HK Cinema - 1969
In 1969 (hopefully – I have seen three different
dates for this film !) Hu brought together his love for Chinese literature,
wuxia (sword fighting), fantasy and the supernatural to make one of the
great classics of film. The over three-hour Touch of Zen was drawn from
an ancient story called Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio that is a collection
of ghost stories and fantasies collected in the Qing Dynasty.
This is unfortunately a very difficult film
to find on video. Recently, I saw a two-minute clip of this film that was
amazing. Starring Roy Chiao and Hsu Feng, it again paved the way
for many of these type of films that came out in the 1980’s.
