'무협영화의 대부' 호금전(King Hu)의 '영춘각의 풍파' '협녀' '충렬도' 에서 허우 시아오셴의 '자객 섭은낭'까지 

 

10TH OLD SCHOOL KUNG FU FEST: SWORDFIGHTING HEROES EDITION

 

Beginning April 21

Metrograph In Theater and At Home

 

Subway Cinema's Celebrated Event Comes to Metrograph With New York's Largest Retrospective of  Taiwanese Wuxia Cinema, Featuring 12 Hard-To-See & Rousing Action Films

 

Presented by Metrograph and Subway Cinema, in association with Taipei Cultural Center in New York, Ministry of Culture, Republic of China (Taiwan)

 

“The Old School Kung Fu Fest is back, and this time we’re flying through the air and chopping down fools with the biggest retrospective of Taiwanese wuxia (swordfighting heroes) movies ever seen in New York City. This is where it all began, and we’ve decided to go big or go home! We’re showing everything from the US premiere of The King of Wuxia, an epic documentary about King Hu, the maestro who made it art, to an all-marionette wuxia movie, three rare Polly Shang-kuan stabbers, and even the Hou Hsiao-hsien-directed modern-day deconstruction of the genre, The Assassin. And don’t miss our screening of King Hu’s monumental A Touch of Zen, and the restoration of Joseph Kuo’s bleak masterpiece, The Swordsman of All Swordsmen. By the time this thing is over, there won’t be anyone left standing.”—Subway Cinema

 

Program notes written by Subway Cinema.

 

10th Old School Kung Fu Fest: Swordfighting Heroes Edition runs from April 21 to 30 In Theater, with select encore screenings to follow.

 

Titles include The Assassin, A City Called Dragon, The Fate of Lee Khan, The Ghost Hill, The Grand Passion, The King of Wuxia, The Legend of the Sacred Stone, Night Orchid, The Swordsman of All Swordsmen, A Touch of Zen, The Valiant Ones, and Vengeance of the Phoenix Sisters.

 

Titles playing online at Metrograph At Home include The Bravest Revenge, The Daring Gang of Nineteen from Verdun City, and Iron Mistress. 

 

Presented by Metrograph and Subway Cinema, in association with Taipei Cultural Center in New York, Ministry of Culture, Republic of China (Taiwan).

 

 

자객 섭은낭 刺客聶隱娘, THE ASSASSIN

dir. Hou Hsiao-hsien, 2015, 105 min, DCP 

 

Hou, Taiwan’s great arthouse director and master of the long take, decided that he wanted to make his very own wuxia movie to pay tribute to the ones that he saw growing up in Taiwan. Hong Kong industry veteran Shu Qi plays a veteran assassin towards the end of the Tang Dynasty, who has been trained from birth to kill for her masters. Now a sense of justice and mercy is beginning to compromise her kill count, making her wonder if there are people more deserving of justice and mercy than the rich people who order her around. Made with meticulous attention to detail in its combat, clothes, and furniture, The Assassin stands as a labor of love, a wuxia film deeply respectful of the conventions of the genre even as it deconstructs them.

 

A CITY CALLED DRAGON

dir. Tu Chung-hsun, 1970, 97 min, DCP

 

After Hsu Feng debuted in a small part in King Hu’s Dragon Inn, Hu tapped her almost immediately to star in A Touch of Zen alongside Shih Chun. But as the production of Hu’s film seemed to drag on forever, so during the downtime Hsu, Shih, and most of the cast and crew teamed up with Hu’s assistant director, Larry Tu Chong-hsun, to make A City Called Dragon. Here, Hsu plays a rebel seeking battle plans that will help overthrow the Northern Manchus. Her contact gets beheaded by the Governor (Shih) who then locks down the city, leaving Hsu with three missions: find those plans, take righteous revenge, and don’t get murdered, an especially hard task considering that Dragon City is crawling with spies and assassins hunting her down.

