Shaw Brothers September: The Eight Diagram Pole Fighter

The Eight Diagram Pole Fighter (1983) is one of the Shaw Brothers’ darkest movies – both on and off-screen – marred by real-life tragedy when one its stars died during filming. It is also one of their best with some truly spectacularly choreographed action sequences.

Betrayed by General Yang’s right-hand man, General Pun Mei (Lam Hak-ming), whose army of Mongols ambush him and his seven sons at Golden Beach, killing them all except for Yeung Dak (Gordon Liu) and Yeung Chiu (Alexander Fu) – the fifth and sixth sons respectively. The battle itself is an astounding master class of choreography as the seven brothers armed with spears take on insurmountable odds. The fighting is fast and furious as the brothers are systematically picked off in particularly bloody and vicious fashion until only two remain.

Chiu returns home severely traumatized by what happened and Alexander Fu does an excellent job showing how his character has been driven mad, lashing out at his own family, trying to kill his mother until she is able to calm him down.

Assumed dead and declared a deserter and a traitor, Dak takes refuge in a monastery in Mount Wutai, patiently biding his time until he can exact revenge. The Mongols pursue him to a hunter’s dwelling where the man lets Dak escape while he takes on the marauders with a trident in an impressively staged action sequence.

Gordon Liu delivers a particularly impassioned performance as evident in the scene where Dak demands and then begs to become a Buddhist monk, conveying the hurt and desperation of a man with nothing left to lose. The actor gives everything he’s got in this powerful, even moving scene.

What’s interesting about The Eight Diagram Pole Fighter and what distinguishes it from other Shaw Brothers kung fu movies is that it spends a significant amount of time showing how the death of their siblings affects the fifth and sixth sons. It isn’t something that is dealt with in passing but shapes and defines what these characters do for the rest of the movie.

Everything builds to the climactic showdown between Dak and Pun Mei in an inn where his sister is being held captive. His initial assault sees the monk utilizing a cartful of bamboo poles as projectiles to defeat his foes, which is an extraordinary sight to behold. It is merely a warm-up for the showdown in the inn. At one point, Dak frees his sister in the middle of the battle and straps her to his back all the while fighting his opponents. When Dak’s fellow monks show up, then the real fireworks begin. The martial arts on display in this sequence are among the finest ever seen in a Shaw Brothers movie.

The Eight Diagram Pole Fighter started filming in 1981. During principal photography Alexander Fu suffered a serious injury, breaking both his legs and having a head injury. Production stopped. He recovered well enough that filming was able to resume, but on July 7, 1983 he was in a car accident with his brother and died in a nearby hospital from his injuries. After much contemplation, it was decided that filming would continue but with significant script changes. Originally, Chiu was supposed to go to the Buddhist temple and become a monk. This was changed so that Dak went instead.

The Eight Diagram Pole Fighter is considered one of the darker, bloodier movies in the Shaw Brothers canon but it is also an excellent study on loyalty while exploring the effects of physical and psychological trauma. Most importantly, it has some truly fierce and fantastic fight scenes that must’ve been a real challenge to choreograph. All of this would be meaningless if the movie wasn’t anchored by the performances of Alexander Fu and Gordon Liu as the two surviving brothers who deal with the aftermath in their own unique ways. Their performances are what makes The Eight Diagram Pole Fighter such a compelling movie.

SOURCES

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Hatfield, J.J. “Eight Diagram Pole Fighter aka Invincible Pole Fighter Review.” City on Fire. March 1, 2011.

Shaw Brothers September: One-Armed Swordsman

One-Armed Swordsman (1967) is often considered the first true modern martial arts movie, featuring a brooding anti-hero and adopting a gritty look with lots of blood, ushering in gorier movies of its kind. It was a huge hit, reaching the milestone of being the first Hong Kong movie to make HK$1 million at the local box office and transforming its lead actor Jimmy Wang into a major movie star.

As a young boy, Fang Kang watches his father die a heroic death defending his mentor Qi Ru Feng (Tien Feng) from a pack of bandits. With his dying breath, he asks Qi to take his son on as a pupil. He agrees and Fang (Wang) grows up determined to live up to the memory of his father, even keeping the broken sword that he used in his last battle in his honor.

One day, two students from wealthy families and Qi’s spoiled daughter Qi Pei Er (Angela Pan) ridicule Fang because of his poor background. After Qi chastises them for their behavior, Fang decides to leave rather than cause trouble, but he’s ambushed by Pei Er and the two other students. In a moment of treachery, she cuts off his sword arm! The betrayal scene is shot on a beautiful, snowbound set with a multitude of flakes falling down around the characters in stark contrast to the cruelty on display.

Fang flees and eventually passes out due to blood loss. He’s rescued by Xiao Man (Lisa Chiao Chiao), a peasant girl that nurses him back to health. She encourages him to relearn how to fight with his other arm and he becomes a formidable martial artist. Meanwhile, Qi’s old foes, Long-Armed Devil (Yeung Chi-hing) and Smiling Tiger Cheng (Tang Ti), are eliminating his students with the help of the “sword lock,” a weapon that allows them to hold their opponent’s sword at bay while they stab or slash them with a short sword. Fang catches wind of what’s going on and puts his newfound skills to good and bloody use.

Fang is a tragic character that loses his father at an early age and then loses the ability to do the only thing he was good at doing. As a result, he loses his purpose in life. It is only Xian Man’s belief in him, and the love that develops between them, that re-engages him with life again. Her father also died tragically and this heartbreak at an early age bonds these two characters in a profound way. Xian Man is a fascinating character in her own right. She saves Fang twice – physically by getting him medical attention before he bled out and spiritually by not only giving him purpose in his life but also inspiring him to love her.

At the end of One-Armed Swordsman, Fang learns an important lesson in life – that being a simple peasant is just as worthy an existence as a master swordsman. