'Dragon Inn': Remastered martial-arts masterpiece

We've long associated the martial-arts classics of the 1960s and '70s with Hong Kong, home to prodigious film companies such as Shaw Brothers and Golden Harvest. Yet the genre owes perhaps its greatest debt to the Taiwanese filmmaker Hu Jinquan - or King Hu as he's known here.

Hu rewrote the rules of the wuxia, or "martial hero," film with three stunning classics: Come Drink With Me (1966), Dragon Inn (1967), and A Touch of Zen (1971).

Beloved by serious genre fans, Hu, who was 64 when he died in 1997, is hardly a household name in America. That's due in part to the unavailability of the two latter films, except in badly dubbed versions on degraded VHS copies.

Both have now been digitally restored in high definition by Janus Films, which is showing them off at select theaters before releasing them on disc later this year. A Touch of Zen, Hu's undisputed masterpiece, won't make it to Philadelphia theaters. But Dragon Inn, which opens Friday, is great enough.

Known in some markets as Dragon Gate Inn, it has become such a favorite among Hong Kong filmmakers that it has been remade twice: in 1992 as New Dragon Gate Inn and in 2011 as The Flying Swords of Dragon Gate.

The movie is a David-and-Goliath story set in a vast, desert wasteland at the edge of the Chinese empire - empty but for a tiny inn, where a small band of wandering heroes joins up to defend a family from the army's mighty force.

The film opens with a ridiculously complicated voice-over about court politics in Ming Dynasty China that introduces what turns out to be a straightforward plot.

One of the emperor's most powerful advisers, a mad eunuch named Tsao Shao-chin (Bai Ying), has executed the beloved minister of defense, Wu Chien. He banishes the minister's wife and two children, then sets out to murder them, chasing them for hundreds of miles to Dragon Gate.

The diverse heroes who convene at the inn - the last stop for water, food, and lodging before you run up against the Tatar army - include loner Hsiao Shao-tzu (Shih Chun), general-turned-innkeeper Wu Ning (Cho Kin), and the mysterious brother-sister team Mr. Chu (Hsieh Han) and Ms. Chu (Polly Shang-kuan).

Countless battles large and small ensue between the empire and the resistance, but fight junkies expecting bone-crushing kicks and punches will be disappointed. Almost all of the fighting is done with swords, and the stunt work looks awfully slow and awkward.

Hu's films make minimal use of wires - folks don't walk up the side of walls or traverse a forest in single leaps as in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. He introduced to the genre a more realistic, less stylized, and slightly bloodier form of sword fighting.

This film also has a great sense of play, great comic set pieces, and droll visual tricks: In one scene Hsiao catches an arrow with his wine carafe then flings it back to kill the archer.

Dragon Inn is wuxia storytelling at its purest: The heroes may be loners, outcasts, and rogues, but they possess an innate sense of honor that goes beyond the loyalty with which others defend an army or a homeland.

There is no real reason why the good guys help the minister's fleeing family other than their sense of justice. They have no stake in the conflict.

Dragon Inn is also exceptional visually, with gorgeous cinematography that makes full use of the wide-screen format for exterior scenes. Its night scenes and interiors are painterly, exquisitely lit tableaux.

Its historical influence aside, Dragon Inn delivers pure cinematic pleasure. I'm not sure it can be overpraised.

tirdad@phillynews.com
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