Even the thinnest possible execution of a revenge plot cannot undo one of Shaw’s greatest martial arts movies, one that sees Lau creating new stratospheric heights for action filmmaking.
Review #2,783
Dir. Lau Kar-Leung
1984 | Hong Kong | Action, Drama | 98 min | 2.35:1 | Cantonese & Mandarin
Not rated – likely to be NC16 for violence and gore
Cast: Gordon Liu, Fu Sheng, Kara Wai, Lily Li, Phillip Ko
Plot: The Yangs are betrayed by a government official conspiring with the Mongols. All of the Yang family males except the 5th and 6th brother are killed. Fu Sheng loses his mind after the death of his family, while the other brother takes refuge in a Buddhist temple.
Awards: Nom. for Best Action Choreography (HK Film Awards)
Distributor: Shaw
Accessibility Index
Subject Matter: Moderate – Revenge; Morality; Monkhood
Narrative Style: Straightforward
Pace: Normal
Audience Type: Mainstream
Viewed: MUBI
Spoilers: No
At one point in the film’s famous climactic ‘stacked coffins’ sequence, I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.
My widening eyes reached some kind of physical limit, and on more than one occasion, I found myself shaking my head in disbelief and with the purest of admiration for some of the most astounding fight sequences ever mounted by a Shaw studio movie.
It also represented one of the summits of Lau Kar-Leung’s prowess as a filmmaker, creating new stratospheric heights for action filmmaking that are still rarely attained today.
I know many superlatives are being thrown here, but find a copy of The 8 Diagram Pole Fighter and judge it for yourself. That is if you can get past one of the thinnest possible executions of a revenge plot in a genre movie.
“You need to de-fang them.”
Two brothers barely survive an unexpected bloodbath in the opening act. One returns home deranged; the other seeks refuge in a temple, pressuring the residing Abbott to grant him monkhood.
The presence of Gordon Liu as the aspiring monk recalls Lau’s earlier, also equally fantastic, The 36th Chamber of Shaolin (1978). Here, the fight scenes are more elaborate and inventive, and in the climax, more violent and gorier, often in a comical fashion, particularly as the baddies get ‘defanged’.
The tragic death of Fu Sheng, who plays the aforementioned deranged brother, from an automobile accident meant that his subplot had to be prematurely wrapped during the shoot. Hence, he didn’t appear in the later parts of the narrative, which makes it a quaint film structurally.
Yet despite missing parts and an undercooked narrative, The 8 Diagram Pole Fighter somehow rose from the ashes of production and continues to be regarded as one of the most significant entries in Lau’s martial arts cinema.
Grade: A-
Trailer:
Eternality Tan 