(by chinesefan on 10 August 2005)

This is the original of the 1992 remake of the same title(with a NEW) and 2nd of the "INN" trilogy by King Hu after Come Drink With Me. It was a major hit all over Chinese areas in South East Asia and discovered Shang Kuan Ling Feng(note the mistake by a previous comment)as the 2nd most popular Sword woman(the 1st was Cheng Pei Pei, and later 3rd Hsu Feng(Hsia Nu aka A Touch of Zen). All these 3 females stars are made popular by him and they are also the 3 most popular swords women in Chinese Cinema.
If there is any complaint by any viewer, it's the pace that many may find it a bit slow but isn't most highly regarded movies slow ?? The finale scene is the most climatic in a Chinese action that critc compared this film to "Rio Bravo" and "The Wild Bunch".
Beware of some mistakes in the original English subtitles mentioned by the director himself.
You can watch some scenes of it if you go to the movie Bu San(2003) aka Goodbye, Dragon Inn(here in IMDb and watch the trailer) which paid tribute to this movie.
The 90's remake is nothing better except for an additional character well acted by Maggie Cheung.