Post by kyc on Jul 10, 2019 5:51:58 GMT
I promised to review this film. Although I'm late by a few weeks, here's my review...
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I watched this movie on DVD, courtesy of Master of Cinema (Eureka!) Region B Blu-Ray edition. This is a dual format edition. I cannot afford the Criterion, and I do not have a Region B Blu-ray player yet. (Singapore is Region A.) So I have to make do with the lower-resolution DVD, watching on my laptop.
From DVDBeaver I see there isn't that much of a difference between the Criterion and the MoC image. The Criterion probably has the better contrast but both seem to come from a 4K restoration so the presentations are very similar.
However...
I have misgivings about the MoC subtitles (by IBF Subtitling, London). For about two dozen times I noticed that the translation is somewhat different from the Chinese original, more than I would like. Most of the subtitles are fine, but occasionally there is a gaffe. I will quote examples. Sometimes the subtitling is less obviously colorful than the original: Shangguan Lingfeng, at one time, says something like "There's pigeon stool in the wine" but the subtitles give "The wine isn't good for you." The mistakes can be more obvious. When the innkeeper visits the siblings, he is really saying, "You've been muddle-headed since a child" but the subtitles give the strangely inaccurate "You were traumatised as a child"! Later the innkeeper says in Mandarin, "I last saw you when you were 18" but the subtitles give "when you were a child". Now 18 to me isn't a child anymore. The Tartar boys were "sterilised" rather than "castrated." And so on and so forth. I hope the subtitles in the Criterion edition are better.
The rest of the MoC presentation is pretty good. It has a video essay (15 minutes) by David Cairns, and a 36-page booklet where Tsui Hark and Tony Rayns pay tribute to the director. Rayns, the best critic of Chinese movies from the West now, writes a good essay. There is also a (flickering) archival newsreel footage of Taiwanese flocking to see the movie in 1967.
About the movie:
Obviously I would have preferred watching this on Blu-Ray but it was not to be. The image quality on the MoC DVD is rather soft. No matter. The film is quite good though--worthy of being a classic.
Dragon Inn isn't as groundbreaking as A Touch of Zen or the Mountain movies that follow, but it establishes several recognizable tropes in the genre. The Evil Eunuch, the Swordswoman disguised as a man, the Scholar Swordsman, the Family of the Framed Loyal Official. To be honest, the narrative isn't that important. The storyline is quite basic and functional. Yu Qian, a loyal official toward the end of the Ming Dynasty, is framed and executed. His two children are exiled to the frontiers. (Readers of Liang Yusheng will remember Yu Chengzhu, the protagonist of Sanhua Nvxia, as the daughter of Yu Qian, although in Dragon Inn the daughter's name and character are completely different.) The powerful and wicked eunuch Cao (not Zhao as the subtitles have it, Wades-Giles: Tsao) (played by Pai Ying) wants them killed to make sure the spirit of the righteous official doesn't arise again. So agents from the Eastern Agency (東廠) are sent to exterminate these children.
The bad guys end up in an inn to waylay them, but met with Xiao (Shih Jun), a scholar swordsman whose sword is kept within an oil-paper umbrella, and a pair of siblings, one a girl in drag (Shangguan Lingfeng). Together with the innkeeper, they foil their evil plot and eventually defeat the highly-skilled eunuch, killing him.
Unlike Come Drink with Me, most of the film isn't shot within a set, but in a scenic mountain chain in Taiwan. The cast is replaced by a slew of Taiwanese actors and actress. The tension really builds up with the introduction of Xiao and the brother-and-sister siblings. Thereafter, the movie is a series of set pieces and well-choreographed fight sequences. Of course, the choreography isn't as physical as Yuen Woo Ping's for Crouching Tiger; they seem more like dance steps well edited by Hu. Hu is a very clever editor--most of his fight sequences are so skilfully edited that they continue to be enjoyable to watch, even allowing the performers to do something seemingly impossible.
I enjoy this movie for its balletic fight sequences, of which there are lots of variety. But the cinematography and framing are trumped by Hu's later triumphs: A Touch of Zen and the Mountain double bill. The cinematography and mis-en-scene of those films are astounding, while Dragon Inn's are only nice and enjoyable. But the plot of this movie is much easier to follow than in the later ones.
For its blockbuster appeal, for its status as a classic, Dragon Inn is definitely worth a watch. I feel that it is marginally better than Come Drink with Me, but A Touch of Zen is quite a bit better. A Touch of Zen is probably the best wuxia film in my estimation, but its delights are more a cinephile's. Dragon Inn is more populist (and simpler).
