Dragon Gate Inn

At some points I thought I was watching a Chinese Sergio Leone movie -- the influence is definitely there. I loved the isolation of the Dragon Gate Inn itself but I would have liked some of the characters to be more fleshed out.

The plot is completely out of balance but provides a decent context to all the carnage. All the fight scenes are varying levels of greatness with the intensity ramping up steadily to a superb finale. Creative use of environment and landscapes to flesh out the drama of battle. The beautiful yet brutal fights almost gain a strange metaphysical aspect with fluid & deceptive editing. Overall a brilliant martial hero flick that's aged like a fine wine.

There's a real slapdash approach taken towards the plotting, editing and flow between scenes, and the action itself is largely unremarkable after a protracted and encouraging build-up. It's a disappointment to find a reputed wuxia classic looking more like a middling exploitation piece, free of any particular elegance, but Chun Shih and Lingfeng Shangguan still make for a pair of memorable heroes, and the music is undeniably great.

In an endless sea of martial arts films, this one stands out for its masterful use of tension. It feels like a Tarantino film... because Tarantino probably lifted a thing or two from Dragon Inn. This one doesn't have as much martial arts action as one might expect, but the story and the way King Hu tells it makes it feel like a western, and that more than makes up for it.

Holy shit this movie was fucking interminable. Why the fuck should I have cared about any of that? Very rare that a movie gets such a rise out of me; I consider boring movies to be nigh unforgivable. Seriously, how the fuck do you justify making a boring action movie? What a damn waste of time. A few nice shots though.

Along with The Thing, Dragon Gate Inn is the primary inspiration on Tarantino's The Hateful Eight. There is an ouroboros of influence of sorts as Leone is clearly a factor in DGI - lots of wide, long shots and building tension with silence which is pretty uncommon in martial arts films. It all looks and feels great when we're at the actual inn, but the last act is a major disappointment as it loses any kind of unique flavor.

Top notch wuxia with a good, though underdeveloped, setting and characters, very entertaining fights and very good cinematography.

Viewed March 24, 2020.

Fantastical martial saga set during China's Ming dynasty. As a Westerner new to this genre I found it quite interesting. Some noticeable influences from Sergio Leone / Ennio Morricone. Not much character development or the greatest action scenes, but colorful, atmospheric (thanks in large part to the intense soundtrack), and, overall, entertaining.

Enjoyed the premise and how it built the tension (as others have said here), thought some of the dialogue was cool, but if I'm being honest I didn't love the action. The fight scenes were fine, but until the final one (which was better but still not amazing) I was left feeling very cold about the combat. Still an enjoyable wuxia flick, for sure, but it's been done better.

Not as good as I expected.

Sure takes its sweet time getting to the point, but the journey is thoroughly worthwhile. The story slackens, but each scene is quickly paced and superbly directed, making economical use of neat editing and cinematographic tricks to communicate. The story, not uncommon in martial arts films, becomes a suitable vessel for visual/dramatic ideas. End is fantastic.

A classic in martial arts movies, that still holds up not because it was groundbreaking and trendsetting, but because King Hu was among the best directors ever to work in the genre.

The landscape photography is stunning, and the choreo is top notch. The story is fairly basic action/adventure fare but entirely serviceable - wouldn't be out of place in a spaghetti western.

One of the early classics of wuxia set at a remote inn that somehow becomes the meeting place of both the good guys and the bad guys. The film ebbs and flows, sometimes being ridiculous, and sometimes edging close to being a thriller. While there's no one or two standout moments in the film, the whole does seem to add up to more than the sum of its parts.

whole lotta gang shit at the end

Not much to enjoy except a few sword fights. Full of idiotic nonsense, such as catching a knife thrown using chopsticks, deflecting arrows with a paper umbrella, felling a tree with a single swipe of a sword and other insults to our intelligence. Still they keep offering up sword fights hoping something will satisfy, and admittedly a few are worth watching. The rest is tedious terrible acting, dumb dialog, stupid flying, daffy humor, ridiculous sound effects and truly obnoxious music.

This is certainly much much better than the average action-adventure bullshit from the 60s. There is not much fighting in fact, but a lot of Tarantino-like dialogue and script driven tension. But the ending disappointed me greatly, otherwise I would give it a higher score.

Director King Hu is evolving from Come Drink with Me and uses the exteriors & vistas beautifully after his studio bound films. This clearly had a big impact on the genre, and I had seen variations of the key scenes in many later films. It has a strong atmosphere and the style reminded me of Sergio Leone. I've been spoiled by the faster fights of modern films, as the fights didn't impress me that much, but this is still one of the essential films of the genre and I need to watch more Hu's work.