A Touch of Zen (俠女) is a two-part wuxia film written, co-edited and directed by King Hu, originally released in 1970 and 1971. Its screenplay is based on a classic Chinese story "Xianü" in the book Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio by Pu Songling. The film is set in the Ming dynasty under the dominance of eunuchs and explores a variety of themes including the transcendence of dichotomies, Zen Buddhism, feminism, conservative female roles, and the ghost story.
The film was produced in Taiwan and funded by the Union Film Company. Because the director Hu was a filmmaker in the Shaw Brothers Studio before moving to Taiwan, the emergence of the film established the international visibility of the Hong Kong New Wave. At the 1975 Cannes Film Festival, the film was nominated for the Palme d'Or and won the Technical Grand Prize award, the second-ever Chinese-language film to win an award at the festival.
Although filming began in 1968, A Touch of Zen was not fully completed until 1971. The original Taiwanese release was in two parts in 1970 and 1971 (filming was still ongoing when the first part was released) with the bamboo forest sequence that concludes Part 1 reprised at the beginning of Part 2; this version has a combined runtime of 200 minutes. In November 1971, both parts of the film were combined into one for the Hong Kong market with a runtime of 187 minutes.
A 4K restoration project was initiated in 2014, hosted by the male lead Shih Chun and funded by the female lead Hsu Feng. The restored version, with a total runtime of 180 minutes, was re-screened in the "Cannes Classics" section at the 2015 Cannes Film Festival.
