King HU was born on 1932, April 29th in Beijing. He left for Hong Kong in 1950 worked in a film company as an art designer of posters, sets and billboards. THE STORY OF SUE SUN (1964), a costume comedy of folk melody, is King HU’s first film as full-fledged director. In 1965, King HU completed his first martial art film, COME DRINK WITH ME. Then he started writing DRAGON INN and decided to accept the offer of Union Motion Picture Company to work as a manger of production department in Taiwan. In 1967, DRAGON INN was released in Taiwan, Hong Kong and South East Asia, and became a box office hit. King HU started his planning of A TOUCH OF ZEN in 1967, the shooting lasted three years. In 1975, King HU cut a 180 minutes version for Cannes Film Festival, and received “Grand Prix de la Commission Supérieure Technique du Cinéma Français.”
Through martial art films made King HU internationally renowned, but his films do not merely parade showy feats of martial arts, they tend to dwell on his ’ inner notion’ of the chivalrous literati. In particular, he concerned with the philosophy of swordsman and sense of aesthetics stemming from traditional Chinese culture. When shaping and presenting characters, apart from the related costumes, props, scenes, dialogue and various aspects, he also attaches great importance to historic research, so as to gain an understanding of the spirit of humanity throughout the ages.
