''A Touch of Zen'' (Chinese: 俠女) is a 1971 ''

wuxia ( ), which literally means "martial heroes", is a genre of Chinese fiction concerning the adventures of martial artists in ancient China. Although is traditionally a form of historical fiction, its popularity has caused it to be adapted f ...

'' film co-edited, written, and directed by film maker

King Hu Hu Jinquan (29 April 1932 – 14 January 1997), better known as King Hu, was a Chinese film director and actor based in Hong Kong and Taiwan. He is best known for directing various ''wuxia'' films in the 1960s and 1970s, which brought Hong Kong ...

. Its screenplay is based on a classic Chinese story " Xianü" in the book ''

Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio ''Liaozhai zhiyi'', sometimes shortened to ''Liaozhai'', known in English as ''Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio'' or ''Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio'', is a collection of Classical Chinese stories by Qing dynasty writer Pu Songling, ...

'' by

Pu Songling Pu Songling (, 5 June 1640 – 25 February 1715) was a Chinese writer during the Qing dynasty, best known as the author of '' Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio'' (''Liaozhai zhiyi''). Biography Pu was born into a poor merchant family from Z ...

. The film is set in the

Ming dynasty The Ming dynasty (), officially the Great Ming, was an Dynasties in Chinese history, imperial dynasty of China, ruling from 1368 to 1644 following the collapse of the Mongol Empire, Mongol-led Yuan dynasty. The Ming dynasty was the last ort ...

under the dominance of

eunuch A eunuch ( ) is a male who has been castrated. Throughout history, castration often served a specific social function. The earliest records for intentional castration to produce eunuchs are from the Sumerian city of Lagash in the 2nd millennium ...

s and narrates multiple themes of transcendence of

dichotomies A dichotomy is a partition of a whole (or a set) into two parts (subsets). In other words, this couple of parts must be * jointly exhaustive: everything must belong to one part or the other, and * mutually exclusive: nothing can belong simulta ...

Zen Buddhism Zen ( zh, t=禪, p=Chán; ja, text= 禅, translit=zen; ko, text=선, translit=Seon; vi, text=Thiền) is a school of Mahayana Buddhism that originated in China during the Tang dynasty, known as the Chan School (''Chánzong'' 禪宗), and ...

, feminism, conservative female roles, and the ghost story. At the

1975 Cannes Film Festival The 28th Cannes Film Festival was held from 9 to 23 May 1975. The Palme d'Or went to the '' Chronique des Années de Braise'' by Mohammed Lakhdar-Hamina. In 1975, a new section, "Les Yeux fertiles", which was non-competitive, was introduced. This ...

, the film won the Technical Grand Prize award. The film was produced in Taiwan and funded by the Union Film Company. Because the director Hu was a filmmaker in the

Shaw Brothers Studio Shaw Brothers (HK) Ltd. () was the largest film production company in Hong Kong, and operated from 1925 to 2011. In 1925, three Shaw brothers— Runje, Runme, and Runde—founded Tianyi Film Company (also called "Unique") in Shangh ...

before moving to Taiwan, the emergence of the film established the international visibility of the

Hong Kong New Wave The Hong Kong New Wave is a film movement in Chinese-language Hong Kong cinema that emerged in the late 1970s and lasted into the early 2000s. Origins of the movement The Hong Kong New Wave started in 1979 with the release of numerous notable fil ...

. Although filming began in 1968, ''A Touch of Zen'' was not completed until 1971. The original Taiwanese release was in two parts in 1970 and 1971 (filming was still ongoing when the first part was released) with the bamboo forest sequence that concludes Part 1 reprised at the beginning of Part 2; this version has a combined run time of 200 minutes. In November 1971, both parts of the film were combined into one for the Hong Kong market with a run time of 187 minutes.

Plot

Set in a remote mountain village in

Ming China The Ming dynasty (), officially the Great Ming, was an imperial dynasty of China, ruling from 1368 to 1644 following the collapse of the Mongol-led Yuan dynasty. The Ming dynasty was the last orthodox dynasty of China ruled by the Han peop ...

