Legend of the Mountain (Shan zhong zhuan qi)

Director King Hu

The director with Sylvia Chang

Sylvia Chang

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

LEGEND OF THE MOUNTAIN (Shan zhong zhuan qi)         B                                               Hong Kong  Taiwan  South Korea  (192 mi)  1979 ‘Scope d:  King Hu

Legend of the Mountain is the love story of a human and a ghost.  It’s a Song Dynasty short story.  It tells about a struggle that occurs in the ghostly realm, in another world.  The ghosts’ main objective is to be reincarnated as a human.  But being a ghost has its convenient aspects – for example, you can work magic!   It’s strange; why do they always want to become human?  Humans are born to suffer.  You could say this raises a question.  The movie was more than three hours long in its original version.  The film critic Derek Elley watched a videotape of the film and decided that it should be shown at both the London and the Edinburgh film festivals.  Later on, when I told him that I might shorten it, they wrote me a long letter saying I mustn’t cut it.  As for the full version of Legend of the Mountain being shown at the London Film Festival, let’s ignore whether the reviews were good or bad; at least they got to see the whole leopard and not just the spots!                                                                                             —King Hu, 1979

Conjured up from the same ghost stories in Pu Songling’s Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio that inspired A Touch of Zen (Xia nü) (1971), specifically one story entitled A Cave Full of Ghosts in the West Mountain, this film was shot back to back with Raining in the Mountain (Kong shan ling yu) (1979), released the same year, taking advantage of the mountainous location shots in South Korea, it also recycles many of the same actors used in the previous film, shot once again by Henry Chan, where the art direction and Scope cinematography is utterly spectacular, yet the eerie nature of the supernatural mysticism in this film is in the realm of Mizoguchi’s ghost story Ugetsu (Ugetsu monogatari) (1953), eventually leading to Tsui Hark’s more fancifully produced trilogy beginning with A CHINESE GHOST STORY (1987).  This film has always suffered in comparison to its companion film, largely because it usually appears in its truncated 105-minute version, yet to immerse yourself in the full-length version is an unforgettable experience that brings to mind Terrence Malick’s enthralling 2011 Top Ten Films of the Year #1 The Tree of Life, yet made thirty years earlier with a completely different philosophical structure and design.  Hu brought a literary depth to martial arts films that elevated the genre to an art form, particularly his unique blend of Chinese history and legend, politics and martial arts, philosophy and religion.  Besides his love of Peking opera, which may have inspired those acrobatic wuxia leaps and jumps, Hu’s films also display a heterogeneous array of traditional forms ranging from history and legend to literature and painting.  Hu’s affection for culture is expressed in his character’s familiarity with history, operas, short stories, and novels, yet what stands out in this film is the stunning, painterly design of every shot (Hu’s mother was a painter), including an astonishing array of nature shots, something he shares with American director Terrence Malick, yet Hu’s overriding concern was combining the natural and the supernatural into the same universe, placing this phantasmagoric ghost tale within the immense open-air beauty of the surrounding natural world, with birds and animals frolicking or dragonflies breeding, accentuating the mountains, trees, rivers, lily ponds, and waterfalls along with a golden setting sun, including shots through tree branches or fruit blossoms, as if paying tribute to the natural images of Chinese poetry, yet the reflective blend of myth and history is what makes this a King Hu film.  Two years earlier in 1977, King Hu married a Chinese writer and scholar named Chung Ling, who had written extensively about Chinese literature and had been teaching the subject for several years at the State University of New York in Albany, giving up her academic career to work with her husband, writing the screenplay for this film before resuming her teaching career in Hong Kong in 1982.  Co-written, directed, produced, and co-edited by Hu who also provided the art direction, production and costume design, this film represents the evolution of the wuxia film where action has largely been replaced by contemplative reflection, recalling a time when many religious traditions had co-mingled in China for centuries and shaped Chinese life for more than two thousand years, blending together different elements of Taoism, a system of belief attributed to the philosophy of Lao Tzu, a 6th-century BC contemporary of Confucius that teaches how to accept the natural order of things and live in harmony with the universe, and Buddhism, which believes human life is one of suffering that paves your way into the next life, ruled by the forces of reincarnation and karma, offering a path of meditative practice and spiritual development leading to insight into the true nature of reality, with the goal of attaining nirvana, or spiritual enlightenment.  By bringing all of these elements together, Hu accentuates the transcendental interconnectedness of things, even the things that seem to sidetrack us from seeking our desired goals and destinations.    

