★★★★
Kung-fu movies with their wisp of plot that lets the film
move from one action scene to the next appeal to a particular audience but have
trouble reaching beyond that group. A
Touch of Zen, though, easily moves beyond kung-fu formula and offers lots to
interest a broader audience.
For one, King Hu maintains a lot of visual interest
here. His settings and imagery engage,
whether of a monastery elegantly rising from a montane forest or of a group of
people walking through a riverbed of sculpted rock. Costumes vary by social level, but those worn
by the upper classes are colorful and richly patterned, and they flow with the
movements of the characters wearing them.
They are an important pictorial element.
Hu’s composition within the frame also stimulates the screen. He clearly draws on China’s visual art
tradition when he has small people move though large landscapes or when he uses
sudden, graphic close ups. And in a more
cinematic vein, he uses the frame in a unique way by sometimes having only a
character’s legs or torso shoot into the screen during a fight scene. His cinema is interesting to watch simply for
the visuals.
He also brings especially engaging story elements into Touch
of Zen. In the early part of the film, Hu
uses perspective to keep us in the dark about a number of things that are
happening. Through the eyes of the
scholar Ku, we meet a mysterious stranger, notice some members of the village
acting oddly, and discover a young woman with a scanty past living in an
abandoned house near Ku. These elements
don’t confuse the audience but rather involve us, drawing us along in the
narrative because we want the full story of these little mysteries. Hu’s plot also keeps us involved because the
unexpected can happen at any moment. A
group of monks can be a fierce fighting team, and a character like Hsu can
repent of his evil ways only to suddenly turn on the Abbot and stab him. Other engaging elements of the story include
the fact that the center of martial expertise is not our hero but rather our
heroine, Yang. And as any story, the
fight between good and evil itself has an attraction since we all dread the
victory of evil. All these elements keep
even a martial arts non-fan engaged in Touch of Zen.
It’s also clear from early on that Touch of Zen isn’t
operating in a realist cinematic aesthetic.
Hu draws on Cantonese-style Chinese opera for this film, and a big part
of the pleasure in watching it is to see how these non-cinematic elements work
in cinema. And they create a cohesive
and unique cinematic experience here. Hu
has his actors perform in a highly stylized manner with long pauses and meaningful
looks. In addition, he brings in
stereotypical figures, like the Abbot, and inscribes a deeply melodramatic element
into their story. Hu’s use of
traditional Chinese instruments and music is another operatic element. The music meshes seamlessly with the
melodrama and acting style, especially when the music lends a particularly
effective rhythm to a scene, sometimes punctuating the pivotal point. Hu also bases his numerous action sequences
on opera. Rather than intense enactment
of fighting, the combats here are choreographed acrobatic performances,
including the obvious use of trampolines.
A big part of the achievement, and appeal, of Touch of Zen is the
integration of Chinese opera into an engaging film.
Touch of Zen is not without its problems, though. For one, it’s hard to find the center of the
film. For a time, the development of Ku
is the primary focus, but then that focus shifts to Yang’s struggle for
vindication. Later, the movie emphasizes
the Abbot and his spirituality.
Reflecting this wandering focus, the narrative can get turgid here, too. One major flaw occurs late in the film when
it seems that Ku has lost Yang, and he begins his journey home with his child
and heir in his arms. All the narrative lines are wrapped up at this
point, but there’s suddenly a scene with the Abbot telling Yang that he’ll
even help her defend Ku even from nirvana, and a very long series of fights soon
ensues. At this point, the film shifts
from story-centered to action-centered, and there’s a very long section of the
film dedicated to a series of fights. This
very long last section of the film seems tacked on since it differs so much
from what has come before.
Another problem is
the frequent choppy editing, especially in action sequences when we see a piece
of a movement and then jump to a different piece of another movement. And Hu is overly reliant on low angle shots
and backlighting, an appropriation of a technique that was popular in 1970 but
seems dated when it’s used too much today.
Despite the drawbacks to Touch of Zen, this is a film that
provides a lot of cinematic pleasure to viewers. Much of the movie applies effective cinematic
technique, and its interesting merger of a traditional art form and cinema
makes it especially worthwhile.
