The one where Brigitte Lin and Maggie Cheung try to strip each other.

Aug 20, 2011 12:33


New Dragon Gate Inn (released in the US as Dragon Inn) is one of the odder wuxia movies I've come across.

Set during the Ming Dynasty, Donnie Yen plays an evil, power crazed eunuch, Tsao, who has created his own mini empire in his sector of China and has his own ebvil army. As one does. When his officials start going "Dude, that's not cool" he executes his defense minister and the guy's entire family, except for one son and one daughter, who he plans to use as bait to catch Wai-on (Tony Leung), a rebel general who was the minister's friend. Except that the person who shows up is Wai-on's crossdressing girlfriend, Mo-yan (played by Brigitte Lin), and so Tsao pulls back hoping that Mo-yan will lead him to Wai-on, and everyone is chasing someone else into the desert.

So far, it's business as usual, unless you just aren't used to Donnie Yen as an evil eunuch.

But then Mo-yan and Tsao's spies both arrive at an inn in the desert, run by Jade (Maggie Cheung). Jade is your typical sneaky and greedy innkeep whose clientele is mostly murderers and bandits. She occassionally seduces her richer guests, kills them, and takes their money. Oh, and she sends their corpses to the kitchen to be used to make meat buns, and the blood goes into the wine.

The meat at the inn tastes a bit odd.

When Mo-yan shows up, Jade knows she's a woman immediately, due to the lack of hots for her. (It doesn't exactly work that way, but since she looks like Maggie Cheung, you can understand where she might get the idea.) She decides to spy on Mo-yan in the bath, but gets caught. The women then spend a while trying to rip off each others clothes while staying clothed themselves.

Never let it be said that Tsui Hark does not believe in the power of femslash. I mean, he did make a movie that's basically about Maggie Cheung and Joey Wong seductively writhing, sometimes against each other.

Anyway, after that, Jade meets Wai-on and decides he's cute. Wai-on basically spends the movie looking pretty, trying to protect his virtue from Jade while also trying to get her to reveal a secret passage, and really hooing he doesn't get dumped, while Mo-yan and Jade trade knowing glances. Every 10-15 minutes or so, it cuts to Tsao and his army charging through the desert, accompanied by music of Doom and Danger.

The final fight involves a man stabbing another with the skeleton of his own hand. That's still attached to his body. And desert sand working on bullets. And solid ground apparently turning into quicksand.

Somehow, it all manages to also be very pretty despite most of it taking place inside a dim and dusty inn.

Have a random Brigitte Lin in the desert:



I mentioned the part where Maggie Cheung runs a cannibal inn, right? Because, yeah.

movies, cmovie: new dragon gate inn, cmovie, wuxia

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