“I am afraid you, sir, are not the ‘duel to the death’ type.” — Yang Hui-ching to the Scholar Ku Shen-chai
Christmas Eve we watched A Touch of Zen, the 1969 wuxia classic. What a great movie!
It has a heroic swordswoman, cool shaolin monks, and wicked bureaucrats. The hero, Yang Hui-ching, is a ice maiden, but she is, after all, a legend. The Scholar Ku isn’t daft or absentminded, and his cleverness helps save Yang.
It’s a beautiful film to watch, and the fights are wonderful set pieces. Oh, but that ending. It’s so very 1960’s: a fight scene segues into a Stephenwolf/2001 head trip.
