REVIEW:
This is the groundbreaking film that established Tsui Hark as Hong Kong's best New Wave filmmaker who successfully imported Hollywood production values. While it has aged some, Zu: Warriors from the Magic Mountain remains a unique and entertaining fantasy experience.

Loosely based on Chinese mythology, Yuen Biao stars as Ti Ming Chi, a soldier caught between warring armies on Zu Mountain. He escapes into the mountain's mystical regions which are home to ghoulish evil disciples and noble heroes, all possessing magical abilities. By joining Ting Yin (Adam Cheng), a master swordsman, Ming Chi is thrust onto a perilous quest to find the powerful Twin Swords. They are the only weapons capable of destroying an evil demon, contained temporarily by the wise Long Brows (Sammo Hung). When the demon possesses the swordsman's body in the palace of a healer Countess (Brigitte Lin), Ming Chi must complete the quest by finding the swords' keeper and uniting the weapons with the aid of an insecure monk (Mang Hoi).

Although having been made long before CGI effects were in use, this film boosts many memorable and fantastic visual effects. They may have aged some, but the level of effort and creativity put forth is impressive. Tsui Hark's trademark manic pacing and inventiveness is clearly evident with scenes employing a wide variety of Western and local filmmaking techniques. Many of the special light effects and wirework had been in use in Hong Kong at least forty or fifty years prior when fantasy films were common. Like most things, they went out of fashion as more realistic martial arts films came into play. For this film, Tsui Hark added the modern technical expertise of Hollywood effects specialists to create an updated fantasy film. Simply for the fact that these films were practically non-existent in Hong Kong at the time, this was a tremendous achievement. In 2001, Tsui Hark essentially remade this film into Legend of Zu, employing the latest digital effects although it failed to improve on the original.

As an effects-heavy film, having non-martial artists Adam Cheng and a young Brigitte Lin star was not an issue. In fact, the film's more capable action stars didn't have to sweat too hard either which is cause for some disappointment. Yuen Biao relies more on his boyish, comedic talents than on his acrobatic expertise while Sammo Hung's actions amount to his immense eyebrows doing battle with a hunk of rock.

It is this "rock" and other inhuman adversaries that do the most harm to the film. The draw of really good kung fu movies are the richly devious villains that milk our loathing and admiration for their skills. But in the case of Zu, the antagonist is evil incarnate which fuels the wars of man, a concept that works well in literature but rarely translates well on screen. It takes the form of man for a short while, but eventually it's just manifested as an increasingly vile-looking tower of rock. Another aspect of the film which has only been partially remedied in the remake is the poorly executed narrative. The film takes place over the course of approximately a month, but there is no sense of time. The sets and outdoor scenery look great, but almost never feel like they inhabit the same world. Likewise, the story moves very quickly and rarely takes time to build up the significance of various plot devices.

Watching the film is mostly a visual experience. Tsui Hark would go on to mesh action, visuals and story more successfully in films like Peking Opera Blues (1986) and Once Upon a Time in China (1991). The daunting mythological premise is partly to blame and viewers not having a sound knowledge of Chinese culture can make the experience even more confusing. Thankfully, the direction incorporates enough energy and splendor to leave you less concerned with why Norman Chu would chain himself to a boulder and more interested in knowing how they did some of these old school effects.

Zu is widely noted as Tsui Hark's first major film and one of the first modern Hong Kong movies to garner international intention (Evil Dead director Sam Raimi has noted in interviews that Zu was a major influence on his work). Some went so far as to dub Tsui the "Steven Spielberg of Hong Kong" and Zu an "Asian Star Wars." This is an interesting comparison, to be sure -- and it's not without some merit. Both films feature a reluctant hero, stories deeply rooted in their respective culture's mythology and, most importantly, there's a child-like feel to the movies.

That may sound a bit strange, but both Star Wars and Zu presnt their stories in such a wide-eyed way, one gets a certain kind of feeling from them that most other films can't match. Zu especially stands out in the world of Hong Kong films, where most characters are composed of shades of gray. The battle in Zu is simplistic -- good versus evil. When Yuen begins to get confused as to what's going on, another character simply says, "We're the good guys, they're the bad guys, understand?" Perhaps that's why Zu remains a fan favorite in Hong Kong, and why a sequel could be released almost twenty years after the original film.

However, like Star Wars, when one takes a critical eye to Zu, some flaws are revealed, especially after almost twenty years. The acting isn't that great, the plot -- dense with Chinese mythology -- may tend to lose Western viewers. Also, the special effects (some of which were done by some of the same people who worked on Star Wars) look dated and can seem a bit cheesy to modern viewers weaned on special effects-heavy films such as The Storm Riders. It also seems to show in Zu that Tsui didn't have the high level of control over all aspects of mise-en-scene that Tsui would later show on movies such as Once Upon a Time in China. Some parts suffer from somewhat choppy camerawork and editing. It's nothing horrible, but it is noticeable.

Nevertheless, Zu marks a milestone in the history of Hong Kong film history that any serious fan should watch at least once. The fact that it's a very enjoyable movie with some of the most inventive ideas put to celluoid doesn't hurt matters either.

REVIEW:
I was looking forward to seeing this film as all the hype surrounding it seemed to suggest another masterpiece by genius director Tsui Hark. What a disappointment.

After watching this film I really couldn't fathom the critical acclaim it received. Don't get me wrong, this isn't a bad film by any means, but one would have reckoned Tsui Hark would have come up with something better than this (although it is better than it's pseudo-sequel "The Legend of Zu" but what that says about "The Legend of Zu" itself is open up to debate).

Anyway, Yuen Biao stars as Ti Ming Chi, an innocent pawn caught up in a war he doesn't want to fight in. He finds a hole in a mountain populated by ghosts, monsters and other things you would find in Mark's bedroom! Yuen Biao meets up with Adam Cheng, and after seeing his skills at killing ghosts, monsters et all, he wants to be his student. This becomes the cue for lots of wire-fu and visual effects (which were done by the people who helped do the original "Star Wars" apparently). After Adam Cheng reluctantly accepts Yuen Biao as his student they go on a series of adventures and on their way meet up with the lovely Brigitte Lin and the delicious Moon Lee.

And so the film, finally, kicks into gear thirty minutes in. One of the major problems with this film is it's visual effects. They were definitely groundbreaking at the time of it's release and hence probably the reason the film garnered a Best Picture nomination at the Hong Kong Film Awards (HKFA), although it helped that the film was completely different to any other film which had previously been released in Hong Kong.

The cast, which includes Sammo Hung in dual roles are fine. Adam Cheng is very impressive, while Brigitte Lin got a well deserved Best Actress nomination at the HKFA although her role amounts to little more than an extended cameo. However, the best performance in the film goes to Moon Lee. The lovely Moon Lee combines brashness and vulnerability to great effect and projects a lot of charm and personality on the screen.

The film isn't bad, it's just that what was ground-breaking at the time has unfortunately aged badly. However, Tsui Hark directs splendidly and I was impressed with his anti-war parable. The cast give infectious performances but the hype which surrounds this film is undeserved really, although I'm sure plenty of people will disagree with me.

Still, it's well worth a watch to see what the fuss is all about. And as Millhouse once said to Bart Simpson: "Why don't we post this on the internet?", and Bart replies: "No, we need people's opinions which actually matter."