In 1965, director King Hu left the Hong Kong-based Shaw Brothers Studio just after completing Come Drink with Me.

[1] It was first screened in the United States in 1968 at an academic conference organized by translator and scholar Joseph Lau Shiu-Ming.

"[11] Michael Brooke (Sight & Sound) referred to Dragon Inn as "one of the most important wuxia pian films to emerge from the Chinese-speaking world prior to the great martial arts boom of the turn of the 1970s."

[12] Brooks commented on the action scenes, opining that they "aren't quite as breath-catchingly dexterous as the ones Hong Kong cinema would later produce, they're both lively and agreeably frequent, with Hu using the Scope frame to its full advantage".

[12] Brooke concluded that "If it's not quite first-rank Hu when set against A Touch of Zen or The Fate of Lee Khan, it makes for a superb introduction.

[15] Shaw Brothers had this deal as via an exchange that was done in trade for letting King Hu break his contract with them to work on Dragon Inn.

[16][17] Taiwanese director Tsai Ming-Liang directed the critically acclaimed film Goodbye, Dragon Inn (2003).

[18] The film is set in a decrepit Taipei movie theater on its final night in business which is screening Dragon Inn.