Undercover agents, double-crossing monks and corrupt officials duck, dive and duke it out within the hallowed halls of a Buddhist monastery in King Hu‘s last significant film. Made in South Korea simultaneously with Legend of the Mountain, this is a martial arts movie only in the loosest sense (the first fight scene occurs nearly an hour into the film), with action scenes filmed in the wuxia tradition, choreographed by Beijing Opera-trained Ng Ming-tsui, who was part of the Seven Little Fortunes with Sammo Hung and Jackie Chan. Always keen to dabble in genre, Hu’s film is more of a caper than an all-out action flick, clearly distinguishing it from his more fight-centric Hong Kong films or his ghostly masterpiece, A Touch of Zen. It’s also his most overtly Buddhist film; its main focus appears to be exalting the practices of Buddhism and the notion that anyone can attain spiritual enlightenment if they are prepared to shun the material world. Set during the Ming dynasty, a series of distinguished guests arrive at a Buddhist monastery (its filmed at Bulguksa Temple in South Korea) to witness the announcement of a new Abbott, as the previous one prepares to retire. Among the guests are the famed bandit White Fox (Hsu Feng, in another one of her excellent, tough knight-errant roles) and Gold Lock (Ng Ming-tsui), who promptly start scampering around the nooks and crannies of the temple in a bid to find the ‘Mahayana Sutra’, a highly revered and priceless Buddhist text supposedly scribed by Tripitaka. As the Abbott considers who should succeed him, the monks start to exhibit less than honourable behaviour in their quest for power. The plot thickens when a criminal named Chui Ming (Tung Lin) joins the party, arrested for a crime he didn’t commit and ready to convert to a monastic life. His journey of self-discovery forms the soul of the film – he’s a symbol of virtue in a wash of shady characters with more materialistic ambitions. The story unfolds at a luxurious pace (King Hu also acting as editor) and it’s maybe too slow for modern sensibilities, with Hu lingering on long walking sequences and establishing shots which take their sweet time. Paradoxically, the film is also a great celebration of movement, in which characters hide, seek, fly through the air (aided by King’s favoured trampolines) and, in the case of a group of highly trained handmaidens, leap about a lot, as demonstrated in the film’s action-heavy denouement. Although basking in the success of winning the Technical Grand Prize at the 1975 Cannes film festival, by 1979, Hu was quite obviously out of step with the cinema of the time, attempting to release this film at the tail-end of the kung fu boom and the rise of ‘new wave’ Hong Kong cinema. But history has been kind to Hu; an altogether singular artist, pulling from a far broader cinematic and literary range. His interest in spirituality, feminism, costume, colour and combat as choreography is all on display, and although not his best work, it’s still a feast for the eyes.