Mainland China, July 2021: Another day another online movie made its way to the massively popular video streaming platforms there to catch the roving eyes of the viewers looking for a quick fix. Produced by Henan Guanglan Culture and starring a bunch of unknown actors, at least outside of China anyway, Tencent Video's “Longmen Town Inn” or “Dragon Gate Town Inn” in Chinese, is one such production like many countless more.
Set in a nameless desert, the simple plot concerns Wu Long Jian Xian (Chu Xiao Long), a peerless swordsman who has to fight off challengers from other cults eager to take him down in order to claim the top position in Jianghu. Ultimately this leads to a standoff at Broken Soul Cliff in which he is the sole survivor and thereupon he also decides to live in seclusion. While in retirement, he sets up a little settlement deep in the desert and welcomes people who seek refuge and over time it grows into “Dragon Gate Town”, a haven for desperate martial artists on the run. Accordingly, one has to pass through “Longmen Town Inn” first in order to get there.
Twenty years later, while on her way back to her desert home, Lau Xiao Man (Qian Si Yi), the daughter of Lau Yuen Yan of Longmen Town Inn has a confrontation and is poisoned by Bai Wu Ji ( Lv Si Han) and his Raksha Sect who are looking for swordsman Wu. Meanwhile, Bai also comes across a petty thief Wei Ping An (Cheng Qi Meng) who has a birthmark which ties him to Wu, so instead of killing him he holds his best friends as hostages and gives Wei seven days to follow Lau into the desert and locate the hidden town so they can take their revenge on Wu Long.
At first glance, the movie or at least its title implies that the filmmakers are making a tribute to King Hu's wuxia classic “Dragon Inn”. But in fact the storyline turns out to be exactly the same as the one in Wai Ka Fai's “Peace Hotel” (1995) starring Chow Yun Fat and Cecilia Yip. Besides, these characters also share quite similar names in both films while Yip's character and Wei are in fact undercover agents. In addition, we later learn that Wei is Bai Wu Ji's half-brother and their father Bai Hao Tian (Xu Zha) is also the leader of the Raksha Sect. Also, due to some misunderstanding decades ago, Bai blames Wu for breaking up his family and therefore he is hell bent on killing him.
In any event, Yin's action adventure is just a modern take of the old school wuxia films that were popular some thirty years ago which also means it offers almost nothing new. In fact, his production feels like a never-ending celebration of those wonderful films but presented in a “greatest hits” package. Take for example the sharing of oxygen underwater routine between Wei and Lau, which recalls that exact bathtub scene from “A Chinese Ghost Story” and in addition, the sucking of poison through the mouth routine is hardly original. Furthermore, while in Longman Town, Wei learns kung fu from an old drunken master and then there is also a wandering lone sentimental swordsman and of course there is the good old kung fu manual floating around which comes in very handy.
Acting-wise, all the actors perform their given tasks fairly adequately but they are not that demanding roles to start with. The two main leads, Chen Qi Meng and Qian Si Yi make a cute looking couple and Qian is easy on the eye and looks great in her black robe, a throwback of the one that Brigitte Lin was wearing in “New Dragon Gate Inn” (1992). There are some insane looking colorful side villains too who are quite charismatic at times. Since the actors are not martial artists themselves, the action depends on camera tricks most of the time but the overall efforts are rather crude and dance-like.
Having said that, the film does score some points when it comes to its outdoor location shots which is the vast desert, a scenario that the old productions from Hong Kong could not match. Furthermore, the huge and highly detailed indoor sets, especially that of the inn, are quite impressive. It looks like the costume department had been busy in designing different outfits to accommodate the contrasting personality of each character, therefore making them stand out from each other. However, when it comes to those poor bad guys, black outfits and masks are still their trademark.
Clocking in at a running time of eighty eight minutes, “Longmen Town Inn” is a typical online light entertainment that knows its targeted audiences. For a wuxia film of this nature, even with the heavy use of slow motion and freeze frames, its action sequences still turn out uninspired and lack impact. However, the lead couple and some of the villains are likable enough to make it a bearable watch.