 

영춘각의 풍파 迎春閣之風派 THE FATE OF LEE KHAN

dir. 호금전 King Hu, 1973, 105 min, DCP

 

Hu Chin, Helen Ma, Angela Mao, Hsu Feng, and Li Li-hua—five actresses throwing flying fists. The first half sees rebels, spies, and government officials in disguise descend on a remote inn looking for a pivotal McGuffin (a battle map). The second half sees all hell break loose as identities are revealed, loyalties betrayed, and all the furniture gets bashed, crashed, and thoroughly smashed. This is also the movie where King Hu met Sammo Hung, who oversaw the action choreography in this movie (and its follow-up The Valiant Ones). Sammo’s approach challenges and elevates Hu’s vision, making the action rougher, rowdier, and harder-hitting than the elegant ballet of previous Hu films.

 

THE GHOST HILL

dir. Ting Shan-hsi, 1971, 92 min, DCP

 

The final installment in The Swordsman of All Swordsmen trilogy, no familiarity with the two earlier movies is required to have a blast. Polly Shang-kuan reprises her Flying Swallow character alongside Tien Peng’s Tsai Ying-jie; this time, they decide to storm Hell itself in revenge for the death of Flying Swallow’s dad. Lord Chin, the Ruler of Hell, is guarded by the Left & Right Judges, the Ox Head Demon, the Black & White Wuchangs, the Murdering Wonder Child, and Soul Hunter Yaksha. Fortunately, Flying Swallow and Tsai have a just cause, as they chop necks under multicolored disco lights, and the images fly fast and furious in this delirious, blood-soaked fantasia.

 

THE GRAND PASSION

dir. Yang Shih-ching, 1970, 85 min, DCP

 

Like A City Called Dragon, The Grand Passion was made during the downtime of King Hu’s A Touch of Zen, a massive, much delayed production, when Hu’s production manager Yang Shih-ching picked up a camera and tapped Hu’s other major female discovery, Polly Shang-kuan, to headline. Yang’s film is a showcase for what Shang-kuan can do, setting her on her path to become one of Taiwan’s biggest action stars. Shang-kuan and Pai Ying are siblings who are part of a secret spy network. Standing in their way is the government’s torture-loving General Zheng Yun. An intense drama with gorgeous production design and a sense of realism that grounds the action and makes the twists feel real.

 

THE KING OF WUXIA

dir. Lin Jing-jie, 2022, 216 min, DCP

 

Like A City Called Dragon, The Grand Passion was made during the downtime of King Hu’s A Touch of Zen, a massive, much delayed production, when Hu’s production manager Yang Shih-ching picked up a camera and tapped Hu’s other major female discovery, Polly Shang-kuan, to headline. Yang’s film is a showcase for what Shang-kuan can do, setting her on her path to become one of Taiwan’s biggest action stars. Shang-kuan and Pai Ying are siblings who are part of a secret spy network. Standing in their way is the government’s torture-loving General Zheng Yun. An intense drama with gorgeous production design and a sense of realism that grounds the action and makes the twists feel real. US Premiere.

 

THE LEGEND OF THE SACRED STONE

dir. Chris Huang, 2000, 90 min, DCP

 

In 1984, the wuxia series Pili debuted in Taiwan, and soon became one of the most popular TV shows of the ’80s. In 2000, the series spun off into The Legend of the Sacred Stone, a feature film rarely available to watch overseas in its full, original version, which follows an evil martial arts master who sets out to destroy the world, and the army of heroes who assemble to stop him. Most impressively, the story is told entirely with hand puppets, based on the centuries old po-te-hi style of puppet-based storytelling famous in China and brought to Taiwan by the Huang family. Director Huang is a fourth generation puppeteer, who shot the film on a 36,000 square foot soundstage, with energetic, lo-fi CGI deployed at breakneck speed on a vast set, and with Huang’s relative, Vincent Huang, doing all the voices. International Premiere of the Digital Restoration.

 

NIGHT ORCHID

dir. Chris Huang, 2000, 90 min, DCP

 

A star-studded hothouse flower, based on a zeitgeist-changing hit TV series, written by the great wuxia novelist Gu Long himself, with Brigitte Lin, one of Taiwan’s biggest actresses who was soon to find fame in Hong Kong movies, starring alongside Adam Cheng, a major Hong Kong pop star and actor. Cheng’s Chu Liu-xiang is a hard-drinking, fun-loving Robin Hood who refuses to kill his enemies and has a knack for the ladies. Night Orchid moves a mile a minute, as characters come and go with alarming frequency, the whole thing culminating in a booby-trapped temple of wildly outlandish doom. US Premiere of the 2K Remaster.

