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3.0 out of 5 stars
Lesser Hu, But If You're A Fan..., September 26, 2006
This review is from: Legend of the Mountain (Shan-Chung Ch'uan-Ch'i) (DVD)
King Hu belongs to a dubious group of filmmakers: the neglected; alongside the likes of Satyajit Ray, Mikio Naruse, Youssef Chahine and Ritwik Ghatak. As with all of those filmmakers, King Hu's work - when available at all (his legendary DRAGON INN is nearly impossible to find), is only available in dubious quality - fuzzy DVDs, cropped or pan-and-scan editions, VCDs, DVRs.
This is a shame - Hu's flair for history recalls Kenji Mizoguchi or Satyajit Ray, his personal and highly evolved spiritual ideas evoke Andrei Tarkovsky, and his flair for both landscape and action is reminiscent of Kurosawa or John Ford.
That noted, LEGEND OF THE MOUNTAIN - one of the handful of King Hu's films currently available - seems like lesser Hu. I'd say 'seems like,' because it's companion film, RAINING IN THE MOUNTAIN (the two films are apparently interrelated) has been mostly unavailable on VHS or DVD, save for a Japanese DVD edition (no English subs) recently released. Without seeing both, I'd guess that it would be difficult to evaluate in a thorough fashion.
Here we have a ghost story, heavily infused with Buddhist mysticism: a young, and rather earnest scholar (Hsu Feng, who also starred in Hu's extraordinary A TOUCH OF ZEN) retreats to semi-abandoned fortress in an isolated mountain range to study and translate an ancient sutra. Upon arrival, he immediately encounters a small, but eclectic cast of locals; his encounters with them propel him into a series of intrigues that ultimately escalates into a good-vs-evil struggle.
The story recalls A TOUCH OF ZEN in its' ambitions and complexity, but compressed into the 110-minute running time here, the entire story (and the acting) feels a little forced, and a little rushed. The cinematography (the film was shot on location in South Korea) seems to be dazzling, though currently available editions of the film are fairly grainy, and night scenes are very indistinct. Hu's sense of action fails him here; the majority of it seems very half-hearted, compared to earlier films, and Hu's sense of slapstick (one gets the distinct impression that some commerical pressures may have intruded upon this film) threatens to overtake that more supernatural sides to the story.
That being said, the film STILL looks good, and manages to be entertaining - and there are a few set pieces here that are breathtaking, in spite of the flaws also evident here. Perhaps for fans of Hu; but if you're one of those and you haven't seen this, you should.
-David Alston
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4.0 out of 5 stars
You must see Raining in the Mountain, July 2, 2010
This review is from: Legend of the Mountain (Shan-Chung Ch'uan-Ch'i) (DVD)
Having watched King Hu's major work such as Dragon Inn, A Touch of Zen, Raining in the Mountain, Legend in the Mountain, and a segment of 3 parts story, "Big Wheel" (?), I strongly believe that Raining in the Mountain is his best. The "Legend in the Mountain" is its lesser sibling. And, together with A Touch of Zen, I'd call them, loosely, King Hu's mythical martial arts trilogy. A Touch of Zen is really original and certain scenes in it actually "inspired" Ang Lee's "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon". But, too bad, King Hu was limited by his geographical "isolation" (he's in Taiwan) and his background & training. Were it not for factors as such, A Touch of Zen could very well be a "perfect" masterpiece. One can clearly see King Hu's growing & "improving" in Raining in the Mountain. But, it's not readily available to the public. So, you settle for this "Legend in the Mountain". Someone has to take the initiative to make all his films available to the public.
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