There’s not really a single word or genre that will appropriately encompass King Hu’s Legend of the Mountain. It’s fair to say that the film is a fantasy, maybe, but the fantastical elements are so down-played in the first two hours of Hu’s epic that it almost comes as a shock when the mystic comes to the forefront in the film’s last stretch. And while the film takes many a cue from horror and mystery, those genre atmospherics come at you in such an off-kilter manner, so removed from anything we would traditionally understand as either ‘horror’ or ‘mystery’, that you may find yourself on the other side of the film scratching your head and wondering what it was exactly that you watched.
I watched the film a few days ago, and I’m still trying to figure that one out.
Legend of the Mountain, newly available from Kino Lorber, tells the story of Ho (Shih Chun), a young scholar who takes the job of translating an extremely rare Buddhist sutra, one which supposedly gives the wielder power over the spirits in the afterlife.
Neither a Buddhist nor a believer in the spirit realm, Ho takes the job as just that: a job. But no sooner has the sutra touched his hand then strange occurrences begin to, you know, occur. As he walks to the mountain retreat where he is meant to be hosted by a famous general as he translates the sutra, Ho encounters a number of bizarre figures. Some are threatening, some speak in riddles, and some seem to vanish into thin air. When he arrives at the fort, Ho learns that the general is dead and his army defeated and gone, leaving only some off-kilter stragglers to mind the place while odd holy men wander the surrounding area, all of whom seem to have some kind of desire for the sutra.
There’s a girl, of course, a couple of them: Cloud (Sylvia Chang), who appeared to Ho earlier in his travels but vanished mysteriously, and Melody (Hsu Feng), who at first seems shy and overly-deferential, yet somehow continues to insinuate herself deeper and deeper into Ho’s life until one day he awakens to learn that the two are now married, though he has no memory of any such event.
Much of Legend of the Mountain flows like this sort of dream. Incidents happen, people appear and say things, and it all seems to have a kind of logic to it, but that logic is nearly impossible to recall once the film is over and you have awakened from Hu’s dream. The film never stops to denote the places where reality gets left behind, or to explain the rules that govern the various ghosts and demons that stalk the fort and torment poor Ho. As a result, sequences and imagery that should look hokey given the lightyears that special effects have evolved since the film’s initial release still maintain their ability to unsettle and inspire.
Hu’s Malick-ian worship of nature also contributes to that feel, as his camera roams the forests and hills of Korea to lavish love on flowers and vegetation, or the way the setting sun paints the countryside. Combined with the bold, exaggerated color schemes in the costume design and sets, it all contributes to the sense that we are seeing history and fantasy and spirituality blend into one another, and no flavor can be divorced from the brew without spoiling the whole concoction.
Unfortunately, Ho is a fairly limp character and performance to hang a three-hour film on. His journey from dismissive skeptic to terrified believer is the kind of arc that we’ve seen play out a thousand times in the past, but Chun is not a strong enough screen presence to make it sing. Ho’s passivity in the face of all this otherworldly madness is obviously intentional, but it results in Legend of the Mountain feeling completely inert as he hangs out, and then weird shit happens, and then he hangs out some more, and then some more weird shit happens, and then he hangs out some more, and on and on for close to two full hours. The film’s final hour is a non-stop cavalcade of wuxia battles, shocking twists and turns, and supernatural madness, but the journey to get there is at times deeply taxing on the ol’ patience.
Chang and Feng are served better as the dueling sirens circling Ho. Both characters begin in the margins but gradually work their way into the heart of the picture until it is their conflict and their characters that are truly at the center. The reveal of what exactly happened at that fort that led to it being abandoned is indeed as horrifying as advertised, and Chang does strong work in establishing the confusion and loneliness that have followed her ever since her world broke.
Feng, meanwhile, bides her time and then walks off with the movie. Hers is the wildest material in the film, and Feng goes for broke as this furious ghost of a woman. Hu allows you to understand, and even sympathize, with the roots of her rage, even as she leaves a scorched earth trail behind her. Like an early precursor to The Witch, Melody is someone who has been pushed so far that her only option seemed to be to become the worst version of what everyone already assumed she was, and you may find yourself struggling to decide who to root for in the final confrontation.
Lavish but inert, Legend of the Mountain isn’t like any other film I can name. Hu possessed tremendous gifts as a director, but I often found myself wishing that someone had been around to temper some of his instincts towards lethargy. As is, Legend often feels like he included every single bit of footage that was shot, and that indulgent streak muddies the diamond core to be found within this story.