Set in the Song dynasty in the 11th century, where a scholar, Ho Qingyun (Shih Chun), embodies the more practical, rationalistic traditions of Confucianism, which is more an ethical philosophy rather than a religion, having failed the imperial exam, becoming an ardent calligraphy expert and copy artist, summoned by a Superior Monk (Chen Hui-Lou) from the Ocean Mudra Temple set in the mist-shrouded Gaya Mountains asking him to copy a Buddhist Mudra Sutra that releases the souls of the dead, to be used for a ceremony honoring deceased soldiers, which presumably will bring nirvana to legions of dead soldiers whose casualties resulted from the ongoing warfare of the Song-Xia wars.  Dispatched to a faraway fort where he’ll presumably have the peace and tranquility needed for his time-consuming task (though what’s more peacefully serene than a remote Buddhist temple in the mountains?), Ho wordlessly sets off on yet another long-distanced journey on foot, with prayer beads given to him by a monk to ward off any demons he might encounter along the way, yet his journey is defined by an overwhelming visual splendor, seeing a mysterious spirit in the woods playing a flute, only to disappear and reappear somewhere else, occasionally asking for directions, before finally arriving at the fort, discovering it is abandoned except for Mr. Tsui (Tung Lin), an advisor to the deceased general Han (Sun Yueh), informing him that the general and most of the soldiers were wiped out in battle.  No sooner does he arrive that he is literally swarmed by a host of characters, including a muted, seemingly deranged Old Chang (Tien Feng), Madame Wang (Rainbow Hsu), an extremely bossy, man-like woman who immediately orders him around, pushing in front of him her beautiful daughter Melody (Hsu Feng).  At a welcoming dinner, Ho is plied with wine while Melody furiously plays the drums, as if casting an intoxicating spell on the man until he passes out, only to awaken the next morning, though it could just as easily have been days, having completely forgotten everything that happened the night before, yet Melody has apparently spent the night, claiming he had his way with her, whispering sweet nothings in her ear while promising to take care of her.  Basically tricked into marrying her, this whirlwind of change ushers in a thoroughly altered mood, where something strangely mysterious is going on even before Ho has transcribed a single word, as a golden-dressed Lama (Wu Ming-Tsai, aka Ng Ming-choi, who also provided the martial arts choreography) and a Taoist priest Yang (Chen Hui-lou) are seen lurking in the background, moving back and forth outside in the distance while sneaking in and out of the fort interior looking for the prayer beads, exhibiting much of the same secret behavior from the previous film with vying parties searching for a priceless ancient scroll, where it’s even the same actors reprising their roles in a different capacity.  What’s clear to viewers is what’s being hidden from Ho, as behind the scenes they are casting various spells on one another, creating spiritual battles through musical instruments, with Melody’s power expressed through her drumming while the Lama counters with a tambourine drum, while also using clashing cymbals, with the Taoist priest also referred to as Reverend and Master.  This magical interplay between the dark arts is a fierce and furious sport, yet it soon becomes apparent that they all want to get their hands on the sutra once it’s finally finished, each having their own secret motives while placing pressure on Ho into hastily completing his copying.  Whatever peace and serenity Ho might have been seeking, he certainly doesn’t find it here, as he’s surrounded by apparitions vying for absolute control of the mystical world.     

