Xia nü / A Touch of Zen (1971) – 2/5

Good beginning, good ending, but not too much love from me for everything in-between

„Xia nü“ or „A Touch of Zen“ is a co-production between Taiwan and Hong Kong from 1971, so it was not super long ago that this film had its 50th anniversary already. I watched it a week ago and I am still a bit surprised here to see the letter „ü“ in the title of a film that is in the Mandarin language. I am probably not the only one as I have seen this film being called „Xia nu“ on a few occasions. The writer and director here is King Hu. He was not even 40 when he shot this film that is surely a contender for his most known, so he was still relatively young, but he did not reach a very old age and already died before the start of the new millennium. This was also approximately the time when Hu, who (no pun intended) was a prolific actor before that, started focusing almost completely on directing and was not seen in front of a camera anymore. I cannot talk too much about the cast here because I am not too familiar with most of them as I am not an expert on (old) Asian movies. However, one mention definitely goes out to Feng Hsu, who plays the biggest female character in this film, almost the only crucial female character. She followed a bit in Hu’s footsteps because while it all started with acting, she also became a crucial influence in the making of films later on. Not as a writer or director for her, but as a producer and she even won a BAFTA in that department and that was over 20 years after this film we have here. Today, she is in her early 70s, which means that back then she was at the age of 20 maybe when she appeared in this film. Not her first on-screen performance, but among her very earliest. With Asians, it is always a bit difficult to guess the age, at least for me, so I did not think she was this young in the movie. With many other cast members here, you will find the profession also attached to their names and that is something you do not see too often anymore in the movies nowadays. Or only when you do not have the character’s name, but here you got both.

This was a very long film by the way and as you can see from my rating, I was not particularly fond of that. I did like the film at the beginning and also dug it towards the end, but a great deal of the action in-between did almost nothing for me and it was difficult to really keep up my interest in the characters. The beginning was alright though when we find out about characters such as the one who is the closest to a protagonist in here and we see him at his job when he draws a portrait of a mysterious man where we do not know why he came to this place. We find out eventually. This creative man’s family background was also in a way interesting from a comedic perspective. I am not really sure if this was intended back when Hu shot the film, but the mother was comedy gold here and there, like with the ranting about her son, but also when she on a few occasions seems to appear out of nowhere when you really would not expect her to show up. When it was dark and late at night and we expect the male character to run into obstacles and face some enemies perhaps, but how his mother keeps showing up there was bizarre in an entertaining way. With the ending, we have a group of characters (was it three?) that can be seen as antagonists I suppose and they fight against the two good guys (including the female protagonist). These antagonists are instructed to arrest our heroes and this is where the martial arts aspect comes into play because the good guys just want be left alone and live in peace. All but one of these bad guys are basically henchmen only. They are also skilled fighters of course, but the one who really stands out there and takes the film to the next level for once is who you might wanna call the final big boss. Now he was truly memorable. Not just with his craft and talent, but also the physical presence he had. You would maybe not guess so right away because he was far from a young fella, but he was so fast and strong that eventually somebody else had to come and enter the picture and help our heroes.

That character was not fully new, but I am of course talking about the one who was along the lines of a Buddhist monk there and was almost impossible to defeat fair and square. Perhaps the strongest character from this film and close to invincible and the reason was surely his proximity to religion. On a few occasions, it also seemed as if he was literally feeding from the sunlight and also that this sunlight towards the end seemed to help him with his wounds and almost healed him. This wound, with which he still managed to fight in a dedicated manner afterwards, only happened because he got tricked by the bad guy into thinking that he wants to join them and that said bad guy had accepted defeat, but it was not really the case. So he underestimated his evilness you could say and that caused him problems, maybe also that he saw the good in people too fast. I am honestly not sure about the fate of said monk towards the end. I am not sure if you could interpret what happens to him next, but I thought it was an open ending in a way. So yeah, those were some references to the early and late chapters of the movie that were indeed pretty convincing for me. However, in-between I had serious struggles as I said already. This does not only include that not too many interesting things happened or that the supporting characters there felt a bit forgettable, but also the story in general did not win me over. I understand that spirits and ghosts were a big thing back then when this film is set, especially in Asia perhaps, but this segment did almost nothing for me to be honest. Hard to believe that the villains there were really scared in such a manner that they would retreat eventually, especially with how determined their leader was with his (correct) perception that it was all man-made to chase them away.

Anyway, this idea came from the creative character who is the closest to a lead here and was probably supposed to show us that he is not a great fighter or martial artist, but that he can use his mind in a way that will be of great help when it comes to winning battles. I did find him a bit strange though. I mean early on it was still likable in an awkward way how he was behaving, but I found his exaggerated grin a bit uncomfortable from the very start, even if it was clear since minute one that he would not turn into a psychopath and become an antagonist or so. Also when, after the idea with the ghosts worked, he simply walked around the premises there and showed basically the audience every trick they pulled followed by the most exaggerated loud laughter, it was not good from my perspective. Less really would have been more there. We got the message also without this extended display. So yeah, there are no actual spirits in this film, it is not a horror or science fiction film or whatever. Also not fantasy. The only somewhat supernatural aspects here may include how strong some of the characters are and that they may have almost godly powers. But this is something where really nobody should be surprised in terms of old Asian films. They always go over the top there and get away with more than American or European filmmakers would have gotten away with. Also more than most Asian filmmakers would get away with today. That’s why we do not really get Asian martial arts films too often these days and also of course because the most known Asian films from the 21st century come from Japan and Korea, countries not too known for martial arts films.

As for the main character, the only thing that lets me doubt if he is really lead was that towards the end of the film the action moved away from him and he was almost out of the picture. The girl was still fully in it though, which helps her argument for being lead. There was also a fairly strange and random inclusion, namely when she writes him a note and leaves a baby with this note and so he is the father? Is she the mother? She never looked pregnant. The note said that she had to move on and would live with the monks from that moment on and this also came pretty much out of nowhere, even if the leaving part made sense at least because from she never seemed particularly interested in him from a romantic standpoint. I guess his mother was happy then with the baby. She already said something early on that she fears that one day she will die without grandchildren. Different times. We do not see her again though. Today having no grandchildren is not uncommon at all, but maybe it still is in Asia, but in Europe (and America) not so much. I guess this is almost it then. There are some interesting inclusions here, like when we see a guy’s facial hair at the start and another guy’s reaction to it or there are also some pretty solid nature recordings that I liked, even bleak ones, but as a whole I must say that the good and memorable moments are simply not frequent enough from my perspective that I can give this film a positive recommendation. At least not frequent enough for a film of over three hours in total. It is definitely not an iconic movie or an epic. The music was alright. Nothing more I would say. Even if I did not like the outcome too much here, I am still glad that films like this are shown again on the big screen in movie theaters and that this is becoming more of a thing nowadays, also because simply really many people show up and watch these films in movie theaters, so it is also good for those who show them from a financial perspective and for us regular movie-goers, it is of course awesome because we are not just stuck with mediocre new movies, but also have a chance to see films on the big screen again that have managed to stay known and relevant even after years, actually decades having passed. More choice is always a good thing. And even if I give this film a thumbs-down as a whole, there is no denying it is a better watch on a big screen than a on small laptop screen. Thanks for reading.