Hong Kong  1983  Also Known As:   Zu: Warriors from the Magic Mountain (1983)  Zu: Warriors of the Magic Mountain (1983)  Zu Time Warriors (1983)  Zu Warriors (1983)  Warriors from the Magic Mountain (1983)  Shu Shan (1983)  Language:  Cantonese with English subtitles  Directed by:  Hark Tsui   Production Design by:  William Chang   Film Editing by:  Chi Kwong Shek   Other crew:  Corey Yuen ....  action choreographer

This is an interesting film in that it is similar to Hollywood style of narrative but in more extreme way.  Moreover, in this film, as well as many other Hong Kong films, literally spoon-feeds the audience.  For example, when heaven blade sacrificed himself to get the monk and soldier out, there was an over voice “Heaven Blade killed him self to send us out of the cave.”  It is pretty obvious that the viewers can see that from the movie, but they had to rub it in more.  Also, this film, in many parts, has its characters make speech that is basically the theme of the movie.  During the time period, 1983, Hong Kong begin to realize that in about a decade, China will take over and Hong Kong will not be as free as they were under English rule.  In the beginning of the movie, the protagonist cannot decide which leader to listen to (China and England) and became an outcast.  Hark Tsui also used color to help narrating and sending out the message.  Obvious example is when the protagonist met the chubby soldier from Red Army (obvious, Chubby red communist China) and he belongs to the Blue Army (Hong Kong’s flag is blue background).  The summery of the conversation is that they live very close to each other, one from the East village and other from West.  They don’t know what’s the point in fighting other than that they are in dressed in different colors (there are way more to it than just this).
The typical stereotype of Asia is that they are sexist, and so are their media.  This movie again confirms that stereotype by the use of female characters.  First main female character is the Healing lady (Countess?)  Who dress very sexy and have to hurt herself to save man.  She would sacrificed herself to die with her love (poor lady can’t survive without her man –note the sarcasm--).  Also, the other girl (handmaiden?) who end up traveling with the Monk and the soldier, never see the real world, who don’t know what to do, and cries like a baby.  When the monk decided to jump into the cave to save the soldier, she does not know what to do and the monk have to throw rock at her to get her going to do things he asked her to.  And the almighty lady Swords Carrier (Lin Shi?), what does she do?  She just keep the swords till the two brave male come to her and use the sword, she is really nothing but a beautiful face for the male audience to look at.   This film use techniques like jump cuts to do their neat special effects.