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Thread: Dragon Inn

  1. #1
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    Restored

    For the Criterion Collection.

    Exclusive: Trailers For Janus Films Re-release Of King Hu's Wuxia Classics 'A Touch Of Zen' And 'Dragon Inn'
    By Edward Davis | The Playlist
    April 4, 2016 at 11:53AM



    Modern martial arts pictures like "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon," "Hero," "The Grandmaster," and "House Of Flying Daggers" plus films like Quentin Tarantino's homage to the genre "Kill Bill," and the wire work in "The Matrix," can all draw a line back to the films of King Hu. The director combined beautiful imagery with groundbreaking action scenes, creating an oeuvre like no other, and this spring two of his pictures are returning to the big screen.

    Janus Films will be releasing The Criterion Collection's restoration of 1971's "A Touch Of Zen" and "Dragon Inn." The three hour epic 'Zen' follows Yang (Hsu Feng), a noblewoman and fugitive hiding in a small village, who must escape into the wilderness with a shy scholar and two aides. There, the quartet face a massive group of fighters and are joined by a band of Buddhist monks surprisingly skilled in the art of battle.

    Meanwhile, 1967's "Dragon Inn" is set during the Ming Dynasty, and kicks off when the Emperor's Minister of Defense is framed and executed by a powerful court eunuch, and his family is sent into exile and pursued by secret police. As the chase ensues, a mysterious band of strangers begins to gather at the remote Dragon Gate Inn, where paths (and swords) will cross.

    You can check out the trailers for both below. "A Touch Of Zen" opens on April 22nd at Film Forum, with "Dragon Inn" following on May 6th at Film Society of Lincoln Center. The films will roll out nationally from there.

    http://www.indiewire.com/embed/playe...0000&width=480

    http://www.indiewire.com/embed/playe...000&width=480b

    Gene Ching
    Publisher www.KungFuMagazine.com
    Author of Shaolin Trips
    Support our forum by getting your gear at MartialArtSmart

  2. #2
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    Hope this comes to a theater near me...

    ...and at a time when I can see it.





    DRAGON INN
    King Hu Taiwan, 1967
    The Chinese Wuxia (martial arts) picture was never the same after King Hu’s legendary Dragon Inn. During the Ming dynasty, the emperor’s minister of defense is framed by a powerful court eunuch and executed, and his family is pursued by secret police. In the ensuing chase, a mysterious band of strangers begins to gather at the remote Dragon Gate Inn, where paths (and swords) will cross. This thrilling landmark of film history returns to the screen in a new, beautifully restored 4K digital transfer, created from the original negative.

    BOOK NOW
    DETAILS
    111 min
    Color
    2.35:1
    FORMATS
    DCP
    Blu-ray

    Gene Ching
    Publisher www.KungFuMagazine.com
    Author of Shaolin Trips
    Support our forum by getting your gear at MartialArtSmart

  3. #3
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    Now showing

    Review Martial-arts filmmaking master bends light and arrows to his will


    Bai Ying as Cao in the movie "Dragon Inn." (Janus Films)
    Robert Abele
    With a nod to Tsai Ming-liang, welcome back, “Dragon Inn.”

    The great Chinese filmmaker King Hu’s 1967 masterpiece of expressive, physical martial-arts storytelling has been given a beautiful 4K digital restoration by the Chinese Taipei Film Archive, and it couldn’t arrive at a better time as an artisanal contrast to today’s computer-generated, chaos-driven superhero cinema. To revisit (or introduce oneself to) this seminal, revered work — an influence on countless wuxia movies since, including Ang Lee’s “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” and Zhang Yimou’s “House of Flying Daggers,” and Quentin Tarantino’s “Kill Bill” (even “The Hateful Eight”) — is to pay homage to a timeless art made thrillingly modern. Second Wave Taiwanese director Tsai’s 2004 elegiac ode to moviegoing, “Goodbye, Dragon Inn,” took place at a Taipei theater showing Hu’s movie on its last day.

    After years of working for the Hong Kong film industry’s dominant Shaw Brothers, where he made his first wuxia film, “Come Drink With Me,” Hu broke away in the mid-1960s to finesse (and independently finance) his own movies. Foregoing the melodrama and trick visuals that often categorized the chivalric sorcery of the genre, he devised a uniquely pulsing blend of magnetic stoicism, Chinese Opera choreography and innovative fight sequence editing. “Dragon Inn” signaled a new technical virtuosity, and in showcasing a skilled, courageous female swordfighter — as “Come Drink With Me” did — a bracing gender inclusivity.

