DRAGON INN | FOMO Secret Cinema Tbilisi - Asian Film Week

DRAGON INN

King Hu | 1967 | Taiwan | 111 min | Mandarin with English subtitles

Before CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON, before HERO, before KILL BILL, there was DRAGON INN. King Hu’s 1967 wuxia landmark helped redefine how martial arts could look and move on screen, turning swordplay into something precise, rhythmic and cinematic rather than simply functional.

Set during the Ming dynasty, the film begins after the emperor’s minister of defence is framed and executed by a powerful court eunuch. His children are sent into exile, but assassins are dispatched to kill them before they reach safety. Their journey leads to the remote Dragon Inn, where several mysterious travellers begin to gather and where loyalties, identities and intentions slowly reveal themselves.

What makes DRAGON INN special is the way King Hu builds tension before the violence starts. Characters enter the inn, study one another, test loyalties and quietly shift the balance of power. When the sword fights finally arrive, Hu often keeps the fighters fully visible within the frame, using wide compositions, precise movement and editing heavily influenced by jingju, or Peking opera.

The film was a major commercial success across Asia and became one of the defining works of the wuxia genre. Its influence can be felt across decades of martial arts cinema, while its reputation has only grown through restorations, retrospectives and revival screenings.

There is also a very specific reason we’re opening Asian Film Week with it. Two hours later we’ll screen Tsai Ming-liang’s GOODBYE, DRAGON INN, set during the final showing of this very film inside a closing Taipei cinema. Watching the original first turns Tuesday into a conversation between two completely different eras of Taiwanese cinema.

ABOUT ASIAN FILM WEEK

Asian Film Week is exactly the kind of programming FOMO exists for: major classics, cult discoveries and films you rarely get the chance to see on a cinema screen in Tbilisi. This week has been curated with Denis from Ukraine, a FOMO Film Club lifetime member with a real passion for Asian cinema, whose recommendations helped fill some gaps in my own knowledge and pushed the programme in directions I might not have reached alone.

A lot of care has gone into making the week feel broad, balanced and genuinely worth exploring. You’ll find landmark films from directors already well known in the West alongside stranger, more underground work that deserves a much wider audience. If Asian cinema is already your thing, I hope there are still a few surprises here. If it isn’t, I hope this week gives you a great place to start.