Sunday, August 28, 2022

Dragon Inn (1992)

Dragon Inn (1992)
Aka: New Dragon Inn
Chinese Title: 新龍門客棧
Translation: New Dragon Gate Inn

 


Starring: Maggie Cheung Man-Yuk, Brigitte Lin Ching-Hsia, Tony Leung Ka-Fai, Donnie Yen Ji-Dan, Xiong Xin-Xin, Lau Shun, Elvis Tsui Kam-Kong, Yen Shi-Kwan, Lawrence Ng Kai-Wah, Yuen Cheung-Yan
Director: Raymond Lee
Action Director: Tony Ching Siu-Tung, Yuen Bun, Cheung Yiu-Sing

 

As I’ve stated in other reviews, after The Swordsman resurrected the wuxia film in 1990, it brought with it some new rules. More importantly than the whole wire-fu trended it helped to propagate, it established that every new wuxia film should 1) be an adaptation of an existing wuxia novel (preferably by Jin Yong or Gu Long) and/or 2) had already been adapted to film by the Shaw Brothers. Case in point: The Swordsman was an adaptation of Laughing and Proud in the Martial World (or however you want to translate Xiao Ao Jiang Hu) by Jin Yong and was adapted by the Shaw Brothers as The Proud Youth in 1978.

When Tsui Hark and his Film Workshop studio (with the help of Ng See-Yuen and Seasonal Films) decided to tackle King Hu’s classic
Dragon Inn, it sort of a tangent of Rule #2: Dragon Inn had been a Taiwanese production, but King Hu made it after leaving the Shaw Brothers, so it sorta counts. It is also an all-around excellent remake, following the same story while adding enough quirks of its own to establish its own identity.

In the Ming Dynasty circa 1457, the empire is well on its way to becoming a police state. The eunuchs of the Eastern Depot have amassed a lot of power, having been placed in charge of the empire’s secret police. In this case, these eunuchs, led by Cao (Donnie Yen, of
14 Blades and Iron Monkey), have established the Black Flag Army. Composed of the best martial artists in the land, the Black Flag Army is in charge of arresting, torturing and executing all of the Emperor’s enemies. More importantly, they are in employed in securing the power of the Eastern Depot itself.

As the story opens, the Eastern Depot has arrested the Emperor’s Minister of Defense on the grounds of being a rebel rouser. In fact, the Minister of Defense realized just how much the Eastern Depot was abusing their power and had a letter sent to the Emperor to rat them out. Apparently, the letter itself was intercepted by the Black Flags and now the Minister is in their custody. Eunuch Cao has him tortured and murdered, and then orders the slaughter of his entire family, save two of his children.

Why save his children? Well, one of the minister’s most loyal retainers was a general named Zhao Huai’an (Tony Leung Kar-Fei, of
Cold War 2 and Island of Greed). General Zhao holds enough power to represent a threat to the Eastern Depot, so Cao wants to kill him, too. Therefore, he uses the children as bait to lure him out into the open and sic the Black Flag soldiers on him. That doesn’t quite work as planned: instead of General Zhao showing up, it’s his lover, Qiu Mo-Yan (Brigitte Lin, of The Swordsman 2 and Deadful Melody), who comes to the rescue with the help of some mercenaries (including Yen Shi-Kwan and Yuen Cheung-Yan, who fought each other in Once Upon a Time in China). After a pitched battle with the Black Flag Army and Cao’s other eunuch cronies, Qiu and her team make a break for it and disappear into the desert.

In order to reach the border and get the hell out of China, our heroes have to travel across the desert to the Dragon Pass. The closest bastion of civilization in those parts is a small establishment known as Dragon Gate Inn. As opposed to the original version, in which the inn was run by a man, the owner of the inn is a beautiful woman named Xiangyu (Maggie Cheung, of
The Barefooted Kid and Police Story). Xiangyu is a bit of a vixen, although part of it is an act to lure unsuspecting customers into her bedroom so that she can kill them and her cooks can use their bodies for the inn’s pork buns.

