To Save and Project ’16: Legend of the Mountain

It was the biggest drum battle since Chick Webb faced off against Gene Krupa and the rest of the Goodman orchestra. When a demon and a Buddhist lama join engage in combat, their weapon of choice is the hand drum. The resulting percussion further disorients her profoundly confused newlywed scholar husband in King Hu’s freshly restored classic 1979 supernatural epic, Legend of the Mountain (trailer here), which screens during the 2016 edition of MoMA’s To Save and Project.

Ho Qingyun is an underachieving scholar who agrees to painstakingly copy a Buddhist sutra solely for the money. He did not believe in anything otherworldly before he accepted this gig, but that will soon change. While in transit from monastery to monastery he stops in a sparsely populated village that effectively became a demilitarized zone after an unfortunate uprising and an armistice that was even more embarrassing for the Imperial government.

Advisor Tsui is still on duty, but he is probably not a good influence on Ho. After a heavy night of drinking, the scholar wakes to find he has promised to marry Melody, whose drumming combined with the booze really did a number on poor Ho. However, since she is played Hsu Feng, the scholar is prepared to make good on his commitments. She also happens to be a demon, but he does not know that yet.

Shortly thereafter, Advisor Tsui takes Ho out for drinks at the local inn, where he meets the proprietor’s daughter, Cloud. She too makes a strong impression, but she also has her own supernatural secrets. Everyone does in the mountain village (practically and perhaps literally a ghost town), but nobody is telling Ho anything. Even the Buddhist lama who will challenge Melody’s powers of hypnotic percussion and his ally, the Taoist priest keep Ho in the dark.

Although Legend is a story of ghosts and demons (inspired by Pu Songling’s Stories from a Chinese Studio) rather than a rousing wuxia epic, all the King Hu hallmarks are present and accounted for. The restoration looks phenomenal, which allows viewers to soak in his stunning mountain vistas and dramatic wide-angle god’s eye perspectives. This is a big picture in every way, including the three-hour running time. Yet, Hu turns around a stages intimate scenes of comic farce worthy of Blake Edwards.

As usual, Hu repertory player Shih Chun is pitch-perfect, making Ho a guileless comic foil, but not a shticky caricature. Hsu Feng commands the screen as Melody, playing the demonic femme fatale to the hilt. It is also remarkable to watch the young and arresting Sylvia Chang making her mark as Cloud, especially knowing how she would shatter glass ceilings in the HK film industry as a director and screenwriter (for both her own vehicles and often for films reflecting male perspectives). This is a significant early role in an altogether remarkable career.

It seems self-evident in the post-Crouching Tiger era, but Hu was one of the first filmmakers who made snobby cineastes understand a film could be high art and also kick a lot of butt. You could think of Legend as the Chinese ghost story Washington Irving never wrote (it even starts with Ho dozing off in a mountain gazebo). Highly recommended for fans of HK/Taiwanese historical epics of any genre, Hu’s restored director’s cut of Legend of the Mountain screens again this Wednesday (11/9), as part of MoMA’s annual To Save and Project film restoration series.

King Hu’s A Touch of Zen

Never pick a fight with a Buddhist abbot on the brink of enlightenment, especially if he is played by Roy Chiao. That would necessarily mean you are the evil one, since his virtue is plain as the rays of righteousness emanating from him. Of course, Abbot Hui Yuan has largely forsaken worldly matters, but the agents of the evil Eunuch Wei are perversely determined to involve the master of masters. Wuxia spectacle reaches the highest levels of art and spirituality in King Hu’s masterpiece, A Touch of Zen (trailer here), which re-releases in its complete, 4K restored glory this Friday at Film Forum.

The story of Zen’s tempestuous, years-in-the-making production and initially hacked-up, Weinsteinized release is an epic in itself. It was not until a nearly complete cut won universal acclaim and the grand technical prize at the 1975 Cannes Film Festival that Hu’s producers realized they had something special on their hands. Years later, Zen’s influence would continue to be felt in films like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and House of Flying Dragons.

Yet, it all starts in an unassuming manner in a sleepy provincial village, where the unmarried scholar-artist Gu Shengzhai’s lack of ambition drives his mother to distraction. One day, a stranger in town agrees to sit for a portrait, apparently as a way to prime Gu for local information and possibly kill some time. When Gu starts to follow the mysterious Ouyang Nian, he soon detects the outsider’s interest in three recent arrivals in town: the new doctor, a maybe not so blind fortune teller, and Yang Hui-ching, the destitute beauty squatting with her mother in the ramshackle Jinglu Fort next door.

