A Touch of Zen (1971)

The book 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die is where I found out that this Taiwanese (Mandarin language) film even existed, obviously I wasn't going to miss the chance to see it and hopefully agree with the recommendation. Basically well-meaning, often clumsy and unambitious scholar and painter Ku Shen Chai (Chun Shih) lives with his mother in her house nearly a supposedly haunted abandoned fortress, and one day deciding to explore this fortress he finds it occupied. Yang Hui-Ching (Feng Hsu) is a female fugitive hiding out from a stranger in town wanting to take her to back to the East Chamber guards for execution, and he wants to help her with her plan to bring out the real villain in a plot. A corrupt Eunuch Wei is trying to get rid of Yang and the rest of her family, and through the process of helping and sleeping with her Ku is no longer bumbling and becomes stronger in will, but it may not necessarily come from himself, it may supernatural forces. A big battle ensues between the painter turned warrior and the East Chamber guards, and Yang goes missing, but Ku tracks her down to a monastery, where powerful saint Abbot Hui Yuan (Roy Chiao) is there, and she has given birth to Ku's child and become a nun. The evil Chief Commander Hsu Hsien-Chen (Han Ying-Chieh) tracks down the monastery and leads the army of Eunuch Wei into another battle, but the villain ends up defeated and killed, and in the end Yang was badly injured, and supposedly she dies as the sun rises and makes it look like she has a halo. Also starring Hsue Han as Dr. Lu Meng, Ying-Chieh Han as Hsu, Shui Wang as Mun Ta and Sammo Hung Kam-Bo as Commander Hsu's son, and apparently young Jackie Chan appears somewhere doing background extra and stunt work. As soon as I saw some of the chase and fight sequences I could tell that this was the inspiration for the eye-catching choreography and artistry of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and House of Flying Daggers, I will be honest and say that I got a little confused and lost in the story going on, and the three hour length is a little annoying, but for all the exciting bits it is a worthwhile martial arts action drama. Good!

This is truly a great film. It is unfortunate that the only DVD versions that are available are in pretty poor shape (though, I must add, not in as bad shape as the more recently filmed Ashes of Time by Wong Kar Wai).How the translation of Hsia Nu got to become A Touch of Zen, I'll never know - and it's too late to change it now as A Touch of Zen is how the film is known outside of China.This film really has it all. Some wonderful cinematography; a great story; marvelous special effects (using good camera work - without the use of computers); and, some good emotional content.

With all due respect to the HK Movie Association who puts this movie as #9 on the 100 best Chinese films of the last 100 year, I believe this movie is rather dated. As with "Lady Snowblood" (1973) which I put in my two cents recently, they might be at the vanguard of their respective genres at the time, but now, 30 odd years later, they haven't age well at all. This happens, I think, especially with genre movies where technology plays an important part. Dramas such as "Rebecca" (Hitchcock) or "Now, Voyager" (Bette Davis), which are still some of my all-time faves, fare much better because technology won't really make them better; they already have great direction, story, pacing, acting, etc.I also want to dispute a reviewer from UK who mentioned that this movie is much more Chinese than "Crouching Tiger" which is too westernized. I can't disagree with him more. Having actually read the wuxia novels that many of these movies are based on, I have to say "Crouching Tiger" beautifully captures the lyricism and essence of the wuxia world without any Western influence. But I digress.The pacing of this movie is really too slow. Fully an hour was devoted to people, chiefly of the male protagonist, walking around and around in that same little village. An HOUR of nothing much happening to propel the story! As a matter of fact, a large portion of the 3-hour movie time is eaten up by showing people walking from point A to point B which is totally pointless. The bamboo forest scene will remind many of a similar scene in "House of Flying Daggers" and is probably its inspiration. Alas, it was done much better in the newer movie, due to better choreography, wire works, and kinetic energy that "Zen" sadly lacks. Same argument for all the other set pieces. The ending is anticlimactic since there is no tension when one party is the living Buddha (or something like that). The use of negative film to denote some sort of divine intervention is jarring and a little laughable.During the opening credits, it indicates that this movie is based on a book which is written in the Manchu dynasty, probably in the late 18th or early 19th century. I don't know of a direct translation of the book but it is available in English with the title, "Chinese Ghost and Love Stories" by Pu Songling (I coin him the Chinese Edgar Allen Poe). It is one of the premiere books in Chinese literature. Not all his stories are about ghosts but all have a fantastical element and most have a moral to it. But the book are all short stories and none is long enough to be a novella; so stretching a short story to 3 hours entails lots and lots of padding; hence, all the walking. I haven't actually looked for the story that the movie is based on but I can say for sure that in old Chinese society and in Pu's stories as well, no woman who is from a respected family (as the female character is) would bed down with a practical stranger, EVER, unless she is a demon or a ghost, which does happen quite frequently in his stories and are almost always not a good thing. It probably had happened in real life when there was a strong attraction, but she was basically feeling pity for his mother and so decided to give her virginity to him. Yeah, I don't think so! The DVD quality from Tai Seng is abysmal which probably also contributes to my discontent. The transfer is horrid; pixilated (like in a VCD) in some scenes, looks like it's forever raining in dark scenes, some black spots permanently imprinted on the screen throughout the entire movie. The big fight scene that happens at the deserted house at night is so dark that is practically unwatchable. Moreover, the audio is muddy and barely audible even with volume turns to the loudest.The Chinese title is translated as Heroine but the official English title is a better description of the movie given the spiritual element in the movie.

A Touch of Zen (1969) has to be one of the best films ever made. I am one of those people who can never truly name a personnel favorite film. I feel that there isn't a film that you can say is the best ever. I still do but if I had to say five or ten, A Touch of Zen would have to be in the top five. I haven't felt this way about a movie since I saw The Seventh Seal. I love this movie. Everything from the beautiful photography down to the deepness of the picture. The acting is superb, the writing is top notch and the direction is flawless. The film has everything you could want in a movie; action, drama, and comedy. The soundtrack is haunting and the wire work is amazing. No wonder why so many movies have copied off of this film (notably Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and The Matrix Trilogy). Unlike those other films this movie will withstand the test of timeP.S.This movie is awesome. A magical experience caught on celluloid. A true treasure.