Come Drink with Me

A band of outlaws kidnap the governor's son and demand the release of their leader in exchange. The person sent to handle it is a woman fighter known as Golden Swallow, accompanied by a beggar who appears to be permanently drunk. King Hu's film changed the genre. He staged combat as dance rather than brawling, with camera movement, cutting and music working to one rhythm, and impacts landing almost on a musical beat. The long sequence in the inn is a lesson in choreography, building tension around a single table. Cheng Pei-pei in the lead was not a martial artist but a dancer, and Hu's decision to cast her is exactly why it works. The film was among the highest earning Shaw Brothers productions of its year, and its influence reaches all the way to Ang Lee's Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon decades later. Its flaws: the script is simple, the heroine recedes in the second half, and the effects look primitive now. Who it is for: anyone curious about the origins of wuxia. Who it is not for: viewers who want realistic fighting.