Sublime and sprawling, A TOUCH OF ZEN is perhaps the greatest in King Hu’s series of ground-breaking, metaphysical period dramas.

There are mild spoilers in here. That’s a warning.

Vaguely, A TOUCH OF ZEN is a martial arts film, and it’s greatest influence was on other HK martial arts films (and later international crossovers like CROUCHING TIGER, HERO and HOUSE OF FLYING DAGGERS). But I think it nearly approaches ‘martial arts cinema’ as Tarkovsky would have done it – the film is set up in three methodically paced, long sections (it’s a 3 hour film), which all feature a bit of action but devote more attention to character, landscape and narrative. The focus of each section falls upon different characters, with the central character in each section embodying different virtues: the humility and creativity of the artist (the focus of the first act), courage and confidence in the second act, and an assured enlightenment in the third: being, rather than seeming. The three acts are linked by tightly controlled and far more explosive bursts of action in an otherwise meditatively paced film.

Hu explores other elements as well – the first act, mostly devoted to the artist, eases viewers into a framework of intrigues that will shape the plot; this section of the film is very slow, but in hypnotic fashion, with an abundance of careful set detail and some rather astounding landscape photography. Here, palace intrigues and suggestions of the supernatural (A TOUCH OF ZEN is loosely adapted from a number of Pu Songling’s gently surreal stories, collected in “Strange Tales From A Chinese Studio”) drive the slowly coalescing plot. Intriguingly, the ghost story elements explored early in the film are sometimes satirized a bit later – this is another trait carried over from the source material – and it adds a discrete layer of obtuse irony and genre commentary to the overall proceedings. This seemingly contradictory quality also keeps the film from becoming too ponderous for its’ own good.

Gradually shifting into a second act, the focus moves to an imperial fugitive (Yang Huizhen) who is being tracked in the area. Here another of Hu’s advances surfaces – Hu had a knack for creating strong and complex female characters, and the fugitive seen here is one of the most memorable; definitely a touchstone for Ang Lee, among many others.

A TOUCH OF ZEN is divided with an intermission (on the various sub-par DVD editions – this is a Criterion-worthy film) into two halves, and this ‘second act’ is split by this division. A semi-famous, and much imitated, action sequence is to be found here.

During the third act, the focus shifts again, to a group of monks that make a brief but memorable appearance earlier, and – as the level of action gradually rises, so does the level of mysticality, with Hu’s complex and highly personal take on Buddhism recalling Andrei Tarkovsky’s similarly mystical and oblique Christianity.

Throughout, we have Hu’s sense of humor, a sort of greatly modified slapstick providing extra charm – the very playful sense of humor would seem to be a strange addition, but it somehow works, giving an otherwise slow, meditiative film a breezy sense of rhythm. Again, I would point out the influence of Pu Songling (perhaps upon Hu’s entire body of work); Songling’s work – a classic of Chinese literature, blends spiritualism, surrealism, unexpected humor, political intrigues, horror and hints of the erotic – and Hu is unafraid of blending these seemingly disparate qualities into a vast, and sublime, cinematic endeavor. It should be noted again: this is a beautifully shot and very well-directed film.

This is something every cinephile out there should see.