A Touch of Zen
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| A Touch of Zen | |
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 DVD cover |
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| Directed by | King Hu |
| Produced by | Jung-Feng Sha Shiqing Yang |
| Written by | King Hu |
| Starring | Hsu Feng Shih Jun Pai Ying Roy Chiao |
| Release date(s) | November 18, 1971 |
| Running time | 200 min approx |
| Language | Mandarin |
| All Movie Guide profile | |
| IMDb profile | |
A Touch of Zen (Chinese: 俠女, Hsia nu) is a 1969 wuxia film directed by King Hu, and made in Taiwan. The movie won siginificant critical acclaim and became the first Chinese action film ever to win a prize at the Cannes Film Festival.
Although started in 1969, A Touch of Zen wasn’t completed until 1971 and has a running time of over three hours, making it a truly epic entry in the Wuxia genre.
The plot is largely seen through the eyes of Ku (played by Shih Jun) who is a well meaning but unambitious scholar and painter. A stranger arrives in town wanting his portrait painted by Ku, but his real objective is to bring a female fugitive back to the city for execution. The fugitive, Yang (played by Hsu Feng), is befriended by Ku and together they plot against the corrupt eunuch who wants to eradicate all trace of her family after her father attempts to warn the king of the eunuch's corruption. One of the unique aspects of the film is that Ku is a non-combatant all the way through the film and only becomes involved when he sleeps with Yang.
Moodily shot, and featuring stunning settings and backdrops, A Touch of Zen was clearly influential to many films, particularly Ang Lee’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Zhang Yimou’s House of Flying Daggers.