Mr. Tsui takes Ho into town to buy some needed supplies, but gets sidetracked by a tavern run by Madame Chuang (Jeon Sook) and her lovely daughter Cloud (Taiwanese film legend Sylvia Chang), with the Taoist priest Yang living nearby, initially causing some consternation, but Ho and Cloud go walking together in search of needed herbs, becoming a heavily romanticized journey through the splendor of nature, with Ho realizing she is the spirit he saw playing the flute earlier, capable of appearing and disappearing, with the two immediately sensing some connection.  But it’s Mr. Tsui’s drunken comments that cause alarm, blurting out that Ho’s wife is a demon, that she only wants to get her hands on the sutra before enslaving him, much like she has done to Old Chang, who was once a proud warrior protecting the fort.  It’s here that Ho realizes he’s surrounded not by people but by spirits, devilishly motivated souls who are hell-bent on being helped into the next stage of their existence.  Music is a much more important aspect of this film, written by Wu Ta-chiang, featuring a prominent use of the flute, where there’s even a recurring love theme, as it’s apparent Ho and Cloud have a love connection, yet since she’s not human, only in spirit can they actually flourish.  When he returns home, Melody flies off into a jealous rage, using her demonic powers to immobilize his legs, leaving him unable to move until Cloud rescues him, with Melody going toe-to-toe with the Lama and the Taoist priest who served as her Master, both fighting back, yet ultimately Ho has to face the woman he married in a no holds barred battle for survival pitting the living against the dead.  More than the other Hu films where he appears, the actor Shih Chun is challenged by lengthy, wordless sequences, where he has to do more with his face to convey the layers of bewilderment and confusion that he continually experiences.  The length of the film allows for plenty of detours in the narrative thread, which is slim at best, feeling overlong and repetitive, where the interactions between characters often grow tedious, with characters that are not as richly developed as earlier films (but that may be because they’re not among the living, guided purely by instinctual desires), but it does allow the director to experiment with duration, elongating the dreamlike fantasies with their ability to both stretch and compress time, resorting to flashback sequences that help explain what happened, as Melody was an apparent favorite of General Han during his time at the fort, yet grew enamored at hearing Cloud play the flute, sparking the jealous rage of Melody, who becomes a serial murderer, killing not just Cloud but her own mother and assistant as well, tried for her crimes at the General’s court, then ordered into exile to die alone.  Yet her wandering spirit remains restless, seeking to settle her scores, inadvertently granted extreme powers from a misguided Taoist priest, enslaving the souls of Madame Wang and her assistant in her attempt to steal the sutra, with hopes of resurrecting herself back into the world of humans.  Hu brilliantly uses the priest’s prayer shrine, which has a black screen, like a movie screen, allowing his subject as well as viewers to simultaneously watch events unfold from her past life, generating startling revelations, featuring a multitude of shifting allegiances, murky motivations, betrayals, and romances, all inter-connected, evolving into a unique cinematic aesthetic where hypnotic imagery is met with hallucinations and the sublime.  As a distinctly Chinese ghost story, it’s not very surprising, exhibiting little suspense or dramatic tension (the complete opposite of his earlier wuxia classics), as the protagonist Ho is not quick to figure things out, yet the glorious otherworldly fantasia on display is visually extravagant, with fighting encounters in the forest, where religious and demonic forces battle it out with each other, with Cloud and Melody acrobatically leaping high up into tree branches before descending on each other, like dive bombs from above.  Equal parts fairy tale and nightmare, utterly strange and compelling, it’s the gentle sounds of Cloud’s flute that personalizes much of the musical soundtrack, like a musical leitmotif, where her pervasive spirit overrides much of what we see, receding deep into the internal recesses of our imaginations. 

