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Nice effects though.

hyped garbage

Great movie! If you want to be entertained and have a few good laughs, see this movie. The music is also very good,

Unshakable, witty and deeply felt, the film will be paying emotional dividends for a long, long time.

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 one of the most awfully and painfully boring movie I have ever watched. Let me explain, the story is rather interesting with many plots. The problem is the SCENES. OH MY GOD they are making every scene feel like an eternity. A simple and unimportant scene can be 5 MINUTES longer than needed. they are really dragging the audience' patience here. I slept through many parts of the movie simply because it is so dull.I have to say that the background music is very annoying too. By today's standard of course. maybe it wasn't at the time the movie was made but it only make sense to review it by today's standard because people live and watch movie in the present.If you enjoy those artistic movie where the scenery and slow pace are important too then I think this movie will be very enjoyable to you. Otherwise, avoid this movie like the plaque.

I will like to justify some comments on this classic film and also WARN those who are looking forward to watch it. If anyone expect this movie to be full of action, I suggest they stick to Hollywoood films. If they expect a lot of swordplay, go for the Shaw Brothers releases, there are plenty of them.Touch of Zen(Xia Nu) is a great piece of 3 hrs Chinese art like the Belle noiseuse,La, a 4 hrs French art, but not as long or as slow. I watched it 30 over years ago as a kid and found it boring(a box office flop then) but when I watched it on DVD recently, I really appreciate and enjoyed it. It's not like the usual Chinese sword-fighting movies, there are very few actions here, in fact, for the first half(Part 1) there is only 1 short action scene(I don't consider this a spoiler)at the climatic end, which I consider a classic. Here is where the recent "bamboo action scenes" from other movies got the idea. Bear in mind, there is no digital effect at that time. I think Cannes gave it a technical award due to that scene. Those who think that Crouching Tiger or Flying Daggers' bamboo scenes are better, they should take a second viewing and try to figure out how those scenes are shot. Those who enjoyed King Hu's or sword-fighting films should also watch Come Drink With Me, Dragon Inn Gate(the original), The Valiant Ones and The Fate of Lee Khan.(Too bad the latter 3 are not available in DVD yet) and those who appreciate Chinese art must watch his Raining in The Mountain and Legend in the Mountain. King Hu only directed around 15 movies in 30 years(probably the least for an Asian director of those times) and I recommend the above mentioned 7 to foreigners as I consider them as classics. I will give them a 8 or 9 for IMDb ratings.

I didn't think I could be so bored by a martial arts film. How disappointing; I was looking forward to finally seeing a film by the legendary director King Hu, but this may turn me off any other films of his. The story is a dull one about a fugitive girl, an expert in martial arts taught by some powerful monks, who moves into a small town hoping to escape her death sentence. Her father had spoken out against a local tyrant, and his whole family was sentenced to death. An artist neighbor of the girl falls for her, and gets mixed up in the dangers she faces. The martial arts sequences are few and far between in this 3 hours + film, and the ones that are there are mostly poor. The editing is so choppy that it's often impossible to tell what's going on. Worse yet, a good number of these sequences are at night, so you can't see anything. Only the two climactic battles (the film is split in two) are any good at all, and they are kind of similar, at that. The only commendable aspect of the film is its gorgeous color cinematography. It is truly exceptional, but nothing else about A Touch of Zen is. Think me a rube or what have you, but nothing but pseudo-profundity and a lack of technical knowledge.