A Touch of Zen

A Touch of Zen is a 1971 Taiwanese wuxia film directed by King Hu. The film won a prize at the Cannes Film Festival, claiming the Technical Grand Prize award.citation needed

The story is largely seen through the eyes of Ku, who is a wellmeaning but unambitious scholar and painter, with a tendency towards being clumsy and ineffectual. A stranger arrives in town wanting his portrait painted by Ku, but his real objective is to bring a female fugitive back to the city for execution on behalf of the East Chamber guards. The fugitive, Yang, is befriended by Ku and together they plot against the corrupt Eunuch Wei who wants to eradicate all trace of her family after her father attempts to warn the Emperor of the eunuchs corruption.One of the unique aspects of the film is that Ku is a noncombatant all the way through the film and only becomes involved when he sleeps with Yang. Upon doing so, he is no longer the nave bumbling innocent, but instead becomes confident and assertive, and when Yangs plight is revealed, he insists on being part of it and even comes up with a fiendish Ghost Trap for the East Chamber guards. This is a plan to use a supposedly haunted site to play tricks on the guards to make them believe they are prey to the undead. In the aftermath, Ku walks through the carnage laughing at the ingenuity of his plan until the true cost of human life dawns upon him. ........

Source: Wikipedia