Although the marriage proposal suggested by Gu’s mother is rebuffed, he and Yang still become close. In fact, her rejection is mostly to protect the naïve scholar. She is the last of a once great family decimated by Wei’s agents in the Eastern Chamber. She has gone into hiding, with only the loyal Generals Shih and Lu for protection. However, Yang is perfectly capable of taking care of herself under ordinary circumstances. That was one of the benefits of her time living under Abbot Hui’s protection. Of course, Hui is no longer inclined to involve himself in such fleeting terrestrial concerns, but when the vicious Chief Commander Hsu Hsien-chen arrives to re-establish Wei’s authority, all bets are off.

Zen is the granddaddy of all modern Wuxia films and the starting point for any discussion of Buddhist-themed cinema. Structurally, it also has a distinctive flow, allowing characters to crest and fall in relatively importance, while still proceeding in a logical fashion from point A to B and on to C. There are also some massively cinematic martial arts sequences, co-choreographed by Hu regular Han Ying-chieh and Hua Hui-ying.

Along the way, Gu evolves from a rather callow coward into the strategist who masterminds their temporary victories of the Eastern Chamber. Shih Chun is well-suited to Gu’s arc, nicely playing him with relaxed silliness in the early going and cerebral intensity down the stretch. Feng Hsu shows the dazzling action chops and slow-burning presence that made her Hu’s go-to heroine throughout the 1970s. Han is also wonderfully devious as the wicked Commander Hsu. Fans should also keep on the lookout during his scenes for a younger, svelter Master Sammo Hung, appearing as one of the villain’s two sons. However, there is no question Roy Chiao takes command of the film and elevates it into the stratosphere with his performance as Abbot Hui. It takes serious gravitas to reach nirvana on-screen, but he and Hu pull it off right before our eyes.

Zen does not feel like a three-hour film, even though Hu often takes his time to deliberately set the scene and marvel at the surrounding natural vistas. As a result, we really get a sense of the place and the era in which these characters live (and die). Forty-five years after it was more-or-less completed, A Touch of Zen still ranks as one of the most beautiful action films ever made. Very highly recommended, it opens this Friday (4/22) at Film Forum.

King Hu at BAM: Raining in the Mountain

It is a temple, not an inn, but the principles are the same for King Hu. A motley cast of characters have duly assembled to hunt for a precious scroll and influence the succession at Three Treasures Temple. Worldly greed and ambition will clash on sacred ground in King Hu’s Raining in the Mountain, which screens during BAM Cinématek’s retrospective, All Hail the King: the Films of King Hu.

Esquire Wen is a man of means, who has faithfully supported the temple, but he is also a crooked operator, who would prefer to acquire the temple’s priceless Tripitaki scroll as cheaply and dishonestly as possible. To that end, he has retained the services of the notorious thief White Fox to masquerade as his concubine while she cases the joint. Conveniently, the Abbott has requested his presence to offer counsel while he chooses his successor.

However, Wen is not the only double-dealing guest. General Wang Chi is also staying at the temple for the same ostensive and covert reasons. His chief enforcer is the former brigand turned corrupt cop Chang Chen, who had railroaded the temple’s newest acolyte, Chiu Ming on bogus charges. At least the Abbott can trust the counsel of revered layman Wu Wai, who arrives with entourage of beautiful women, because he is already beyond such earthly concerns (but from a cinematic standpoint, it is quite considerate of him).

There is plenty of action in Mountain, but Hu saves most of the martial arts for the climax. Instead, he treats viewers to a feast of acrobatic sneaking around, which looks absolutely fantastic in and about the striking temple setting. It is a huge place, but White Fox and company duck in and out of every alcove and cranny. Hu served as his own art director on Mountain, crafting a wonderfully elegant, richly appointed widescreen-friendly period production.

Mountain is an absolute blast for wuxia fans, thanks to the half-roguish, half-heroic nature of Wen’s party. They are inclined to do the right thing and help Chiu Ming, provided nobody is watching and it will not interfere with their own plans. Nevertheless, there is still plenty of tragedy and irony in the mix, clearly informed by Buddhist religious traditions.

Hu regular Hsu Feng dazzles as White Fox, another woman of great action. Yet, for sheer mischievous glee, it is hard to match Suen Yuet as Wan, the scheming anti-hero. In contrast, Tung Lam’s salt-of-the-earth Chiu Ming has an acutely earnest and forgiving presence, who delivers the film’s Buddhist teachings with credibility.

This is a great film, partly because there are so many contradictory facets to its personality that nonetheless fit together perfectly. It is briskly paced, but increasingly deep and meaningful. Very highly recommended, Raining in the Mountain is a terrific way to conclude All Hail the King when it screens this Tuesday (6/17) at BAM.