Format: DVD from NetFlix on big ol’ television.
The wuxia genre is a fun one, but not one I know very well. There are only a couple of films from this genre on The List, so I won’t be getting too familiar with it in the near future, either. Da Zui Xian (Come Drink With Me is a relatively early entry in the genre, and an early one in the career of direction King Hu. It shows its age and its relative ineptitude in places, but it stil proves to be a movie very much worth seeing, if only for the history of the genre.
Like many a wuxia film, I’m not completely positive I followed every nuance of the plot. Only the most diehard fan will have the desire to unravel all of the different plot threads here. It’s perhaps too complicated for a film that is based on seeing people punch each other repeatedly. A group of bandits has had their leader captured by the authorities of the area. The leader is being led off for execution. In retaliation, they kidnap the son of the governor, hoping to enact a trade—the leader for the son. If they don’t get their leader back, they’ll kill the son, no questions asked.