, the 14th century CE, the story is largely seen through the eyes of Gu, a well-meaning but unambitious scholar and painter, with a tendency towards being clumsy and ineffectual. A stranger arrives in town and requests his portrait painted by Gu, but his real objective is to bring a female fugitive back to the city for execution on behalf of the East Chamber guards. The fugitive, Yang, is befriended by Gu, and together they plot against the corrupt Eunuch Wei who wants to eradicate all trace of her family after her father attempts to warn the Emperor of the eunuch's corruption. His daughter fled, and the saintly and powerful Abbot Hui Yuan intervened to protect them. The stranger, Yang and her friends are all superior warriors. The stranger has a special flexible sword that bends and that he can wear within his belt, making him seem unarmed. One of the unique aspects of the film is that Gu is a non-combatant all the way through the film and only becomes involved when he sleeps with Yang. Upon doing so, he is no longer the naïve bumbling innocent, but instead becomes confident and assertive, and when Yang's plight is revealed, he insists on being part of it – and even comes up with a fiendish "Ghost Trap" for the East Chamber guards. This is a plan to use a supposedly haunted site to play tricks on the guards to make them believe they are prey to the undead. In the aftermath, Gu walks through the carnage laughing at the ingenuity of his plan until the true cost of human life dawns upon him. He sees Abbot Hui and his followers arrive to help bury the dead. After the battle, Gu is unable to find Yang, who he is told has left him and does not want him to follow her. He tracks her down at the monastery of Abbot Hui, where she has given birth to a child by Gu and become a nun. She tells Gu that their destiny together has ended and gives Gu their child. Later, when Gu and the child are tracked down by Hsu Hsien-Chen, the evil commander of Eunuch Wei's army, Yang and General Shi come to Gu's rescue. Abbot Hui and four of his monks also arrive to fight Hsu. After Hsu fakes repentance in order to surprise attack Abbot Hui, a battle begins in which Hsu is killed and Yang, Shi, and Abbot Hui are all badly injured (the latter bleeding golden blood). The film famously ends with the injured Yang staggering toward a silhouetted figure, presumably Abbot Hui, seen meditating with the setting sun forming a halo around his head, an image suggesting the Buddha and enlightenment.

Cast

Hsu Feng Hsu Feng (born 17 December 1950) is a Taiwanese-born actress and film producer. In the 1970s she was one of the leading actresses of the cinemas of Hong Kong and Taiwan, particularly known for her roles in wuxia films and her work with directo ...

as Yang Hui-zhen (), the main protagonist, a female knight-errant. *Shih Chun () as Gu Sheng-tsai (), a scholar and painter who later involves in ''Jianghu''. *Bai Ying () as General Shi Wen-qiao () who assists Yang to escape when disguising as a blind person *Xue Han () as General Lu Ding-an () who protests Yang when disguising as a doctor of

Traditional Chinese medicine Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) is an alternative medical practice drawn from traditional medicine in China. It has been described as "fraught with pseudoscience", with the majority of its treatments having no logical mechanism of action ...

Roy Chiao Roy Chiao (16 March 1927 – 15 April 1999) was a Hong Kong actor, most notable in the United States for playing the minor villain Lao Che in the 1984 movie ''Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom''. Biography Chiao was born in Shanghai in 1927. ...

as Abbot Hui-yuan (), the Chan monk *

Tien Peng Tien Peng (born 1945) is a Chinese actor and director who has been active in Taiwan cinema and Hong Kong cinema. His name also appears as Tin Peng. Filmography Filmography as actor, unless otherwise noted. * '' The Desperate Prodigal'' (1985). ...

() as Ouyang Nian () who works for the

Eastern Depot Eastern Depot or Eastern Bureau () was a Ming dynasty spy and secret police agency run by eunuchs. It was created by the Yongle Emperor. History After the Yongle Emperor usurped the throne in 1402 from his nephew, the Jianwen Emperor, he attempte ...

*Cao Jian () as Xu Zheng-qing (), local magistrate *Zhang Bing-yu as Sheng-tsai's mother * Wang Rui as Men Da or Mun Ta () *

Miao Tien Miao Tien (, 6 December 1925 – 19 February 2005) was a Chinese film actor mostly active in Hong Kong and Taiwan.Lee, Daw-ming (2012). Historical Dictionary of Taiwan Cinema'. Scarecrow Press. pp. 281–282. Biography Miao graduated at the Teach ...

as Nie Qiu (), one of Mun Ta's advisors * Han Ying-chieh as Chief Commander Xu Xian-chun *Wan Zhong-shan () as Lu Qiang () *Liu Chu as one of the Magistrate's men *Gao Ming as one of the Magistrate's men *Lu Zhi as Mun Ta's guard *Jia Lushi as Yang Lian, the protagonist Yang's father *Cheung Wen-men as Tao Lung *

Jackie Chen Sao Lung Jackie or Jacky may refer to: People and fictional characters * Jackie (given name), a list of people and fictional characters named Jackie or Jacky ** Jackie, current ring name of female professional wrestler Jacqueline Moore ** Jackie Lee ( ...