Qiu Mo-Yan and her entourage show up at the inn with the intention of staying the night, meeting up with Zhao Huai’an, and then making their way to the border the next day. Unfortunately, things do not go as planned. For starters, Xiangyu falls madly in love with Huai’an the moment he shows up at the inn. Second, this is the “rainy” season in Western China and inclement weather (of near-flash flood proportions) forces Qiu and the others to stay a few extra days. Finally, while waiting for the rain to stop, a bunch of Black Flag soldiers led by Eunuch Jia (Lau Shun, of
Blade of Fury and A Chinese Ghost Story II) show up at the establishment. And thus begins the battle of wits between the good guys and bad guys, as Cao and his army make their way toward the inn.

Dragon Inn
is an excellent film, with strong production values, wonderful cinematography and editing, great acting, and some solid action choreography courtesy of Ching Siu-Tung and Tsui Hark regular Yuen Bun. Martial arts purists will undoubtedly be put off by the excessive use of wires in the fights—even Maggie Cheung can move from point A to point B inside the inn without performing a wire-assisted jump—but that’s just how things were being done in 1992. The story itself is familiar, although it adds a love triangle element involving the three leads, plus a cannibalism subplot, which goes a long way to explain how somewhere out in the sticks could have a steady supply of meat for its guests.

All of the performances are good, but Maggie Cheung stands out as the vamp owner of the inn. Her loyalties are constantly shifting between the two parties taking up residence at the inn, especially when it becomes clear that for all of her schemes, Huai’an may simply not return her affections. When all of the tension finally gives way to violence, her Xiangyu character is forced to take a side and enter the fray. Cheung spent much of the 1980s in more comic roles, and while she does get to do some sarcasm and fast-talking here in order to cool down the atmosphere between the good guys and eunuchs, she also goes full seductress in some parts and sword-swinging badass at the end. She was nominated for Best Actress at the 1993 Hong Kong Film Awards, losing to…well…herself, for her dramatic powerhouse role in
Center Stage.

From a technical standpoint, the film looks great. Arthur Wong’s cinematography should have won an award, but
Center Stage got that instead. Nonetheless, Wong did get nominated for his work at both the Hong Kong and Taiwanese Golden Horse Awards. The running fight in the desert sands at the end is one of the most beautifully-filmed swordfights on film. Hung Poon also got nominated for Best Editing in both Hong Kong and Taiwan, and his style compliments Tony Ching’s choreography just fine.

The action here is also quite good, having garnered a nomination at the Hong Kong Film Awards, but actually winning it at the Taiwan Golden Horse Awards. Those looking for real martial arts will get a little bit at the beginning, as we see the Black Flag Army in training. There is also some at the end, when Donnie Yen finally throws down with our protagonists amidst a sandstorm. Apparently, Donnie Yen choreographed his own movements for the scene, creating a one-handed form for the shuang shou jian, or two-handed straight sword. According to Donnie Yen’s website, he also sustained a serious eye injury during this sequences, but kept filming nonetheless. In fact, the material on his site best describes the finale[1]:


"[This fight sequence], with twirling and twisting bodies flying through the air amid clouds of sand (courtesy of Ching Siu-tung’s signature wirework), are phenomenal. You’ll be guaranteed to gasp when Yen rises from the buried sands to take on the heroes. It’s a spectacular and surprising entrance, and Yen sustained a serious eye injury while executing the stunt. However, undeterred, he returned to continue filming the confrontation scene, taking on the stunt doubles for Brigitte Lin, Leung Ka-fai, and Maggie Cheung, and choreographing his own movements in this fight. It’s a whirling dervish of a scene. Furthermore, Yen exhibits masterful skill with two-handed straight sword forms, this weapon rarely being seen in films[2]. Yen earlier trained in this style while studying in China."

 

Thanks to its expert technical credits, strong soundtrack, a great performance from Maggie Cheung, and an unforgettable finale, Dragon Inn both honors its inspiration and stands on its own as one of the best wuxia pian of the 1990s New Wave revival. Producer Tsui Hark directed a sequel to this movie some 19 years later: Flying Swords of Dragon Gate, starring Jet Li as Zhao Huai’an and Zhou Xun as Xiangyu.



[2] - Michelle Yeoh used this weapon in the final phase of her duel with Zhang Ziyi in Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon.



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