Dragon Inn

Tsao, the emperor's most powerful eunuch, has successfully bested General Yu, Tsao's political rival. The general was executed and his remaining children have been exiled from China. As the children are being escorted to the western border of the Chinese empire, Tsao plots to have the children killed. Tsao's secret police lie in ambush at the desolate Dragon Gate Inn. Martial arts expert Hsiao shows up at the inn, wanting to meet the innkeeper. Unknown to the secret police is that the innkeeper, Wu Ming, was one of the general's lieutenants and has summoned Hsiao to help the children. A brother-sister martial-artist team (children of another Yu lieutenant) also show up to help. These four race to find Yu's children and lead them to safety.

• Shih Chun as Xiao Shao-zi
• Shangkuan Ling-fung as Miss Zhu
• Bai Ying as Cao Shao-qin
• Miao Tien as Pi Shao-tang
• Han Ying-chieh as Mao Zong-xian
• Hsieh Han as Zhu Ji
• Tsao Chien as Wu Ning

In 1965, director King Hu left the Hong Kong-based Shaw Brothers Studio just after completing Come Drink with Me. Hu left for Taiwan where he met with Sha Rongfeng. The two created the short-lived studio called the Union Film Company. Dragon Inn was shot in Taiwan in 1966.{{sfn|Rayns|2015|p=15}}

Dragon Inn premiered in 1967.{{sfn|Masters of Cinema|2015|p=2|ref=MoC2015-2}} It was first screened in the United States in 1968 at an academic conference organized by translator and scholar Joseph Lau Shiu-Ming.{{sfn|Teo|2007|p=134}} The film's digital restoration premiered in North America at the 2014 Toronto International Film Festival.{{sfn|Toronto International Film Festival|ref=TIFF}} The film set box‐office records in Taiwan, Korea, and the Philippines.{{sfn|Cannes Film Festival|ref=Cannes2014}} The film was the second-highest grossing film in Hong Kong in 1968 behind You Only Live Twice.{{sfn|Variety|1969|p=41|ref=Variety69}}

The Union Film Company did not make a great profit from the film, as they had a deal with Shaw Brothers who owned the distribution rights to Dragon Inn in Hong Kong and Southeast Asia.{{sfn|Lee|2012|p=206}} Shaw Brothers had this deal as via an exchange that was done in trade for letting King Hu break his contract with them to work on Dragon Inn.{{sfn|Lee|2012|p=206}}

Dragon Inn was released in the United Kingdom on Blu-ray and DVD through Eureka Entertainment's Masters of Cinema line of releases.{{sfn|Eureka|ref=Eureka-Rel}} It received a Blu-ray release in the United States in July 2018 by the Criterion Collection.{{sfn|Dillard|2018}}

At the 1968 Golden Horse Awards, Dragon Inn won the award for Best Screenplay and was a runner-up for Best Director.{{sfn|Cannes Film Festival|ref=Cannes2014}}

In 2011, the Taipei Golden Horse Film Festival had 122 industry professionals take part in the survey. This voters included film scholars, festival programmers, film directors, actors and producers to vote for the 100 Greatest Chinese-Language Films. Dragon Inn tied with Wong Kar-wai's In the Mood for Love (2000) for ninth place on the list.{{sfn|Cremin|2011}}

In the United Kingdom, Empire gave the film four stars out five, referring to it as a "A keystone of the wuxia genre" and noted that the film "may lack plot complexity and period spectacle. But the stand-off in a remote inn is flecked with tension, wit and slick martial artistry."{{sfn|Parkinson|2015}} Michael Brooke (Sight & Sound) referred to Dragon Inn as "one of the most important wuxia pian films to emerge from the Chinese-speaking world prior to the great martial arts boom of the turn of the 1970s." and that it was "riotously entertaining".{{sfn|Brooke|2016|p=100}} Brooke commented on the action scenes, opining that they "aren't quite as breath-catchingly dexterous as the ones Hong Kong cinema would later produce, they're both lively and agreeably frequent, with Hu using the Scope frame to its full advantage".{{sfn|Brooke|2016|p=100}} Brooke concluded that "If it's not quite first-rank Hu when set against A Touch of Zen or The Fate of Lee Khan, it makes for a superb introduction."{{sfn|Brooke|2016|p=100}} The Radio Times gave the film a four out of five star rating, and felt the film surpassed Come Drink With Me, noting that Hu's "control over camera movement and composition is exemplary, building the tension and invigorating the swordplay."{{sfn|Healy}}

Dragon Inn was remade twice, first as New Dragon Gate Inn (1992) and as Flying Swords of Dragon Gate (2011).

{{sfn|Teh|2014}}{{sfn|Elley|2012}}

Taiwanese director Tsai Ming-Liang directed the film Goodbye, Dragon Inn (2003). The film is set in a decrepit Taipei movie theater on its final night in business which is screening Dragon Inn. The film's characters either watch the film very closely or are humorously distracted from it; two of the actors from the original film are in the audience as well.{{sfn|Zacharek|2004}}

