Kong shan ling yu

During the Ming Dynasty a priceless handwritten Buddhist Tripitaka scroll finds a General (Tien Feng) has his eye on it. He plans to take it from the monastery where it is held. The abbott finds a successor to help guard it.

Meister director, King Hu applies his usual slow measured approach in this slow burning drama with his usual typical style and some superb camerawork by Henry Chan. However, it does suffer from slowness in places but the films poetry inevitable shines through.

It's amazing that a film as accomplished as this can fade from the collective memory - or at least the IMDb as a representation of it.

At a time when the Hong Kong industry was churning out its most popular product to a schedule, their greatest director King Hu took his crew off into a remote area and filmed this and LEGEND OF THE MOUNTAIN both featuring his elegant star and producer to be Hsu Feng.

Don't let anyone kid you that this is a work of art removed from the crass commerce of the Shaw Brothers and the rest but it is one clearly more seriously undertaken in the same tradition of the swordsman film.

They build up to the acrobatics in a way that gives them, if not plausibility, at a least suitable place in the film. The one piece if violence - White Fox murdering the lieutenant - is neatly turned into a grim joke. Plausibility is also derived from the detail of monastery life. No kung fu monks here. The inhabitants are spooked at the thought of working for a living too.

However this and the robbery plot are secondary to the beauty of the wide screen imagery, with each position in a camera movement a perfectly judged composition. The viewer carries away a sense treat memory of fabric, stone, foliage and water inhabited by attention getting characters.

Raining on the Mountain is a sorely neglected little gem of a Chinese flick. I would say "kung fu flick", but that's almost wholly untrue. There are several fight scenes (most notably near the climax), but the film seems much more interested in the fluidity and the composition of these scenes than the actual viscera of the bloody mouths and body blows. There's a sort of extravagant economy of motion here: everything is done for the effect, but nothing feels gratuitous or superfluous; it's simply done so well that you breeze through without giving it a thought. A good portion of this film consists of people running, ducking and hiding behind things, but Hu, being behind the pen, behind the camera and apparently behind the editing equipment as well, presents the entire film like a dance, no matter what they're doing.

The plot concerns a number of characters scheming towards two major aims inside a Buddhist monastery: an esquire and a general both looking to obtain a priceless handwritten scroll from their library, using various means (including a faux-concubine and her bandana-clad partner-in-crime) to obtain it. Additionally, the abbot of the monastery is looking for a successor, and several of the monks are attempting to get a good word for their names through less than legitimate means: namely, getting the esquire or the general to put in a good word by assisting them in getting the scroll. The other major plot point involves a former thief (convicted, but claims falsely accused) being hounded by the lieutenant that put him behind bars, and the two of them getting into various scraps, and coming off like wounded children.

The film I was more reminded of (at least in a superficial way) was Miyazaki's The 47 Ronin. Both films have action, but aren't overly concerned with the action so much as with how the action is executed. Neither film is particularly substantial plotwise, but both exert special attention to the minutiae of politicking, and their power comes with how that plot is carried out. Just as Raining on the Mountain is mostly people dodging enough and slinking away, The 47 Ronin is a film that consists mostly of people running into rooms and informing the occupants of exciting things happening outside, and yet, both are captivating because of how they present their wares. While it occasionally grinds to a bit of a halt when it focuses on the abbot appointing, Raining on the Mountain is an evocative, sensual, breathtaking and above all enjoyable film, and with a surprisingly light, fun storyline, a memorable cast of characters, and a thrilling conclusion, it's a film I'd gladly recommend to anybody that can obtain it.

{Grade: 8.5/10 (B+) / #10 (of 24) of 1979}

Gorgeous visuals, contemplative story. I loved the quiet tension in this film, with its emphasis on scheming, and the martial arts scenes left in a minor key. The setting is a venerable Buddhist monastery which is about to have its elderly abbot retire. In contrast to his enlightened wisdom, rival visitors come in the hopes of getting their hands on a valuable ancient scroll. Its real value is in its message, says the abbot, but his words fall on deaf ears. In one telling moment, one of them doesn't even read it when he has a chance, caring only about its monetary value, the antithesis of why it was created. Meanwhile, in a nice parallel, rival monks vie to become selected as the new abbot, and are dismayed when an ex-criminal is chosen.

There are many outwardly respectable characters in this film, but few have pure hearts. Much of the film is comprised of their maneuverings, set to lush imagery and a soundtrack in perfect harmony with it. There is a wonderful sense of awareness that the abbot(s) have about what's going on around them - they're not off in the clouds or naïve about human nature, but at the same time, they demonstrate patience, kindness, deliberation, simplicity, and resoluteness. The film seems to be a meditation on practicing Buddhism in the face of human ambition, something applicable to everyday life.

I believe the title (Chinese characters not allowed by IMDb) is a reference to an idiom also used in the first line of Fei Ming's poem, 'The Soaring Dust of the Mortal Realm,' which itself refers to our all-too-human lives being tainted by the 'dust' of worldly desires. From translator Yilin Wang:

"The phrases in the poem pose similar difficulties for translation. Both idioms not only refer to supernatural miracles, but also allude to Buddhist and Daoist worldviews respectively. For example, on a literal level, (the characters that make up the title of this film) paints a mythical scene of empty mountains and mythical rain. But though the first character could be translated literally as "empty," it does not have connotations of absence, lack, and nothingness; instead, it has an airy and meditative quality, and can allude to sunyata, a complex Buddhist idea about being open and letting go. The third character also doesn't just mean magical or mythical; it implies the rain is flowing with a spiritual or sacred energy, possessing a sense of self-awareness present in all beings, which allows the rain to fall exactly at the right moment. Thus, the title is not merely a description of scenery, but a depiction of a spiritual and supernatural phenomenon that is deeply moving and transcendental."

I see the film title as thus a reference to the old abbot, who knows he needs to let go, and moves along effortlessly, in complete harmony with the world. His final scene was simply perfect. There is a parallel to the new abbot knowing what he should ultimately do with the ancient scroll, which was brilliant too.

People seem afraid to give this one less than 3/5, so I'm going to go for it with a slightly lower 2.5/5. It's boring! It's beautifully shot, sure, but it's dull. I don't think it should be labeled as belonging to the action genre, because this is... I don't know, it's not even really a drama. There's a ceremony to pick a new abbot at a monastery, there's a scroll a few people want to get but it's hidden away, and there's political intrigue after the decision regarding the former event is made.

But the film slouches awkwardly from one thread to another, and much of Raining in the Mountain feels like numerous scenes stitched together, the only through line being that the movie is set in one fairy confined location. Okay, that's something. I'll concede. But I found very little rhyme, reason, or rhythm as to how those scenes were placed together. There was no flow, there were no interesting characters, there was little action in what I thought was a martial arts movie, and some of the music was so annoying (it drove me insane during the chasing/sneaking scenes, and there are many).

King Hu was on autopilot with this one, I think. Every other films of his I've seen is better, or has more to offer. I was enamoured with the first couple I saw, but digging out his deeper cuts has been diminishing returns to some extent... though this is the first one I found really disappointing. If you want something spiritual, atmospheric, and maybe thematically rich (if you want to dig deep or whatever), maybe there's something to be gained from approaching this with that frame of mind. And yes, it does look very good; I can't entirely criticise the visuals without being petty or unfair.

Actually, I would just say watch King Hu's similarly named Legend of the Mountain instead, which came out the same year, is longer, has even less action, but definitely has something to it that makes it compelling and easier to get lost in/hypnotised by.