king hu

Bump!

I've never seen his films, is he really a martial arts director or is his director films more varied than that?

Two things I recall reading about him (1)he made Legend Of The Mountain and Raining In The Mountain, one is supposed to be classic and the other terrible, but I can't recall which is which (2) he found Tsui Hark too hands on as a producer, since Hark basically directs all the film's he produces.

Can anyone give us a quick guide?

https://www.slantmagazine.com/film/review/legend-of-the-mountain

never seen this one, rave review here.

Think that's due for a disc release by Eureka/Masters of Cinema at some point this year, so shouldn't be too difficult to see by legit or other means.

I found a version on the torrents that has been heavily cut down to a much less epic 1hr 52 mins.

I bought Raining In The Mountain a while ago on the understanding that it was the better of the two but maybe not?

Legend Of The Mountain - After much puzzling over whether this or Raining In The Mountain is reputed to be the better one, I personally think this is superior, and even better than A Touch Of Zen, Dragon Inn and Come Drink With Me. It's far more atmospheric and beautiful and strongly contrasts with Raining (which was all about plot), there's many scenes that look like they're from nature documentaries and I found this made the length of the film easier to take than Hu's other films. It goes much further than Zen did with capturing impressive light effects. It's also the only fully supernatural of the four I've seen and makes better use of the settings. So it does everything I liked about those other films but even better.

On the Eureka disc Tony Rayns talks in an about Raining and Legend being part of a two film deal in South Korea (where they were shot), I find it very surprising that Legend was the extra obligation King Hu had to fulfill because it just seems like a much bigger project.
I had no idea that subtitling films used to be so incredibly expensive.

I was a bit wary about seeing another Hu film from this era because they can feel so damn long but I'd recommend you get this one. I hope to see Painted Skin soon.

Ha, funny to see the starting post in this thread, hadn't remembered that's how I got my copy of that!

Anyway, Legend of the Mountain landed on MUBI yesterday and I watched it in the afternoon -- basically echoing Robert's comments from two years back, a remarkably beautiful film. Certainly you have to settle in at three hours fifteen minutes but I think it used its time well on its own terms.

I seen Fate Of Lee Khan several months ago and it might be my second favorite after Legend Of The Mountain.

Still awaiting Painted Skin and The Valiant Ones if Eureka and whoever else relevant would be so kind.