Yingchunke Zhi Fengbo

Back in Hong Kong after making A Touch of Zen and other films in Taiwan, King Hu assembled his most starry cast ever for this brilliant chamber drama set in the Yuan Dynasty, when China was ruled by Mongols. Tipped off by a Chinese traitor, Mongol baron Lee Khan visits a remote inn in Shaanxi to crush a planned uprising. The manageress of the inn (played by veteran Shanghai star Li Lihua) anticipates his arrival by casting colleagues from the Chinese resistance as inn-staff and guests. All of this sets the stage for witty characterisations and impersonations, bluffs and double-bluffs, and an extended cat-and-mouse game which eventually flares into open conflict. Magnificently acted and designed, the film lives and breathes in Hu’s incredibly detailed mise en scène, most of all the virtuoso tracking shots which take in vignettes from every square metre of the space. Tony Rayns