 

 

THE SWORDSMAN OF ALL SWORDSMEN

dir. Joseph Kuo, 1968, 86 min, DCP

 

Before Taiwan’s Joseph Kuo dominated the ’70s kung fu movie, he made sword-slinging wuxia, and they’re some of the best in the genre. Newly digitally restored, The Swordsman of All Swordsmen—the centerpiece of this retrospective—begins with Tsai Ying-jie (Tien Peng) setting out to kill the martial arts masters who murdered his parents. After 20 years preparing for this moment, he’s understandably bummed when things go awry almost immediately, and he winds up owing his life to Black Dragon (Chiang Nan) and Flying Swallow (Polly Shang-kuan), whose father orchestrated the murder of his parents. Bloody, brutal, and full of thorny moral conundrums, which can only be solved with killer chopsticks and razor-blade-lined hats. US Premiere of the Digital Restoration.

 

협녀 俠女 A TOUCH OF ZEN

dir. 호금전 King Hu, 1971, 180 min, DCP

 

Often considered one of the greatest Chinese movies ever made, A Touch of Zen was butchered on release, died at the box office, and effectively killed Hu’s career, until three years later when the ecstatic three-hour cut played at the Cannes Film Festival, where it received the Technical Grand Prize. A scholar (Shih Chun), living next door to a haunted house, falls for a warrior that he first mistakes for a ghost (Hsu Feng). By the time he learns that she’s a fugitive on the run, he’s caught in her grip, and so is the audience, as this movie delivers martial arts transcendence, Zen Buddhism, and bamboo forest fights, a scene that Hu spent 25 days shooting that takes up 10 minutes of screentime. A Touch of Zen made Hsu Feng’s ferocious swordswoman a major star, and displayed that, for Hu, making movies was a way of life.

 

충렬도 忠烈道 THE VALIANT ONES

dir. King Hu, 1975, 102 min, DCP 4K

 

As Corrupt Ming officials have taken bribes and allowed a band of Japanese pirates to terrorize the South China coast, the government dispatches a small band of fighters, anchored by a husband-and-wife team, to take care of them. Outnumbered, they must rely on guile, cunning, and strategy to take down their opponents. What follows is almost non-stop action courtesy of fight choreographer Sammo Hung and director Hu, who, on their second collaboration, deliver some of their greatest set pieces, including a chess battle that has to be seen to be believed. Hu edits to Sammo’s strengths, delivering a movie that feels like the future of Hong Kong moviemaking: hard-hitting, fast-moving, and out of this world.

 

VENGEANCE OF THE PHOENIX SISTERS

dir. Chen Hung-min, 1968, 88 min, DCP

 

A black-and-white tornado that feels like the French New Wave doing wuxia, the opening half hour of editor-cum-director Chen Hung-min’s debut feature will leave you gasping for breath. With muscular handheld camerawork, savage swish pans, kinetic editing, and a score that feels like Ennio Morricone and Bernard Herrman weaving a tapestry of Chinese opera music. Stars of Chinese opera and the silver screen Yang Li-hua, Liu Ching, and Chin Mei play the titular Phoenix Sisters, separated as children in a brutal massacre. Fifteen years later, they cross paths again: oldest sister, Xiufeng (Yang), now an accomplished swordswoman who lives disguised as a man; middle sister, Qingfeng (Liu), doling out justice wearing a mask; and spunky youngest sister, Zhifeng (Chin). The siblings reunite, reminding audiences that the greatest wuxia family value is revenge. New York Premiere of the Digital Restoration.

https://metrograph.com/category/oldschool-kungfufest

 

*무협영화의 아버지 호금전 회고전 'All Hail the King'@BAM, 2014

*호금전(King Fu) 걸작 '공산영우'(1975) 해인사, 불국사, 종묘 촬영