At once the artistic peak and the decadent end-point of the wuxia (ancient martial arts) genre, King Hu’s visionary epic—which took over two years to complete—follows the exploits of Yang, a courageous young woman fleeing the corrupt government agents that murdered her family, and Ku, a bumbling artist who comes to her aid. The film’s iconic, gravity-defying bamboo-forest battle elevates the fight sequence to new heights of compositional rigor and balletic beauty, while its enigmatic climax achieves a profound yet trippy cosmic grandeur that recalls Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968). A formative influence on films like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000) and The Assassin (2015), A Touch of Zen was awarded the Grand Prize for Technical Achievement at the 1975 Cannes Film Festival. This stunning, new 4K restoration provides a rare opportunity to see Hu’s masterpiece the way it was meant to be seen.
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