Review of A Touch of Zen (1970) by Patrik T — 23 Jun 2008

A few months back someone recommended this to me as a predecessor to Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. The movie did exactly what it was recommended to do for me, it gave me a perspective of the genre I've only known about in its recent form.

I feel like someone who has just watched The Maltese Falcon after years of watching Chinatown. The movie had a really epic scope, which in many ways made it stand apart from similar films The technical aspects of the genre still don't seem to have been mastered at this point, a lot of the wire acrobatics seem only to have been accomplished by using funky editing.

Also years of crappy preservation have lead the film's famous cinematography to be really washed out. The story felt a little loopy, but there seems to have been a serious attempt to include some real symbolic depth here, mainly in the form of Buddhist messages that I don't really understand.

Whatever flaws it has, it still seems invaluable as the DNA of movies like Crouching Tiger and Hero.