the future. But - washed-out DVD or not - this is something every cinephile out there should see.