(''uncredited stuntman'' not to be confused with Jackie Chan) *Long Fei as a guard *

Sammo Hung Sammo Hung Kam-bo ( zh, t=洪金寶, j=Hung4 Gam1-bou2; born 7 January 1952) is a Hong Kong actor, martial artist, film producer and Film director, director, known for his work in martial arts films, Hong Kong action cinema, and as a fight choreog ...

as guard/soldier

Production

Development

''A Touch of Zen'' was shot in Taiwan by

and was funded by Taiwanese production company Union Film Company. In his book on the film, Stephen Teo suggested that the film has roots in

Hong Kong cinema The cinema of Hong Kong ( zh, t=香港電影) is one of the three major threads in the history of Chinese language cinema, alongside the cinema of China and the cinema of Taiwan. As a former British colony, Hong Kong had a greater degree of po ...

, noting the bulk of both Taiwanese and Hong Kong actors and crew members. With Hu's idea of invoking traditional Chinese culture in his films, ''A Touch of Zen'' contains Beijing opera scores and references to Chinese poetry like Li Bai's well-known poem "Drinking Alone in the Moonlight". The bamboo forest sword fight, a ten-minute confrontation, is said to have taken twenty-five days to shoot. It is choreographed by Han Yingjie, a former Beijing opera actor and the action director of ''A Touch of Zen''. Hu explained proudly of the trial and error he went through in the creative process and concluded that he had put together many scenes in less than eight frames challenging the “golden rule” of cinema.

Adaptation

Hu based the screenplay of ''A Touch of Zen'' on the ghost story of '' Xia Nü'' in ''Liaozhai Zhiyi'', an anthology by

. He arranged the credit of ''Liaozhai Zhiyi'' as the first title card right after the company logo in the film, even before the film title. In

’s original story, the male scholar does not pursue being a knight-errant and the separation between wen and wu. However, the film modifies the character’s attributes and instead leads the scholar to adapt knight-errant and restore the country from the corrupted dominance of the

Cinematography

Director Hu adopted the classic techniques of montages, including eye-line matches and shot-reverse-shot. He also used

jump cuts A jump cut is a cut in film editing in which a single continuous sequential shot of a subject is broken into two parts, with a piece of footage being removed in order to render the effect of jumping forward in time. Camera positions of the subjec ...

to create the speed of motions in action effects and applied

blocked shots In basketball, a block or blocked shot occurs when a defensive player legally deflects a field goal attempt from an offensive player to prevent a score. The defender is not allowed to make contact with the offensive player's hand (unless the de ...

as his signature on evacuating the space before actions take place. Hu also creates "the glimpsing effect" (also called point-of-view shot) to provide a new perspective to audiences. "The glimpsing effect" allows the audience to see the perspective of Gu.

Themes

Transcendence of dichotomies

The function of knight-errantry alludes to civic values (wen) and martial conducts (wu) in the discourse, arising reflections of experiences and justice beyond

between wen and wu, good and evil. The director Hu develops an individual perspective of what nation is and transcends the limited dialectics of a totalitarian regime versus a more benevolent government.

Zen Buddhism

The theme of Buddhism is in opposition to

Confucianism Confucianism, also known as Ruism or Ru classicism, is a system of thought and behavior originating in ancient China. Variously described as tradition, a philosophy, a religion, a humanistic or rationalistic religion, a way of governing, or ...

and offers the ideas of transcendence and redemption. Scholar James Steinstrage considers that the unambitious scholar Gu's involvement in Jianghu and the unexplained motivation of Yang Huizhen's sexual intercourse with Gu lead to absurdity and vacuity, which matches the concept of

emptiness Emptiness as a human condition is a sense of generalized boredom, social alienation and apathy. Feelings of emptiness often accompany dysthymia, depression (mood), depression, loneliness, anhedonia, wiktionary:despair, despair, or other mental/em ...

. Paradoxically, the Zen ideologies are not profound in the film and the translated film title ''A Touch of Zen'' can be a marketing strategy to attract Western audiences and recall exoticism.

Feminism and conservative womanhood

The film presents ''Xia Nü'' Yang in the paradoxical image of female roles. She delivers a son to continue Gu's family line as a traditional mother and help fulfill Gu's

filial piety In Confucianism, Chinese Buddhism, and Daoist ethics, filial piety (, ''xiào'') (Latin: pietas) is a virtue of respect for one's parents, elders, and ancestors. The Confucian ''Classic of Filial Piety'', thought to be written around the late W ...

, revealing the dominance of

patriarchy Patriarchy is a social system in which positions of dominance and privilege are primarily held by men. It is used, both as a technical anthropological term for families or clans controlled by the father or eldest male or group of males a ...

in society. From a feminist perspective, she also has the initiative to end her relationship with Gu and reject the feudalistic values of women's obligation to men.

