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Beijing born Hu Jin Quan, better known as King Hu, worked as an actor, scriptwriter, set decorator and assistant director after joining the Shaw Brothers Studio in 1958. Hu slowly worked his way up as the director of “Sons of the Good Earth” (1965) under the influence of director Li Han Hsiang. Besides launching the film career of its star Cheng Pei Pei, Hu’s highly acclaimed wuxia film “Come Drink with Me” (1966) would put him on the world map. After leaving Shaw, he directed “Dragon Inn” (1967) in Taiwan which became a phenomenal cult classic in Southeast Asia.

Hu continued to achieve more fame with films like “A Touch of Zen” (1971), “The Valiant Ones” (1975), “Raining in the Mountain” and “Legend of the Mountain” both in 1979. Although his later films were less successful commercially, he returned from California to direct “Swordsman” (1990) and “Painted Skin” (1992). Actually, producer Tsui Hark‘s team had to finish...

Mostly known for elevating the wuxia genre in unprecedented heights, with films like “A Touch of Zen” and “Dragon Inn”, King Hu has also implemented his impressive aesthetics to this 1979 film, which lingers between the thriller and the ghost story, as usual including Zen Buddhist philosophy. Eureka Entertainment presents this epic in all of its 191 minutes, in a fully restored edition, in stunning 4K.

Legend of the Mountain is screening at Five Flavours

The story is adapted from a Song Dynasty folk tale and revolves around Ho Yunqing, a young scholar who is tasked by an eminent monk to transcribe a Buddhist sutra said to have immense power over the spirits of the afterlife. To execute his work in peace, he travels to the abandoned premises of an ex-general deep in the mountains, where he encounters a number of strange people. These include Mr Tsui, the man who welcomes him in the area,...

Martial arts movies combine action and storytelling, pushing the boundaries of cinema with their high-energy sequences and choreographed performances. Iconic filmmakers like Jackie Chan, Chang Cheh, and Yuen Woo Ping have made significant contributions to the martial arts genre. Martial arts movie franchises stand out due to their multifaceted nature, covering a wide range of genres and employing various techniques, from wirework to complex camera rigs, all supported by months of rigorous training.

Martial arts movies have a rich and enduring legacy in the world of cinema, with influential directors and actors paving the way for the genre's evolution. From the early classics to contemporary trends, martial arts films have not just captivated audiences with high-energy action; they have also pushed the boundaries of storytelling through the art of combat. Iconic filmmakers of the genre like Jackie Chan, Chang Cheh, and Yuen Woo Ping have made a huge impact on the genre,...

Mostly known for elevating the wuxia genre in unprecedented heights, with films like “A Touch of Zen” and “Dragon Inn”, King Hu has also implemented his impressive aesthetics to this 1979 film, which lingers between the thriller and the ghost story, as usual including Zen Buddhist philosophy.

Legend of the Mountain is streaming on Mubi

The story is adapted from a Song Dynasty folk tale and revolves around Ho Yunqing, a young scholar who is tasked by an eminent monk to transcribe a Buddhist sutra said to have immense power over the spirits of the afterlife. To execute his work in peace, he travels to the abandoned premises of an ex-general deep in the mountains, where he encounters a number of strange people. These include Mr Tsui, the man who welcomes him in the area, the mysterious and beautiful Melody and her mother and caretaker of the monastery, Ms Chang, and...

By Raktim Nandi

Shohei Imamura is the only Japanese director to see his films win the prestigious Palme D’Or twice. The first of the wins came in 1983, with “The Ballad Of Narayama.” An adaptation of Shoichiro Fukazawa’s debut novel of the same name, the film is a winner of several more awards and much acclaim, including three wins at the Japanese Academy Awards.

The story takes place in an isolated village in the 19th century. The senicidal practice of Obasute, the procedure of which involves carrying an infirm aged relative to a mountain to die, is an important part of the village traditions. In this particular village, one needs to turn 70 before being carried to a sacred mountain. Orin, played by Sumiko Sakamoto, is 69, and spends her time readying herself for the one-way trip. She is not afraid to die; tradition condemns refusal of the trip.

Another in a string of restorations that in recent years have benefitted fans of wuxia legend King Hu, Raining in the Mountain is one of two pictures the late Hong Kong- and Taiwan-based auteur (most famous for Come Drink with Me and the Cannes favorite A Touch of Zen) made in South Korea. Considerably shorter and more direct than the other Korean project (Legend of the Mountain, which got its first U.S. run in 2018), this 1979 film focuses on mortal ambition and corruption instead of witchcraft, and again, is not for viewers who expect a high ratio of action to dialogue....

Another in a string of restorations that in recent years have benefitted fans of wuxia legend King Hu, Raining in the Mountain is one of two pictures the late Hong Kong- and Taiwan-based auteur (most famous for Come Drink with Me and the Cannes favorite A Touch of Zen) made in South Korea. Considerably shorter and more direct than the other Korean project (Legend of the Mountain, which got its first U.S. run in 2018), this 1979 film focuses on mortal ambition and corruption instead of witchcraft, and again, is not for viewers who expect a high ratio of action to dialogue....

