A King Hu wuxia film is a precious thing, there being so few. I’d taken a circular route from the canonical works at the start of his career – Come Drink with Me, Dragon Inn, A Touch of Zen – straight to the Mountain duology of 1979, skipping over The Fate of Lee Khan and The Valiant Ones. Either way, I’m running out, though I was mightily defeated by Legend of the Mountain and left it unfinished. And so, there was something bittersweet about finally sitting down and watching The Fate of Lee Khan, or “The Turbulence at Yingchun Pavilion,” here at the beginning of the year, when the kung fu mood usually strikes. And ironically or not, the film is a pastiche, taking little bits from across the catalogue. It’s the tavern setting of Dragon Inn, the caper premise of Raining in the Mountain, and the cast of A Touch of Zen. Here, Hsu Feng plays a villainous Mongolian princess, sister to the titular antagonist, while the villain of A Touch of Zen, Han Ying-chieh, is a resistance member disguised as a drunk, and Roy Chiao, the Buddhist monk, is undercover as the henchman at Lee Khan’s right hand. By the way, is it technically yellowface for these Chinese actors to play Mongolians? You’re not fooling me, man, no matter how much additional facial hair. … More Envision Turbulence | The Fate of Lee Khan (1973) Review