A Touch of Zen (Xia nü)

 

A TOUCH OF ZEN (Xia nü)            B+                                                                                    Taiwan  (200 mi)  1969  ‘Scope  d: King Hu

Know thyself and victory is thine.                                                                                                  —Gu Shengzhai (Shi Jun)

For sheer audacity, this film has it all, beautifully filmed in Scope, yet it’s long and meandering, but never absent cinematic originality, yet boldly experimental, especially for the time.  This is literally a Peking Opera staged for the screen, given three-dimensional life and purpose, where the percussive sound design by itself is highly abstract, yet purposeful, becoming a visually experimental yet intensely philosophical wuxia film that offers viewers plenty to ponder, over-the-top and absurd at times, even incomprehensible, yet also filled with transcendental beauty, like the fight in the bamboo forest, or the ghostly battle royale in the haunted fort that plays out like Kurosawa’s macabre THRONE OF BLOOD (1957), where it’s hard to tell what’s real and what’s imagined.  The film is significant in a number of ways, shot on location, offering a gripping martial arts plot, while also known for its lavish production, existential influences, and detailed character studies, making a wuxia film extremely personal, inherent with one’s own philosophical beliefs, subversively starring a female heroine, asking questions of identity, using ghosts to question the basic tenets of illusion and reality, blending both male and female protagonists to assert questions of free will and moral resolve, while also identifying with the need for role playing, which is particularly relevant in an authoritarian society, while promoting philosophical-religious views in an action film, offering a psychic ending that remains an unprecedented and transcendental experience in a Chinese film.  Winner of a Technical Grand Prize at Cannes in 1975, the sweeping panorama of nature sets the stage for what becomes a majestic tale on a grand scale, becoming the first wuxia film to be recognized with an international award, giving rise to a host of new directors from Hong Kong, like Tsui Hark and Ann Hui, both having worked with Hu, with the film providing a blueprint for a crossover film that would also be recognized in the West, like Ang Lee’s CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON (2000), or Zhang Yimou’s HERO (2002) or HOUSE OF FYING DAGGERS (2004), which were directly inspired by the bamboo forest sequence from the film, not to mention John Carpenter’s comic martial arts romp Big Trouble in Little China (1986), and later Jia Zhang-ke’s homage to Hu in 2013 Top Ten List #3 A Touch of Sin (Tian zhu ding) along with the painterly opulence of Hou Hsiao-hsien’s slow rendering of a wuxia film in 2015 Top Ten List #9 The Assassin (Nie Yinniang).  The ghost story element may have spawned Stanley Kwan’s Rouge (Yan zhi kou) (1988), a film that brings the ghost story into the urban spaces of modern Hong Kong.  Wuxia films had been made going back to the 1920’s, yet this shatters the mold, inspired by the aesthetics of Japanese samurai films, defying everything that had come before, embarking on new territory, becoming a spiritual quest infused with Zen Buddhist beliefs, specifically the idea of achieving enlightenment or nirvana, becoming an impassioned plea for universal transcendence, while veering into the abstract realm of experimental film.  Production of the film began in 1967 but was not completed until 1969, much of it due to the painstakingly slow process that Hu worked, known for his meticulous attention to detail, from intricate storyboards to his oversight of props, costumes, and production design, featuring the use of split screens, where shooting certain scenes required being shot during certain seasonal times of year, supposedly waiting nine months for the overgrown grass at the fort to grow exactly right, with Hu routinely going over budget and over schedule.  Due to fierce competition, films were often rushed into the market during the boom time of Hong Kong’s film industry, yet due to its overall length, the producers, defying the director’s wishes, demanded that the film be exhibited in two parts (in 1970 and 1971) in Taiwan, where it languished at the box office.  The famous bamboo-forest fight climax of the first part was reprised at the beginning of the second.  Without Hu, the producers then recut the film into a two-hour version and rereleased it to theaters, where it performed no better.  In 1973, Hu regained control of the film and recut it according to his original intentions, as a three-hour film.  That version premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in 1975.  To celebrate one hundred years of Chinese cinema, the Hong Kong Film Awards released a list of The Best 100 Chinese Motion Pictures, with this listed at #9, Hong Kong Film Awards' List of The Best 100 Chinese Motion.