    The story, set during the Ming Dynasty, is showdown gold. A ruthlessly powerful court eunuch named Cao (a memorable Bai Ying, blond and red-faced) has one of the emperor’s key ministers framed and executed, after which he sends a secret military group to track down and kill the man’s children. The path leads to the titular tavern, an isolated, rock-strewn outpost where Cao’s murderous brigade fatefully converges with the movie’s heroic trio, a nomadic swordsman named Xiao (the slyly smiling Shih Jun) hired to protect the hunted children, and a pair of secretive, combat-gifted siblings, one of whom (an electric Shang Kuan Ling-Feng) is passing herself off as male.

    The domino-tipping scenes in the tavern are expertly coiled and funny as the various factions suss each other out over tense meals, stealth communication, and lethal maneuvers. (Arrow-catching!) Once the conflict is out in the open, though, and the fight migrates from the confined inn to beautiful tree-lined mountain passes, Hu goes to town squaring off his warriors — mythically set against the blue sky — and it’s both meditative and miraculous. Even the fluttering of wardrobes perfectly complements the tautly percussive music.

    Hu directs his fight sequences with a showman’s flair but also a pickpocket’s sleight of hand. He puts you inside the action. First you’re stirred by the face-off between such vividly realized archetypes, then dazzled by the dynamic framing and the performers’ weapon-wielding proficiency. But you’ll barely perceive the flash of quick-cut inserts that result in a swordfighter puzzling at his sliced robe or bloodied skin. As critic David Bordwell realized in dutifully studying Hu’s editing technique, the eccentric notion is that Hu’s combatants are too fast even for the camera. It’s a beautifully disorienting effect — how did that contact happen? — and one brought to even more glorious fruition in his follow-up feature, “A Touch of Zen,” in 1971.

    A director in command of everything from the watchful eyes of his actors, to the beauty of a misty morning light, to the heart-stopping vectors of arrows and swords bursting across a widescreen frame, Hu creates cinema that's the definition of kineticism. “Dragon Inn,” a wuxia mold-breaker to treasure, is truly soaring pulp, and its return is a treat for moviegoers.

    -------------

    'Dragon Inn'

    In Mandarin with English subtitles

    Running time: 1 hour, 51 minutes

    Not rated

    Playing: Landmark NuArt, West Los Angeles


    Don't Miss the Restored Martial-Arts Classic 'Dragon Inn'
    FRIDAY, MAY 6, 2016 AT 9:45 A.M. BY LUKE Y. THOMPSON


    Courtesy Janus Films

    Warning: There's a very real danger that after you watch the dazzling 4K restoration of this 1967 Taiwanese martial-arts classic, you'll never again be able to champion scratchy grindhouse prints with cheesy dubs. Popping with Technicolor-ish clarity, it feels like looking through a window back in time, albeit not necessarily to the Ming Dynasty era depicted. A small inn on the edge of the desert becomes a setting for conflict when secret police and imperial guards take residency, looking to assassinate some political prisoners who are en route. When rebels, defectors, and a mercenary also show up, excuses for onscreen fighting follow closely behind.

    The slow build of the action is deceptive, as at first the martial arts are all in the editing. A weapon will be thrown and we’ll instantly cut to its target, who has either already been impaled or caught the projectile in midair. Gradually, however, we get to flaming arrows, somersaults, leaps into trees, and the most bizarre cinematic take on asthma you'll ever see. Though it was remade in 3-D IMAX by Tsui Hark in 2011 as The Flying Swords of Dragon Gate, this original boasts a better special effect in star Shih Chun, whose offbeat handsomeness, goofy overbite, and ability to fire off castration jokes as easily as arrows steal the show. The restored dialogue may not transcend its origins recorded on obviously crappy microphones, but really, that only enhances the happy weirdness of it all. Like Charlton Heston and Yul Brynner in The Ten Commandments, this cast takes the project super seriously even at moments when you can't — and ******, they'll make you believe.

    FILM DETAILS
    Critics' Pick
    Dragon Inn (Long men kezhan)

    Rating:NR Genre:Action/Adventure Running Time:101 min. Showing Today In:2 Theaters

    Dragon Inn
    Written and directed by King Hu
    Janus Films
    Opens May 6, Film Society of Lincoln Center
    Looks like this is only showing in SF and Berkeley in my area. That's a little out of my reach for Mother's Day weekend.
    Gene Ching
    Publisher www.KungFuMagazine.com
    Author of Shaolin Trips
    Support our forum by getting your gear at MartialArtSmart

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