MovieChat Forums > Long men kezhan (1967) Discussion > Wow, no discussion about this film?

Wow, no discussion about this film?

posted 15 years ago by dmm_nyc
5 replies | jump to latest

It's pretty astonishing to me that this film has so little notice taken of it. Apart from the fact that it was shot by a major director (King Hu) and features actors from other highly acclaimed films - like A Touch of Zen - it's just a flat out masterpiece in my opinion.

The camera movements in the action sequences during the first half hour are so reminescent of the ones later used by Scorsese in films like Mean Streets that I honestly feel he must have seen this film as a young man. And the male and female leads are such cools cat that it's hard to understand why this jewel is so neglected.

Oh well....

[–] qatmom 14 years ago

It is a wonderful example of its genre.

I suspect there is not much discussion of it here because most of the people who saw "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" & "House of Flying Daggers" had no idea that the genre has been around for a long, long time, and have no understanding of the conventions an Asian or more seasoned Western audience would bring to the movie (of COURSE a woman wearing her hair like a man would successfully disguise herself as a man!).

I does not help that there does not seem to be a release available through Amazon.

Unfortunately, I have seen some very good Shaw Brothers productions turn up on tv in their pre-restoration incarnations with bad color, bad dubbing, and severe editing. A lot of people still think such movie maulings represent the actual quality of what was done 30-45 years ago.

[–] terrakotta 14 years ago

i hear ya. Dragon Gate Inn is one of the best films ever made (easily top 10). It's just the ultimate expression of opera in cinematic form. It is an Eastern equivalent of a Western except that it's superior to any Western (objectively, it's at the very least on par with Once Upon a Time in the West, which is probably the crown of that genre). The mise-en-scene, set and costume design are incredible, the location of the inn and its surroundings are ideal and the action is cream of the crop and perfectly executed with the use of music and masterful editing.

Subjectively, the heroes are all very likable but Eunuch Zhao is a heavy candidate for best villain ever. Tsai Mingliang's Goodbye Dragon Inn paid special homage to this film and its success as a arthouse triumph perhaps provided it with some well deserved exposure. It used to bother me that Hu's oeuvre was so overlooked but now i no longer care. As for the ignorant public, their loss.

[–] Zoomorph 8 years ago

It's actually our loss when people who grow up on Hannah Montana will be running the world, our society, and telling us what we can and cannot do.

Not to mention that films like this will be entirely lost eventually if nobody cares about them.

~ Observe, and act with clarity. ~

[–] andrewhollingsworth 8 years ago

And seven years later and still barely any discussion about this masterpiece. The fact it has been remade/reimagined a few times shows that this film must do something right.

The imagery is amazing and is up there with Sergio Leone and Akira Kurosawa in my opinion.

[–] Tyler_Durden_pt 8 years ago

Wow. Easy. "Dragon Inn" is a great effort for its time and no doubt a classic, but that's clearly overstating it. The best suff by Kurosawa and Leone is much superior, in pretty much every aspect.