Political intrigue dominates the first couple hours or so of A Touch of Zen . Eventually, it takes a turn away from resolving this. This might make the story inconclusive on paper, but the film's ending makes sense given what it does outside the script. It always feels as though the politics take a backseat to a grand, essential ideal served by the characters' actions, consciously or unconsciously. It takes several minutes before we see or hear a human being in A Touch of Zen . It opens with spiders on their webs, followed by majestic, almost sanctimonious shots of mountainous landscapes. Then, the ruins of an abandoned war fortress. Humans aren't rendered insignificant in A Touch of Zen 's world, but they do have a limited, determined place therein. They have to share space with inky black shadows and shafts of light passing through mist. Non-human presences hold their positions throughout the film, sometimes at the expense of intruding humans...
"We are in the world, not against it." - Ursula K. Le Guin