China, year 1457. The Minister of Defense is executed, and his children are sentenced to exile by order of the tyrannical Tsao. Fearful of future revenge from the young people, Tsao sends cruel soldiers to murder them, but a brave group of swordsmen can change the course of the battle at the Dragon Inn.
Dragon Gate Inn, Long men kezhan, Lóng Mén Kè Zhàn, Breakthrough, Die Herberge zum Drachentor, La posada del dragón, Таверна у врат дракона, 龙门客栈, 용문객잔, Харчевня Дракона, 残酷ドラゴン 血斗竜門の宿, Long Môn Khách Sạn, Estalagem do Dragão, Dragon Inn: A Estalagem do Dragão, ตะลุยแดนพยัคฆ์
Czechia
Filmasia Film Festival
Hong Kong
Taiwan
JapanG
FranceU
Germany
Germany16
Czechia
France
Germany
Hong Kong
Japan
Taiwan
Elementally perfect. enough to make you want to work at a movie theater where it's all they ever show.
The most beautifully-designed, expertly-orchestrated anti-eunuch propaganda in the history of cinema. As far as the pacing and rhythm of combat go this is about as perfect as it gets; the colors, the balletic movement of camera and performer, the entire film is actually a structured dance of action/reaction right down to the images and plot. I know Hu started as a set designer for Shaw Brothers but his eye for background and negative space in his compositions is insane. Those misty mountain vistas in the final fight? Chef's kiss. Also, stabbing someone with the sword that is still in your gut? Metal as fuck
So exciting to finally see this on the big screen, finally can get a sense of the sublimity of King Hu's use of space, the 'scope frame arranged so precisely in the various stand-offs, the judicious close-ups lunging out at the audience. Even smaller stuff, like the "take the shortcut" joke, which would be just as at home in a Mel Brooks movie, works so much better on the big screen, similarly the whip pans of Pai Ying's leaps out of danger, the gradual reddening of Shih Chun's eyes, and the gorgeous natural vistas that would go on to become an integral part of Hu's films. Having perfected the action movie in 1967, he was free throughout the 1970s to take it places no one has yet managed to follow.
You know shit is about to get real when a man removes his blanket to go into battle
I love how Hu creates his film around the Inn setting. It is plots and co8unter plots a series of moves that characters have to go through. There is something else that sets Dragon Inn a part from most action films: it is a true ensemble effort. How many bad guys can claim it takes a bih group of heroes to fight him one on one? And there's that framing... and that editing...and that choreography... and that final scene...
No Mortal Kombat game has ever topped this film’s Fatality by Emasculation.
I’ve always been way more of a chambara guy than I am a wuxia guy, probably because I prefer the gritty, brutal Japanese sword fights to the Chinese (or here, Taiwanese) flying-through-the-air ballet dance sword fights. However, King Hu is quite appropriately seen as the king of classic wuxia cinema, and Dragon Inn is no exception.
The plot is more akin to old Spaghetti Westerns than anything else, as it sees the children of a defeated general fleeing from soldiers sent by their father’s rival to have them killed. They seek refuge in a small inn near the border, where four heroes look to aid in defending them…
Here’s a movie that fires on every available cylinder. The action is great, but holy moly, check out those blue skies behind the action!
65/100
Starts out thrillingly classical, introducing Xiao as an archetypal lone badass—so confident in his power that he initially declines to be provoked into a fight, instead showing off his superhuman very-full-bowl-tossing skill. (Few things offer more pleasure in this genre than seeing someone non-violently demonstrate just how lethal he could be if he chose to exert himself.) Still on solid ground as it expands into more of an ensemble piece, though the claustrophobic intensity can't help but diffuse a bit when the action moves outdoors. Then comes the climactic battle sequence, and suddenly I no longer understand what I'm watching. To my knowledge, what happens has neither precedent or antecedent, in martial-arts cinema or even in action movies generally.…
Along with Seven Samurai, the greatest study of movement in epic action cinema. Camera, actors, props, even wind are all set against each other in contrast and harmony, held together by editing that displays a profound understanding of when to let things draw out and when to speed up into a flurry of motion so wild that it becomes almost psychedelic. This is also the first time you see Hu embrace the idea of wuxia as a reflection of the beauty and chaos of the natural world; even the half of the film that takes place within the walls of the inn takes care to constantly remind you of its location amid the gorgeous but foreboding sheer cliffs that empty into desert.
I ended up watching this on YouTube, because there's not even a legitimate release on DVD. This is wrong. This should be on Criterion. Still trying to decide which is cooler: When Xiao catches an arrow in a porcelain wine carafe and with a flick of the wrist tosses it right back at the man who shot it at him OR every single camera movement, shot composition, and edit.