My rating; 8/10.
------
I watched this movie on DVD, courtesy of Master of Cinema (Eureka!) Region B Blu-Ray edition. This is a dual format edition. I cannot afford the Criterion, and I do not have a Region B Blu-ray player yet. (Singapore is Region A.) So I have to make do with the lower-resolution DVD, watching on my laptop.
From DVDBeaver I see there isn't that much of a difference between the Criterion and the MoC image. The Criterion probably has the better contrast but both seem to come from a 4K restoration so the presentations are very similar.
However...
I have misgivings about the MoC subtitles (by IBF Subtitling, London). For about two dozen times I noticed that the translation is somewhat different from the Chinese original, more than I would like. Most of the subtitles are fine, but occasionally there is a gaffe. I will quote examples. Sometimes the subtitling is less obviously colorful than the original: Shangguan Lingfeng, at one time, says something like "There's pigeon stool in the wine" but the subtitles give "The wine isn't good for you." The mistakes can be more obvious. When the innkeeper visits the siblings, he is really saying, "You've been muddle-headed since a child" but the subtitles give the strangely inaccurate "You were traumatised as a child"! Later the innkeeper says in Mandarin, "I last saw you when you were 18" but the subtitles give "when you were a child". Now 18 to me isn't a child anymore. The Tartar boys were "sterilised" rather than "castrated." And so on and so forth. I hope the subtitles in the Criterion edition are better.
The rest of the MoC presentation is pretty good. It has a video essay (15 minutes) by David Cairns, and a 36-page booklet where Tsui Hark and Tony Rayns pay tribute to the director. Rayns, the best critic of Chinese movies from the West now, writes a good essay. There is also a (flickering) archival newsreel footage of Taiwanese flocking to see the movie in 1967.
About the movie:
Obviously I would have preferred watching this on Blu-Ray but it was not to be. The image quality on the MoC DVD is rather soft. No matter. The film is quite good though--worthy of being a classic.
Dragon Inn isn't as groundbreaking as A Touch of Zen or the Mountain movies that follow, but it establishes several recognizable tropes in the genre. The Evil Eunuch, the Swordswoman disguised as a man, the Scholar Swordsman, the Family of the Framed Loyal Official. To be honest, the narrative isn't that important. The storyline is quite basic and functional. Yu Qian, a loyal official toward the end of the Ming Dynasty, is framed and executed. His two children are exiled to the frontiers. (Readers of Liang Yusheng will remember Yu Chengzhu, the protagonist of Sanhua Nvxia, as the daughter of Yu Qian, although in Dragon Inn the daughter's name and character are completely different.) The powerful and wicked eunuch Cao (not Zhao as the subtitles have it, Wades-Giles: Tsao) (played by Pai Ying) wants them killed to make sure the spirit of the righteous official doesn't arise again. So agents from the Eastern Agency (東廠) are sent to exterminate these children.
The bad guys end up in an inn to waylay them, but met with Xiao (Shih Jun), a scholar swordsman whose sword is kept within an oil-paper umbrella, and a pair of siblings, one a girl in drag (Shangguan Lingfeng). Together with the innkeeper, they foil their evil plot and eventually defeat the highly-skilled eunuch, killing him.
Unlike Come Drink with Me, most of the film isn't shot within a set, but in a scenic mountain chain in Taiwan. The cast is replaced by a slew of Taiwanese actors and actress. The tension really builds up with the introduction of Xiao and the brother-and-sister siblings. Thereafter, the movie is a series of set pieces and well-choreographed fight sequences. Of course, the choreography isn't as physical as Yuen Woo Ping's for Crouching Tiger; they seem more like dance steps well edited by Hu. Hu is a very clever editor--most of his fight sequences are so skilfully edited that they continue to be enjoyable to watch, even allowing the performers to do something seemingly impossible.
I enjoy this movie for its balletic fight sequences, of which there are lots of variety. But the cinematography and framing are trumped by Hu's later triumphs: A Touch of Zen and the Mountain double bill. The cinematography and mis-en-scene of those films are astounding, while Dragon Inn's are only nice and enjoyable. But the plot of this movie is much easier to follow than in the later ones.
For its blockbuster appeal, for its status as a classic, Dragon Inn is definitely worth a watch. I feel that it is marginally better than Come Drink with Me, but A Touch of Zen is quite a bit better. A Touch of Zen is probably the best wuxia film in my estimation, but its delights are more a cinephile's. Dragon Inn is more populist (and simpler).
My rating; 8/10.