• Cinema of Taiwan
• List of Taiwanese films before 1970

{{reflist}}

• {{cite magazine|magazine=Sight & Sound|title=Dragon Inn|last=Brooke|first=Michael|volume=26|issue=2|page=100|date=February 2016|publisher=British Film Institute}}
• {{cite web|url=http://www.filmbiz.asia/news/horse-announces-greatest-chinese-films|publisher=Film Business Asia|access-date=November 4, 2015|date=January 27, 2011|title=Horse announces greatest Chinese films|last=Cremin|first=Stephen|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110131074257/http://www.filmbiz.asia/news/horse-announces-greatest-chinese-films|archive-date=January 31, 2011|url-status=dead}}
• {{cite web|url=https://www.slantmagazine.com/dvd/dragon-inn/|title=Blu-ray Review: King Hu's Dragon Inn on the Criterion Collection|last=Dillard|first=Clayton|date=July 11, 2018|work=Slant Magazine|access-date=June 11, 2025|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20241130100111/https://www.slantmagazine.com/dvd/dragon-inn/|archivedate=November 30, 2024}}
• {{cite web|url=http://www.filmbiz.asia/reviews/flying-swords-of-dragon-gate|publisher=Film Business Asia|title=Flying Swords of Dragon Gate|access-date=November 3, 2015|last=Elley|first=Derek|date=January 23, 2012|archive-url=https://archive.today/20120801141255/http://www.filmbiz.asia/reviews/flying-swords-of-dragon-gate|archive-date=August 1, 2012|authorlink=Derek Elley}}
• {{cite web|url=http://www.radiotimes.com/film/df7rtk/dragon-inn|work=Radio Times|title=Dragon Inn|access-date=May 3, 2016|first=Jamie|last=Healy|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160610134556/http://www.radiotimes.com/film/df7rtk/dragon-inn|archive-date=June 10, 2016}}
• {{cite book|last=Lee|first=Daw-Ming|title=Historical Dictionary of Taiwan Cinema|publisher=Scarecrow Press|date=2012|isbn=978-0810879225}}
• {{cite web|url=http://www.empireonline.com/movies/dragon-inn/review/|work=Empire|title=Dragon Inn Review|access-date=November 4, 2015|date=June 28, 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151104210558/http://www.empireonline.com/movies/dragon-inn/review/|archive-date=November 4, 2015|last=Parkinson|first=David}}
• {{Cite AV media notes|title=Laying the Foundations: Dragon Gate Inn|year=2015|last=Rayns|first=Tony|page=15|type=booklet|publisher=Masters of Cinema|id=EKA70169|authorlink=Tony Rayns}}
• {{cite web|url=http://www.scmp.com/magazines/48hrs/article/1632090/art-house-new-dragon-gate-inn|work=48 Hours|publisher=South China Morning Post|access-date=November 3, 2015|title=Art House: New Dragon Gate Inn|last=Teh|first=Yvonne|date=6 November 2014|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20151208052847/http://www.scmp.com/magazines/48hrs/article/1632090/art-house-new-dragon-gate-inn|archivedate=December 8, 2015}}
• {{cite book |last1=Teo |first1=Stephen |title=King Hu's A Touch of Zen |date=2007 |publisher=Hong Kong University Press |location=Hong Kong |isbn=978-962-209-815-2}}
• {{cite news|url=http://www.salon.com/2004/09/16/dragon_inn/|work=Salon|title=Goodbye, Dragon Inn|date=September 16, 2004|last=Zacharek|first=Stephanie|authorlink=Stephanie Zacharek|access-date=November 3, 2015|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20250423210526/https://www.salon.com/2004/09/16/dragon_inn/|archivedate=April 23, 2025}}
• {{cite web|title=Dragon Inn Press Kit|url=http://www.festival-cannes.com/assets/Image/Direct/9d5bbb57747bba58b0cf28f391c63618.pdf|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151109163903if_/http://www.festival-cannes.com/assets/Image/Direct/9d5bbb57747bba58b0cf28f391c63618.pdf|archive-date=November 9, 2015|access-date=November 4, 2015|website=|publisher=Cannes Film Festival|ref=Cannes2014}}
• {{cite web|url=https://www.eurekavideo.co.uk/moc/dragon-inn|publisher=Masters of Cinema|title=Dragon Inn|access-date=November 4, 2015|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20150928202109/https://www.eurekavideo.co.uk/moc/dragon-inn|archivedate=September 28, 2015|ref=Eureka-Rel}}
• {{Cite AV media notes|title=Dragon Inn|year=2015|page=2|type=booklet|publisher=Masters of Cinema|id=EKA70169|ref=MoC2015-2}}
• {{Cite AV media notes|title=Dragon Inn|year=2015|type=Back cover of sleeve|publisher=Masters of Cinema|id=EKA70169|ref=backCov}}
• {{cite web|url=http://www.tiff.net/festivals/thefestival/programmes/cinematheque/dragon-inn|publisher=Toronto International Film Festival|access-date=July 6, 2015|title=Dragon Inn|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150707182502/http://www.tiff.net//festivals/thefestival/programmes/cinematheque/dragon-inn|archive-date=July 7, 2015|ref=TIFF}}
• {{cite magazine|magazine=Variety|date=January 15, 1969|title=Shaws Dominate Top 20 Films of '68 in Hong Kong|ISSN=0042-2738|ref=Variety69}}

• {{IMDb title|0060635}}
• {{Hkmdb title|9036}}
• [http://www.brns.com/pages4/fantsy66.html Collection of reviews of Dragon Inn (1967)]
• [https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/5787-dragon-inn-poised-for-battle Dragon Inn: Poised for Battle] an essay by Andrew Chan at the Criterion Collection

{{King Hu}}

Category:1967 films

Category:1960s martial arts films

Category:Taiwanese martial arts films

Category:1960s Mandarin-language films

Category:Wuxia films

Category:Films directed by King Hu

Category:Films shot in Taiwan

Category:Films set in 15th-century Ming dynasty