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The Fate of Lee Khan
The Fate of Lee Khan
	Original Hong Kong film poster
Directed by	King Hu
Written by	King Hu; Chung Wang;
Starring	Li Li-hua; Roy Chiao; Hsu Feng; Ying Bai; Tien Feng;
Cinematography	Chao Yung Chen
Edited by	Yung-Tsan Liang
Music by	Joseph Koo
Production; companies	King Hu Film Productions; Golden Harvest Company;
Release date	6 December 1973 (Hong Kong);
Country	Hong Kong
Language	Mandarin

The Fate of Lee Khan (Chinese: 迎春閣之風波) is a 1973 Hong Kong wuxia film, directed by King Hu.^[6]

Plot

During the waning years of the Yuan Dynasty, Mongol general Lee Khan and his sister Wan’er travel to the desolate Spring Inn in Shaanxi province to obtain a map of the tactical plans of the rebel forces. Aided by Wan Jen-Mi, innkeeper of the Spring Inn, a group of undercover resistance fighters seek to recover the map to save the rebellion.^[6]

Cast

Cast adapted from the 2019 Masters of Cinema blu-ray.^[4]

Li Li-Hua as Wan Jen-mi
Roy Chiao as Tsao Yu-kun
Hsu Feng as Lee Wan-erh
Ying Bai as Wang Shih Cheng
Tien Feng as Lee Khan
Angela Mao as Hai Mu-tan
Hu Chin as Shui Mi-tao
Helen Ma as Yeh Li-Hsiang
Nan Chiang as Liu San-Hu
Han Ying-chieh as Sha Yuan Shan
Chia-hsiang Wu as Tavern manager Liu

Analysis

The film is one of the Chinese action films that helped encourage that there be more female action roles.^[7]

The director King Hu used methods of framing to show action scenes in detail. Close to the end of the film, the director used cutting patterns and edge framing to show how similar all of the fighters' moves are.^[8] Hu also filmed The Fate of Lee Khan back to back with The Valiant Ones.^[6]

Release

The Fate of Lee Khan was distributed in Hong Kong on December 6, 1973.^[1]

Reception

From contemporary reviews, Tony Rayns reviewed The Fate of Lee Khan in Sight & Sound finding the film "always strikingly beautiful" and that its "bald narrative outline risks suggesting that Lee Khan would sit more comfortably within the Chinese martial arts genre than in fact it does. Its vividly stylised clashes" were "far from being the film's raison d'etre as they are from being mere set-pieces.".^[9] Rayns concluded that the film was a "remarkable achievement, and not just by the standards of Hong Kong cinema. One can only hope that its appearance here (mercifully subtitled, not dubbed) may herald more of King Hu's work."^[9] Verina Glessner of the Monthly Film Bulletin stated that director King Hu "comes closest of all currently active Chinese directors to fitting our notion of an art film director" noting that he "isn't averse to check-mating audience expectations as much as his characters' moves."^[5] Glessner also noted the script by King Hu and Wang Chung that "like the direction and the gallery of camero [sic?] performances, shows a rare sharpness and sophistication."^[5]

From retrospective reviews, Michael Brooke wrote in Sight & Sound once the film is set up it was as "taut as any Hitchcock or Clouzot suspense. Violent action erupts out of nowhere and ends almost as quickly as it began- at least, until the final pitched battle which is also the film's only really prolonged exterior scene."^[10] Glenn Kenny of the New York Times made the film his "New York Times Critic's Pic" and stated that the film " falls into a sweet lather, rinse, repeat mode of scenes, alternating character intrigue and fighting."^[11]

References

^ ^a ^b "Hong Kong Film Archive [Search for "迎春閣之風波"]". Hong Kong Film Archive. Retrieved 11 March 2020.
^ ^a ^b "[back cover]". The Fate of Lee Khan (Booklet). Eureka!. 2019. 214.
^ "Contents". The Fate of Lee Khan (Booklet). Eureka!. 2019. pp. 3–4. 214.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e "The Fate of Lee Khan". The Fate of Lee Khan (Booklet). Eureka!. 2019. p. 2. 214.
^ ^a ^b ^c Glaessner, Verina (March 1975). "The Fate of Lee Khan". Monthly Film Bulletin. Vol. 42, no. 494. British Film Institute. pp. 53–54.
^ ^a ^b ^c Stephen Teo. "King Hu's The Fate of Lee Khan and The Valiant Ones". Sense of Cinema. Retrieved 27 December 2011.
^ Billson, Anne; British Film Institute (2005). Buffy the vampire slayer. Macmillan. p. 12. ISBN 978-1-84457-089-8.
^ Fu, Poshek; David Desser (2002). The Cinema of Hong Kong: History, Arts, Identity. Cambridge University Press. p. 22. ISBN 978-0-521-77602-8. Retrieved 27 December 2011.
^ ^a ^b Rayns, Tony (Spring 1975). "Film Reviews". Sight & Sound. Vol. 44, no. 2. British Film Institute. pp. 121–122.
^ Brooke, Michael (December 2019). "New Releases". Sight & Sound. Vol. 29, no. 12. British Film Institute. p. 84.
^ Kenny, Glenn (4 April 2019). "'The Fate of Lee Khan' Review: King Hu Directs Angela Mao". New York Times. Retrieved 12 March 2020.