An extremely popular cinema genre from the far east is the Chinese “Wuxia” films. “Wuxia” means, “Martial Heroes”, and has its roots in Chinese literature. It is also very popular in Chinese Cinema. Particular the Cinema that emerged from Taiwan and Hong Kong. The genre deals with martial swordsman during ancient China, mixing martial arts, swordsmanship and magic.
In 2000 the Genre received international acclaim with the resounding success of Ang Lee’s, epic film, “Crouching tiger, Hidden Dragon”. “Come Drink with Me”, is one of the most beloved examples of the countless “Wuxia” films produced in Hong Kong and a direct influence to Lee. It is an early film by one of the Taiwan’s great cinema talents, “King Hu”.
Hu’s decision in making his film’s hero a young, refined and beautiful woman, is one of the great charms of the movie. He cast an accomplished Chinese ballet dancer, Cheng Pei-pei, in the role. Pei-pei had no previous acting experience and turned out at being a natural for the screen. It was this movie that made her a beloved star and jumpstarted her career in movies. Hu filmed her fighting scenes like dances in a musical and they are at the same time exciting and stunning to watch.
Pei-Pei, is the daughter of a great Army General and an accomplished warrior herself named “Golden Swallow”. Her father has imprisoned a powerful bandit leader and his gang has in return kidnapped Swallow’s brother. She is now on a mission to rescue her brother from the gang. Secretly helping her out in her mission is a mysterious beggar named Drunken Cat (Yueh Hua), who is not what he seems as he has a connection to the Kung Fu master Abbot of the temple that the criminal gang have taken refuge in.
At the beginning of the film, Swallow disguise herself as a man. It is not clear why she chooses to do this and her disguise while seemingly able to fool the ruffians in the Inn of this early sequence, did not succeed in fooling me. Pei-pei is to feminine and beautiful to pass for a man, merely by the clothes she wears. She does not even attempt to disguise her voice. Thankfully this deception is quickly discarded as the film progresses. In fact, the story does not really give a reason as to why she pretended to be a man or why she dropped the pretense either. This is a plot deficit in the film that bothered me a little bit.
There are many great set pieces to be found in the movie. Some that have directly influenced later more well-known films. There is the previously mentioned and delightful scene in the Inn, where Pei-Pei, elegantly dispenses repeated attacks by the bad guys in the Inn. Lee basically copied this scene in his, “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon”. Then there is the temple scene whereby Swallow, faces countless advisories in a spectacular sword fight. It is a pleasure watching her so swiftly dispatch all her attackers. At first one at a time and then two and even three at a time. Tarantino noticed and this surely was an influence to his famous, “Bride vs the Crazy 88”, scene from, “Kill Bill 1”.
Hu, who also co-wrote the script for the movie, seemed to run out of ideas, at the end. The movie lacks a satisfying conclusion that was so wonderfully build up to. This anti-climactic and punch less ending almost ruined the movie for me. Almost but not quite, because there are just too many good things going on here and I thoroughly enjoyed this eastern fantasy adventure with its two extremely likable heroes. As far as entertaining adventures go, you could do a lot worse then, “Come Drink with me”.
1001 Movies before you die 