The term wuxia refers to a medium in Chinese literature that goes back centuries, dating back to the third century BC, traditionally following a protagonist from the lower class with no official affiliation who pursues righteousness or revenge, while adhering to a code of honor.  These books became extremely popular at the turn of the 20th century, but were banned by the government in the 1930’s due to their subversive and often supernatural elements, but returned to the movie screens in the 1950’s, borrowing style, choreography, and historical precedent from the Chinese opera, making period pieces that became fully modern in the 1960’s.  The commercial success of King Hu’s COME DRINK WITH ME (1966) and DRAGON INN (1967) gave rise to Bruce Lee’s success in the early 1970’s with martial arts films that were distributed worldwide.  However, the success of Dragon Inn (Long men kezhan) allowed Hu a much more ambitious undertaking, creating a landmark work with multi-faceted themes and interweaving storylines, combining martial arts swordplay with political allegory, a ghost story, a love story, while offering a comment on Chinese culture, referencing Chinese poetry, painting, philosophy, music, and history.  The experience of viewing the film is a kind of revelatory discovery in itself, like a series of spontaneous Zen moments of stillness interspersed in a martial arts action film, a highly unconventional and idiosyncratic work that attempts to transcend its own genre limitations.  First and foremost the darkness of the film feels unprecedented, with so much shrouded in shadows or complete darkness, there is plenty that happens that we simply fail to see, which seems intentional, as at the same time a storyline develops where figures are not who they appear to be, which is a rather sly and cunning way to tell a story, part of a deliberately elusive narrative structure, with puzzling messages and internal power struggles, along with mysterious noises throughout.  Adapted from and inspired by The Magnanimous Girl, a short story from Pu Songling’s ghost-story anthology Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio, a compilation of as many as 500 stories that has inspired many films, including the delightfully fun-filled, Tsui Hark produced A CHINESE GHOST STORY (1987), this film is set in a remote mountain village during the Ming dynasty, where the initial story revolves around Gu Shengzhai (Shih Chun), an artist and failed scholar with considerable talent but no backbone and no ambition, living in a home that borders an abandoned Jing Lu Fort reputed to be haunted, seen arguing with his constantly nagging mother (Zhang Bingyu), featuring plenty of comic banter about marriage and career prospects.  When a stranger arrives asking for his portrait to be made, Ouyang Nian (Tien Peng), he starts up a pleasant friendship with Gu, just part of his ordinary routine, a befuddled character and an unworldly Mama’s boy who is slow to learn what’s transpiring around him, yet there is an unexplored and darker underside to this stranger, with Sergio Leone close-ups on his eyes, as he is really an agent for the Eastern Depot sent to discover hidden fugitives from justice.  His first sign is discovering that a blind man’s identity is really General Shi (Bai Ying), who is protecting Yang Huizhen (Hsu Feng, only 18 at the time), actually taking residence inside the fort, but remains shrouded in mystery, an apparent fugitive from justice, as a corrupt eunuch has tortured and murdered her father and wants to eradicate all remaining traces of the family after her father attempted to warn the Emperor of the eunuch’s blatant corruption.  An hour goes by before all this is revealed, told at a leisurely pace, suddenly erupting into a massive display of superior swordplay that seems to defy all the odds of physics, as they fly onto rooftops as the battle continues, a furious display of martial arts skill, all observed from a distance by Gu, who silently bears witness.  The local magistrate Xu (Cao Jian) seems to be an intermediary between the forces of evil and the Donglin movement in their resistance against the court eunuchs.  When Yang flees from the village back into the surrounding bamboo forests, a battle ensues, with piercing sunlight breaking through the trees, yet the ballet-like choreography with giant leaps into the branches couldn’t be more gracefully exquisite, as the 10-minute-long fight sequence in the bamboo forest took 25 days to shoot, eventually protected by a Buddhist monk, Abbot Hui-yuan (Roy Chiao), a benevolent presence who fights without weapons yet casually makes light work out of the ensuing soldiers, effectively providing safe shelter at the monastery.

