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A Touch of Zen
King Hu's epic swordplay saga combines ghost story, martial arts mastery and Buddhist mythology to stunning, hypnotic effect.
Director: King Hu
Overview
King Hu's epic swordplay saga combines ghost story, martial arts mastery and Buddhist mythology to stunning, hypnotic effect. An unambitious painter lives with his mother in the vicinity of an abandoned “haunted” mansion. In actuality, it has become a hiding place for the warrior Yang and her mother, taking refuge following the assassination of their father by the wicked Wei. After an army is sent to pursue the escapees, the group fortify the mansion with traps and false intimations of the terrifying ghosts within. But even after, things take yet more unsettling turns...
Famed for its iconic set pieces, including the central bamboo forest battle, A Touch of Zen is one of cinema’s truly peerless action sagas and the precursor par excellence of such modern wuxia classics as Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and House of Flying Daggers. Ranked joint 225th in the 2022 Sight and Sound Great Films of All Time poll.
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