All the King's Men

Well, this was an expedition to find legally. This movie is seriously impossible to find and I had to go digging through French sites to even find a bootleg copy of this. I don't like doing that but it seems like the only way to watch this without spending weeks and thousands of dollars tracking this down. I'm not doing that for my challenge, I have enough on my plate with what I am doing!

This was only okay. It's interesting in that it's set during the Zhou/Warring States period, giving it a very different flavor from King Hu's more familiar Ming-era wuxia films. The screenplay is probably its strongest asset, spinning an intricate web of favors, conspiracies, and courtly antics that gradually pulls more and more characters into its orbit. Even in a rough copy, Hu's eye for costumes, interiors, and staging is evident. That said, it never fully captured me, and having to watch an elusive fan-subbed version likely didn't help. I still think it's worth seeing for Hu completists or anyone curious about his late period, but good luck finding it. Try and watch Painted Skin instead.