Reseñas de la crítica

The model for every philosophizing wuxia flick that followed, King Hu's three-hour martial arts epic is visually splendid and thick with mystical overtones, sexual subtexts, Buddhist symbolism, and natural beauty. Notoriously, it doesn't feature a single fight until almost the hour mark and ends on a note of psychedelic transcendence.

The story is simple, but the treatment is complex. No Shaw film would have delayed the basic exposition so cunningly. And no Shaw film would have presented heroic swordplay through the eyes of a secondary character. Yet by building the plot around Gu, Hu creates a protagonist-as-witness.

A grand-scale wuxia film that finds poetry in cinematic movement and action through the prismatic lens of genre. Comparable to Sergio Leone's Once Upon a Time in the West for its playful tone and knowing deployment of archetypes, the film offers visually experimental battle sequences inside of a narrative mostly driven by chronological clarity and character development.

[Hu] used intricate long¬takes and slow tracking shots to establish a sense of space as well as the power relationships between his righteous heroes and their oppressors. A TOUCH OF ZEN builds its fight scenes on these stylistic moves, but its images also breathe with an almost avant¬garde, magical style—influenced by Hu's interest in Buddhism—that wouldn't really be further developed in the genre until Hou Hsiao Hsien's THE ASSASSIN decades later.

Curiously structured to merge supernatural suspense with political thrills and metaphysical action (notions of violence battling the principles of Zen Buddhism itself), this three-hour Taiwanese opus endures due to its astonishing visuals, sprightly movement, progressive gender dynamics, and spiritual heft.

Widely and rightly regarded as not only one of the finest martial arts films ever made, but one of the greatest works in of all Chinese cinema, King Hu's A Touch of Zen (Xia nü, 1971) is most often lauded for its extraordinary fight sequences... Hu launches A Touch of Zen above most of its genre, above even his own impressive output, amplifying the essentials of the martial arts film while infusing it with other cinematic ingredients.

...Upon realizing Yang has left, that laughter dies in his throat, triumph replaced with horror. Right there is an encapsulation of Hu's moral and spiritual vision; no more is this violence mere fun and games. From there, it's only a couple steps toward a renunciation of worldly matters altogether, envisioned by Hu as a climactic blinding speck of dust and a majestic vision of a monk achieving a neon-colored higher plane of existence, to which not even Gu can help but simply bow down in awe.

A three-hour Taiwanese epic that proves wuxia can incorporate a coherent plot, pulse-quickening fight scenes, exquisite landscapes and a spiritual dimension – and still be a lot of fun. A Touch of Zen (1970), in other words, is the complete package, one that should appeal not just to arthouse audiences but to lovers of martial-arts action.

In Taiwan, A Touch of Zen was originally released in two parts. When put together (as here), they are overextended and too long by half, with many a dull stretch before the famous wirework action sequences finally kick in – although perhaps this will not prove too much of a challenge for the modern viewer who is a fan of, say, 2015's The Hateful Eight (with its similarly protracted pace and duration).

While we can now see A Touch of Zen against a very necessary and relevant context, it is still possible to applaud its broader achievement and status as a masterpiece of world cinema.

Hu didn't invent wuxia hijinks here (he did that earlier with Come Drink with Me and Dragon Gate Inn), but the trampolining brio at work was the hi-test in the engine of the Hong Kong assault of the ‘80s and ‘90s, not to mention Crouching Tiger and its digitally-assisted bamboo-grove battle... It's not a breathless or economical film; the old-school yarn and serene action editing can be, at such length, almost meditative. Settle in, feel your breathing, and get saturated.

More than just a Touch: King Hu's camera tracks along with soldiers as they enter a haunted fort, and it's like Mizoguchi is alive and well and shooting kung-fu epics... Hu stages skirmishes for beauty and force, and for the synergy between the sumptuous physicality of the choreography and the grave spirituality of the landscape.