A rarely seen film from near the end of Hu’s career, All the King’s Men finds the filmmaker adding a comic pendant to his earlier tragic tales of heroic grace. The action takes place in 10th century BC, during the Zhou Dynasty, with an ailing emperor desperate for treatment by the leading doctor from a neighboring kingdom. The machinations involved in securing the visit of this physician take the form of an ironic variation of the life-and-death intriguing in the earlier films. Contributing to the screenplay is none other than Wu Nien-jen, who would shortly join Hou Hsiao-hsien and Edward Yang to launch the New Taiwanese Cinema.