The final film is King Hu’s “Inn Trilogy”, and the follow-up to his highly-acclaimed A Touch of Zen, The Fate of Lee Khan once again shows the master filmmaker’s impeccable talent in creating drama out of a single setting. An espionage thriller with a unique wuxia twist and shades of Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai, the film chronicles a tense showdown between warriors on opposing sides of a civil war in a rural inn.

When Lee Khan a dangerous and cunning Mongol official, and his equally deadly sister Lee Wan-erh (Hsu Feng; A Touch of Zen), arrive at the Spring Inn to obtain a battle map that reveals the location of the Chinese rebel army, a group of resistance fighters, including an all-female group of ex-convicts plan to recapture the map, whatever the cost.

As much a pre-cursor to the ‘hangout’ movie as it is an action packed wuxia adventure,...

Guest reviewer Lee Broughton returns with an assessment of an obscure period chiller expertly assembled by Shen Hsiang Yu. One of the Shaw Brothers’ early attempts at screen horror, this superior gothic romance with a supernatural twist failed to find an audience upon its initial domestic release — a circumstance that led to the studio changing tack and pursuing a more exploitative line of genre flick. However, 45 years on it plays like the kind of film that jaded and/or discerning genre fans might well take great delight in discovering.

The Ghost Lovers

Region B Blu-ray

88 Films

1974 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 92 min. / Yan nu huan hun / Street Date March 12 2018 / available through Amazon UK or Amazon Us / £14.99

Starring: Ching Lee, Wei Tu Lin.

Cinematography: Cheng-Min Tsui

Film Editor: Hsing-Lung Chiang

Art Director: Mao-Lung Lin

Original Music: Yung-Yu Cheng

Written by Yi-Lu Kuo

Produced by Runme Shaw

Directed by Shen Hsiang Yu (aka Sang-ok Shin...

After decades lost in the darkest corners of video distribution, on samizdat VHS tapes haphazardly dubbed and cropped, or edited by companies like Miramax and even less reputable organizations, the 21st century has been pretty good for the classics of Chinese-language cinema. At least, for those films in the kung fu genre, kickstarted by Celestial Pictures remastering and restoring the original audio of much of the 60s and 70s Shaw Brothers library in the early 2000s. This has led in turn to a growing recognition in the West of the work of directors like Lau Kar-leung and Chang Cheh, thanks to quality releases through imprints like the Weinsteins' sadly defunct Dragon Dynasty label. Recently the U.K. company Eureka Video has picked up where they left off, releasing restored version of 80s and 90s classics like the Police Story (1985), Project A (1983) and Once Upon a Time in China (1991–7) movies,...

Contemporary Chinese Cinema is a column devoted to exploring contemporary Chinese-language cinema primarily as it is revealed to us at North American multiplexes.Animal World2018 has been a remarkably strong year for Chinese language cinema, in terms of films on the international festival and arthouse circuit, retrospectives across the United States, and commercial films exhibited at multiplexes in a handful of North American cities. New movies from Jia Zhangke, Bi Gan (Long Day’s Journey Into Night), Wang Bing (Dead Souls), Hu Bo (An Elephant Sitting Still), Jiang Wen (Hidden Man) and Zhang Yimou (Shadow) electrified festival audiences around the globe, though none have as yet seen commercial release in North America. Rather than focus on these kinds of films, all of which have been covered elsewhere on the Notebook over the course of the year, this column has primarily been devoted to following those Chinese-language films that see small multiplex releases,...

The Boxer's OmenThe latest in what has been an extraordinarily strong year for Chinese cinema on the New York repertory scene kicks off this weekend as the Metrograph presents a week-long series of “Shaw Brothers Horror” films, all but one of which are screening in 35mm, and all but one of which were produced by the Shaw Brothers studio. As Hong Kong cinema of the 70s and 80s has increasingly become a subject of cinephile interest (more or less in opposition to the genre thrill-seekers who have always loved it), the focus has primarily been on the martial arts genre and its major auteurs and stars. But beneath the surface of the high-class productions and dazzling physical and technical displays in the best of the colony’s output, there lies an electric undercurrent of the cheap, the weird and the flat-out disgusting. By the end of the 1970s, with the...

Vengeance Is His: Chang Cheh’s Martial Lore runs May 23 - 29, 2018 at the Quad Cinema in New York.As if the riches of the New York repertory scene weren’t embarrassing enough already, on Wednesday, May 23 the city’s second massive retrospective of a director with the surname Chang in less than a week opens, with the Quad Cinema’s 14-film exploration of the career of martial arts director Chang Cheh.1 An extraordinarily prolific director, credited with 76 films during his 1967-1982 heyday at the Shaw Brothers studio, Chang was the defining director of the era, establishing many of the dominant modes of the wuxia and kung fu genres, as well as launching the careers of dozens of stars, choreographers and directors. The Quad series is but a small sample, yet nonetheless a fine cross-section of his work, touching on all the various phases of his career: his early wuxias, his...

