Come Drink with Me (Digitally Restored Version)

Dir: King Hu
Scrs: King Hu, Er Yang (aka Ting Shan-hsi)
Martial Arts Choreographer: Han Yingjie
Prod Co: Shaw Brothers
Cast: Cheng Pei-pei, Elliot Yueh Hua, Golden Chen Hung-lieh, Li Yunzhong, Yang Zhiqing
1966 | Colour | DCP | Mandarin | Chi & Eng Subtitles (with Korean projected subtitles) | 91min

When her brother is kidnapped by the notorious bandit Jade-Faced Tiger (Golden Chen Hung-lieh) and his gang, swordswoman Golden Swallow (Cheng Pei-pei) disguises herself as a man to enter the outlaw stronghold, resulting in a series of tenacious fights. Her effort is aided without her knowledge by the chivalrous martial artist Fan (Elliot Yueh Hua), who poses as a drunken nobody. When Jade-Faced Tiger recruits the help of the formidable Abbot Liao Kung, Fan’s senior fellow disciple who has turned corrupted, Fan finds himself in a moral struggle, torn between gratitude for Liao Kung’s benevolence in the past and contempt for his malevolence in the present…

King Hu’s first wuxia film fuses together rich literary, theatrical, and cinematic influences, not only establishing a distinct artistry but also helping to establish a new age of wuxia filmmaking in Hong Kong. The story draws inspiration from Peking opera (such as the drunken beggar character), and its action choreography features brisk action coordinated with music and editing, formulating a visualised literati quality and pioneering a unique, elegant aesthetic never before seen in commercial films of Hong Kong. The kinetic photography by Japanese cinematographer Nishimoto Tadashi (aka He Lanshan) is complemented by the graceful movements by Cheng Pei-pei, a newcomer and a trained dancer whose iconic appearance, realised through history-based costuming and bolstered by the actress’ charismatic presence, became a prototype for swordswoman roles in wuxia cinema. The film was a big hit across Asia, and was one of the few Hong Kong films to achieve both critical and box-office success in Korea in the 1960s.

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