Brilliant! What a cool way to do a reveal. Rather than doing the "scooby doo" explanation, and rather than doing the standard voice over flashback to bring the audience up to speed, we get a surreal scene the next morning with the winner laughing triumphantly for 2 mins straight as he walks past all the contraptions, so we can see everything in the light of day.

No dumbed-down explanations necessary, it's all shown visually. But the best part is we get the character's full transformation from nerdy bookworm to victorious battle commander. There's even a newfound arrogance (which soon gets torn down). So we get a plot explanation, character development and climactic buildup to the next conflict... all done without a single word.

I can see how this film is hailed as one of the first (if not the first) "art house" martial arts flicks from China. The director really knew how to pack a lot into a scene.