If you wanted a crash course in Chinese language cinema of the past 40 years, you could do a lot worse than the series playing at the Metrograph from May 18 - 27 built around the career of Sylvia Chang. An actress, writer and director of tremendous accomplishment (as well as popular singer and playwright), Chang has been a major figure since the mid-1970s, playing important roles in both the Hong Kong New Wave and New Taiwanese Cinema, working with key directors King Hu, Ann Hui, Tsui Hark, Edward Yang, Stanley Kwan, Johnnie To, Mabel Cheung, and Ang Lee. She’s played waifish ingenues and hard-nosed career women, exasperated mothers, bohemian artists, bourgeois matrons and ass-kicking cops. As a director, she’s brought special focus to women’s changing roles in domestic and family melodramas, creating sophisticated works that straddle the line between mainstream and art house. The Metrograph is playing 15 of her films,...

Mostly known for elevating the wuxia genre in unprecedented heights, with films like “A Touch of Zen” and “Dragon Inn”, King Hu has also implemented his impressive aesthetics to this 1979 film, which lingers between the thriller and the ghost story, as usual including Zen Buddhist philosophy. Eureka Entertainment presents this epic in all of its 191 minutes, in a fully restored edition, in stunning 4K.

The story is adapted from a Song Dynasty folk tale and revolves around Ho Yunqing, a young scholar who is tasked by an eminent monk to transcribe a Buddhist sutra said to have immense power over the spirits of the afterlife. To execute his work in peace, he travels to the abandoned premises of an ex-general deep in the mountains, where he encounters a number of strange people. These include Mr Tsui, the man who welcomes him in the area, the mysterious and...

The Glasgow Film Festival closing party Photo: Glasgow Film Festival

After all the chaos of Snowmageddon, the final two days of the Glasgow Film Festival went a lot more smoothly, with most films and events back to normal. It was a particularly good day for younger viewers, with sword and sorcery epic Willow and Bollywood spectacular Bride And Prejudice playing at Kinning Park Carnival, where there were also animal balloons and other entertainment. The Big Bad Fox And Other Tales screened at the Gft and there was also Chinese fantasy epic Legend Of The Mountain to enjoy, with one kind soul bringing doughnuts to share with random viewers in recognition of the fact that it’s over three hours long. Then there was a special screening of Run Lola Run put on by the Glasgow Youth Film Festival team, which attracted quite a crowd.

Bollywood-style dance lessons at Bride And...

Since any New York City cinephile has a nearly suffocating wealth of theatrical options, we figured it’d be best to compile some of the more worthwhile repertory showings into one handy list. Displayed below are a few of the city’s most reliable theaters and links to screenings of their weekend offerings — films you’re not likely to see in a theater again anytime soon, and many of which are, also, on 35mm. If you have a chance to attend any of these, we’re of the mind that it’s time extremely well-spent.

Film Society of Lincoln Center

The great, perpetually underseen Raúl Ruiz is given the second part of his career-spanning series.

Film Forum

The immense Ingmar Bergman retrospective is now underway. You know what to do.

Metrograph

Films by Yvonne Rainer, Chantal Akerman, Agnès Varda, and more are playing as part of “Tell Me.”

Two King Hu films,...

Since any New York City cinephile has a nearly suffocating wealth of theatrical options, we figured it’d be best to compile some of the more worthwhile repertory showings into one handy list. Displayed below are a few of the city’s most reliable theaters and links to screenings of their weekend offerings — films you’re not likely to see in a theater again anytime soon, and many of which are, also, on 35mm. If you have a chance to attend any of these, we’re of the mind that it’s time extremely well-spent.

Metrograph

“Tell Me: Women’s Filmmakers, Women’s Stories” shines a necessary light, with the likes of Varda and Akerman screening.

King Hu’s Legend of the Mountain has been restored, and is complemented by an outstanding weekend of martial-art films.

Demy’s Lola will play on Sunday.

Museum of Modern Art

Scorsese-backed restorations, “To Save and Project,...

It begins with a Wagnerian incantation: elemental imagery calling forth the natural world. Brassy, discordant horns rising with the sun, the mountain, the clouds and the river, a lake, an ocean, always water, rushing, falling, churning. A lone figure appears, dwarfed by the crashing sea, a pinprick of consciousness in a beautifully indifferent nature. The man is a scholar, an itinerant copyist, a voice from nowhere explains, on a mission to copy an ancient sutra, magical words with the power to control the spirits of the dead. He’s played by Shih Chun, the heroic swordsman of Dragon Gate Inn (1967), and his role here is much like his one in A Touch of Zen (1971): a clever man who finds himself well out of his spiritual depth. That scholar though had a home, dilapidated though it was, and a mother, henpecking as she was, and, eventually, a child. This man has no roots,...