Dragon Inn

In the Ming dynasty a eunuch commander wants the children of a minister he has already executed killed as well. They are taken toward the frontier, and the only stop on that road is an inn in the middle of the desert. People from every side gather in the same building, and who is who emerges slowly. King Hu had changed the genre a year earlier with Come Drink with Me; here he shrinks the space. Almost the entire film takes place in one inn: who sits where, who stands behind whom, when a blade comes out. The tension comes from the seating rather than the fighting. It was an enormous commercial success in Taiwan and stood as a regional record for years. The crowded inn and the structure built on waiting at a door became a template later wuxia films copied repeatedly. Its flaw is that the characters' histories are barely given, and the open ground fight at the end sits below the tension of the inn. Who it is for: fans of classic wuxia and of tension built inside a single space. Who it is not for: viewers expecting fast action.