The ghost story

Based on the fact that Director Hu's interests in a Chinese genre ''shengguai'' (which means gods and spirits), the haunted house as the setting and death traps ''jiguang'' suggest Gu's encounters and ally with the supernatural ghosts. The film adopts the motifs of "Liaozhai gothic", including the goldenrod and alarm system that alerts the unexpected visitors in the haunted house.

Scholarship and beauty

The film depicts the romantic relationships between a scholar, Gu, and a pretty female knight-errant, Yang, referring to the classic theme of scholar and beauty '' Caizijiaren'' in Chinese literature.

Reception

Box office

''A Touch of Zen'' failed at the box-office when it was released in two instalments in Taiwan in 1970 and 1971. The film only ran one week in the cinema and failed because of its themes of ambiguous sexuality and feminist sensibility. In 1971, the film again failed to receive recognition with its release in Hong Kong due to the overwhelming success of Bruce Lee's movie ''The Big Boss''. The film grossed HK$678,320.9 in Hong Kong. It was not until the full three-hour version was revived for a screening at the 1975 Cannes Film Festival that ''A Touch of Zen'' gained wide attention.

Review and criticism

Gina Marchetti considers that the genre of the film as wuxia is a new emergence in the

and writes, "although produced in Taiwan after Hu had left Hong Kong, the international accolades for this film brought the “new” cinema of Hong Kong much greater visibility, while providing an art house alternative to the enormous international popularity of Bruce Lee" For

the Criterion Collection The Criterion Collection, Inc. (or simply Criterion) is an American home-video distribution company that focuses on licensing, restoring and distributing "important classic and contemporary films." Criterion serves film and media scholars, cinep ...

author David Bordwell wrote, "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." Writing for the ''

Journal of Cinema and Media Studies The ''Journal of Cinema and Media Studies'' (formerly ''Cinema Journal'' and ''The Journal of the Society of Cinematologists'') is the official academic journal of the Society for Cinema and Media Studies (formerly the Society for Cinema Studies). ...

'', academic Héctor Rodríguez noted of the film, "In that film...the director's use of elliptical cuts, diegetic insert shots, and other strategies of visual fragmentation allows characters to float magically through the air across long distances, to reach impossibly high altitudes in a single superhuman leap, and to change direction miraculously in midair." In his book, ''King Hu's A Touch of Zen,'' academic Stephen Teo wrote that, "this final reduction of the mythical female knight-errant figure into human status is meant to provoke us into a philosophical understanding of ourselves. The subject of Buddhist transcendence is Hu’s way of delivering the ultimate critique of the genre’s raison d’être which is the audience’s wish-fulfilment for heroes to save them from their own vulnerability."

Accolades

The film was awarded the Technical Grand Prize and nominated for the

Palme d'Or The Palme d'Or (; en, Golden Palm) is the highest prize awarded at the Cannes Film Festival. It was introduced in 1955 by the festival's organizing committee. Previously, from 1939 to 1954, the festival's highest prize was the Grand Prix du Fe ...

at the

. It became the second Chinese-language film to win an award at the Cannes Film Festival and the first ''

'' film to win at an international film festival. At the 24th

Hong Kong Film Awards The Hong Kong Film Awards (HKFA; ), founded in 1982, is an annual film awards ceremony in Hong Kong. The ceremonies are typically in April. The awards recognise achievement in various aspects of filmmaking, such as directing, screenwriting, ac ...

various Asian film critics, filmmakers and actors voted for the top Chinese films from Hong Kong, Taiwan and China. ''A Touch of Zen'' was listed at 9th place on the list. In 2011, the Tapei Golden Horse Film Festival had 122 industry professionals take part in the survey. The voters included film scholars, festival programmers, film directors, actors and producers to vote for the 100 Greatest Chinese-Language Films. ''A Touch of Zen'' was listed at 15th place on the list. In 2021, ''The Daily Star'' ranked ''A Touch of Zen'' 4th on its list of the greatest short story adaptations, writing "Influencing future classics like ''

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon ''Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon'' is a 2000 wuxia film directed by Ang Lee and written for the screen by Wang Hui-ling, James Schamus, and Tsai Kuo-jung . The film features a cast of actors of Chinese people, Chinese ethnicity, including Ch ...

'' and ''

House of Flying Daggers ''House of Flying Daggers'' (Chinese: 十面埋伏) is a 2004 ''wuxia'' romance film directed by Zhang Yimou and starring Andy Lau, Zhang Ziyi and Takeshi Kaneshiro. Unlike other ''wuxia'' films, it is more of a love story than purely a martial ...

