A Touch of Zen

A Touch of Zen is a 1971 Taiwanese wuxia film directed by King Hu. The film won significant critical acclaim and became the first Chinese language action film ever to win a prize at the Cannes Film Festival, claiming the Technical Grand Prize award. Although filming began in 1969, A Touch of Zen was not completed until 1971. The original Taiwanese release was in two parts in 1970 and 1971 with the bamboo forest sequence that concludes Part 1 reprised at the beginning of Part 2; this version has a combined run time of 200 minutes. In November 1971 both parts of the film were combined into one for the Hong Kong market with a run time of 187 minutes. Its running time of over three hours makes it an unusually epic entry in the wuxia genre.