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A Touch of Zen

Taiwan 1969
produced by
Sha Jung-Feng, Yang Shiquing for Union Film
directed by King Hu
starring Hsu Feng, Shih Jun, Pai Ying, Chang Ping-Yu, Roy Chiao Hung, Hsueh Han, Tien Peng, Wang Jui
screenplay by King Hu, based on the novel The Magnanimous Girls by Pu Sung-ling, martial arts choreography by Han Ying-Chieh, music by Wu Ta-Chiang, Tai Kong Ng

review by
Mike Haberfelner

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Ku (Shih Jun) is just a simple portrait painter, but when he rather by accident saves the life of general Shih (Pai Ying), who is disguised as a blind fortuneteller, he getsw dragged into a fight between the Eastern Group & a handful of renegade officials who happen to have offended eunuch Wei. Ku soon decides to side with the renegades since he has fallen in love with Miss Yang (Hsu Feng) & had sex with her before she tells him about how her father offended the eunuch & was tortuered to death for it, & how she could only flee with the help of general Shih & general Lu (Hsueh Han), who now poses as the town's doctor, as well as some Shaolin monks who taught her martial arts. Impressed by her story, Ku soon devices a way of how to defend themselves against about 200 soldiers of the Easten group. He has the soldiers head for the fort where he actually lives but has the rumour spread that the place is haunted (which proves to be easy since everybody more or less believes that anyways), & has some of their guerilla attacks look like they have been done by ghosts. At the final confrontation he stages a horrorshow as to frighten the soldiers, break their morale & make them easy prey for his associates, whose array of weapons does include, besides swords & bow & arrow, also catapults & arrow-shooting devices. Victory is finally theirs, but at what cost - general Lu had to give his life, the whole place is covered by corpses, both general Shih & Miss Yang enter the monastery & Ku, troubled by the amount of death he has caused, is left behind. When he finally tries to catch up with his love, he does not find her but the son they procreated ... But the danger of the eunuch is all but over, since he has already sent new troops to kill Miss Yang & general Shih in a bamboo-forest ... & this time, their leader proves so strong that even the head abbot (Roy Chiao Hung) of the monastery has difficulties defeating him & is almost killed himself by his opponent's trickery. In the end though, that man kills both his surviving soldiers in a frenzy & finally himself. The abbot, Miss Yang & general Shih survive, if only just.

 

On a visual & directorial level, this movie is a masterpiece, keeping a fine balance, between atmospheric, creepy, even poetic shots & well choreographed, highly inventive martial arts, much of it unparalleled to this day, as well as immensely often cited (e.g. the fight in the bamboo-forest is by now a mainstay of martial arts movies). Unfortunately, on a story level, A Touch of Zen does not quite live up to the expectations - simply put, it just has too much story & is (not only therefore) too long: The set-up at the beginning is just dragged out a little too long without actually saying all that much, & everything that follows the fight at the haunted castle does not live up to that fight in pure excitement & inventiveness, & is furthermore only loosely connected to the story that led to that fight.

 

review © by Mike Haberfelner

 

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Thanks for watching !!!

 

 

In times of uncertainty of a possible zombie outbreak, a woman has to decide between two men - only one of them's one of the undead.

 

There's No Such Thing as Zombies
starring
Luana Ribeira, Rudy Barrow and Rami Hilmi
special appearances by
Debra Lamb and Lynn Lowry

 

directed by
Eddie Bammeke

written by
Michael Haberfelner

produced by
Michael Haberfelner, Luana Ribeira and Eddie Bammeke

 

now streaming at

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Robots and rats,
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Tales to Chill
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Tales to Chill
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