'', there is perhaps no greater film as influential and as underappreciated".

Home media

''A Touch of Zen'' was released on

DVD The DVD (common abbreviation for Digital Video Disc or Digital Versatile Disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any kin ...

for the North American market on 10 December 2002, by Tai Seng Entertainment, with only King Hu's biography and filmography as extras. The film was also released on

PAL Phase Alternating Line (PAL) is a colour encoding system for analogue television. It was one of three major analogue colour television standards, the others being NTSC and SECAM. In most countries it was broadcast at 625 lines, 50 fields (25 ...

DVD for the British market on 28 July 2003, by

Optimum Releasing StudioCanal Limited, operating as StudioCanal (formerly Optimum Releasing), is the official branch of StudioCanal in the British Isles. The company releases many films, including foreign, anime (mostly Studio Ghibli), independent, art, British, ...

(now StudioCanal UK), as well as for the German market on 10 April 2008, by KSM GmbH as part of their "King Hu Collection". The film was released on PAL DVD in France on 1 September 2004, as simply ''Touch of Zen'' by Films sans Frontières (Films Without Borders), which has both French and English subtitles. After the film's 4K restoration in 2015, the film's first

Blu-ray The Blu-ray Disc (BD), often known simply as Blu-ray, is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 2005 and released on June 20, 2006 worldwide. It is designed to supersede the DVD format, and capable of sto ...

release was by Eureka Entertainment for the

Masters of Cinema Masters of Cinema is a line of DVD and Blu-ray releases published through Eureka Entertainment. Because of the uniformly branded and spine-numbered packaging and the standard inclusion of booklets and analysis by recurring film historians, the l ...

series, released on 25 January 2016, for the British market, which also includes a DVD edition of the film. Both editions include a select scene commentary by critic

Tony Rayns Antony Rayns (born 1948) is a British writer, commentator, film festival programmer and screenwriter. He wrote for the underground publication ''Cinema Rising'' (its name inspired by Kenneth Anger's '' Scorpio Rising'') before contributing to ...

, the film's theatrical trailer, and newly translated English subtitles, as well as a 36-page booklet which features director King Hu's statement from the

, a 1975 interview with the director by Rayns, the short story the film was based on, eight characteristics of "the swordswoman" in King Hu's films, and archival images. A limited-edition version of the Blu-ray and DVD adds a 2012 documentary about King Hu and a new essay by filmmaker David Cairns. On 19 July 2016, American home video company

The Criterion Collection The Criterion Collection, Inc. (or simply Criterion) is an American home-video distribution company that focuses on licensing, restoring and distributing "important classic and contemporary films." Criterion serves film and media scholars, cinep ...

released the film on Blu-ray and DVD using the same 4K restoration also used by the Masters of Cinema release. Both the Blu-ray and DVD include the 2012 documentary about King Hu, new interviews with the actors

and Shih Chun, filmmaker

Ang Lee Ang Lee (; born October 23, 1954) is a Taiwanese filmmaker. Born in Pingtung County of southern Taiwan, Lee was educated in Taiwan and later in the United States. During his filmmaking career, he has received international critical and popula ...

, and film scholar Tony Rayns, the theatrical 4K re-release trailer, and newly translated English subtitles, as well as a leaflet containing a new essay by film critic and theorist

David Bordwell David Jay Bordwell (; born July 23, 1947) is an American film theorist and film historian. Since receiving his PhD from the University of Iowa in 1974, he has written more than fifteen volumes on the subject of cinema including ''Narration in th ...

and King Hu's notes from the 1975 Cannes Film Festival. The new Blu-ray and DVD cover and interior poster (combined with the leaflet) was illustrated by Greg Ruth and designed by Eric Skillman.

Sources

External links

* * * *
Review by Dennis SchwartzInterview with King Hu on the making of A Touch of ZenAng Lee on King Hu - A Touch of Art
- interview with

about King Hu and his movie ''A Touch of Zen'' (video, 13:35 mins)
''A Touch of Zen: Prowling, Scheming, Flying''
an essay by

at the

Criterion Collection The Criterion Collection, Inc. (or simply Criterion) is an American home-video distribution company that focuses on licensing, restoring and distributing "important classic and contemporary films." Criterion serves film and media scholars, cinep ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Touch Of Zen, A 1971 martial arts films 1971 films Films directed by King Hu Hong Kong martial arts films Taiwanese martial arts films Wuxia films Films released in separate parts Films shot in Hong Kong Films shot in Taiwan Films set in 14th-century Ming dynasty Kung fu films Films based on Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio Films set in the Ming dynasty 1970s Hong Kong films