New Dragon Gate Inn

The Ming dynasty. At court the eunuch Tso has gained great power and set up his own court and his own troops. He has an opponent executed and wants his children killed too. The rescued children are to be met at an inn in the middle of the desert. The inn stands near the border and its owner Jade keeps her own rules: no questions to the guests, no questions about where the money came from, and if need be the guest goes into the food. Both the fugitives and the soldiers after them arrive the same night. A sandstorm closes the road and nobody can leave. Raymond Lee directs; Tsui Hark produced and shaped it. Maggie Cheung, Brigitte Lin, Tony Leung Ka-fai and Donnie Yen are in the cast. The film is a remake of a 1967 Taiwanese production; the original is King Hu's and holds an important place in the history of the genre. Its best side is the setting; the inn works as a closed box and everyone is watching everyone. The innkeeper played by Maggie Cheung carries the film and the character is far freer than the genre expects. The fights were shot with wire work and proceed in the Hong Kong manner of the nineties. The finale takes place in the desert and the fight in the sand is its most cited section. It belongs to the years when the period film revived in Hong Kong cinema. Who it is for: viewers who like Hong Kong martial arts and period films. Who it is not for: the plot is tangled, there are many characters, and the violence is explicit.