Filmed by cinematographers Hua Huiying and Chou Yeh-Hsing, art direction by Chen Shanglin, with fight choreography by Pan Yao-kun and Han Yingjie, who also acts as Chief Commander Xu of the East Chamber secret police, distinguishing himself in battle near the end, while King Hu co-edits the film, meaning the film is an accurate vision of what he intended.  Among the more sophisticated interludes in the film is the lead-up to the first fight, filled with romantic suggestions, as Yang has finally invited Gu to meet her at her home, tenderly singing a song when he arrives, with the song lyrics written by Tang poet Li Bai (701 – 762), probably the most famous of all Chinese poets, immortalized by the way he died, drowning drunk, trying to embrace the moon’s reflection in the Yangtze River (Li Bai drinking alone (with the moon, his shadow, & 43 ...).  Yet the exotic nature of this romantic encounter is mesmerizing, leading to a sexual tryst that takes place nearly entirely in the dark, Drinking Alone Beneath the Moon (月下獨酌) YouTube (3:20), yet in a split second she comes under vicious attack and is gone.  With its mystical beauty, exquisite photography, and moving, ambiguous depiction of faith, the film is a complex co-mingling of visual aesthetics and metaphysical inquiry, and the clearest expression of Zen Buddhism.  It is especially renowned for its radically disjunctive editing and fluid camera movements during fight scenes, framed by carefully positioned tree branches or goldenrod waving in the breeze.  Along with shots of mountains, waterfalls, and sunsets, another recurring motif is a spider spinning his web under the moonlight, which gives way to gravity-defying suspension between roof beams or darting between trees, yet entrapment is an essential theme.  Gu’s personality is completely transformed after his sexual rendezvous, becoming more aggressive, taking an active interest in military strategy, becoming more protective of Yang, where even she views him differently, becoming part of his inner transformation.  What he has in mind is daring and inspiring, two hundred trained soldiers against a mere handful, intentionally luring the Eastern Depot’s army invaders led by Men Da (Wang Rui) into the haunted fort and ensnaring them with a ghost trap, altering their sense of reality with planted booby-traps, setting off bells and fires and mysterious sounds, with silhouetted puppet figures giving off the impression that there are legions of soldiers, intentionally exacerbating the power of ghosts and illusion, making them uncomfortable, weakening their sense of stability, heightening their anxieties and fears through exaggeration, subjecting them to sudden, unexpected attacks, seemingly from out of nowhere.  The plan works to perfection, using the night as needed cover, allowing them no avenue of escape, creating not only mayhem but hysteria on the battlegrounds.  Gu is especially pleased with himself afterwards, laughing hysterically, though the grounds are littered with bodies, as the monks arrive in the morning to bury the bodies, a solemn act that contrasts with Gu’s euphoria derived from conceiving such a massive slaughter.  He’s driven by an obsessional need to find Yang afterwards, scouring the mountains and forests, but instead of Yang he finds a baby left on the rocks which he embraces, as there’s an attached note that she has delivered his child while retreating into the monastery as a nun, leaving his lineage intact, allowing him to accept his fate as a single father and return on the road back home.  But along the way he encounters the eunuch’s secret forces, with Abbot Hui-yuan sending out Yang and General Shi to protect him, while never revealing themselves.  Instead they come face to face with Chief Commander Xu, initially dispatching with his minions, but Xu is a formidable opponent, challenging all but the Abbot in an extended battle sequence, provoking plenty of chaos, evoking the militaristic mindset of war and destruction, while the Abbot is an ambassador of peace, who prevails in their encounter, leaving Xu bound with ropes, depicting the inescapability of destiny, followed by multiple images of waters and streams and waterfalls, with nature providing a sense of serenity.  There’s a growing sense of the mythical, as the Abbot and his group return back to the monastery, met by Xu pleading for forgiveness and repentance, but it’s all a trick for a surprise attack, wounding the Abbott while seriously injuring the others, but the Abbot is able to counter the move with his own fatal blow to Xu, who is left dazed, yet as he staggers, succumbing to hallucinatory images, he looks up on the mountain ledge and sees a silhouetted figure meditating against the golden sun, an image of Buddha and enlightenment, before the birds circle overhead in a symbol of his own death.  When a wounded Yang looks up, and also a retreating Gu with his baby, both entwined by fate, the sun becomes a halo over the monk’s head, a transcendental conclusion that indicates his attainment of nirvana.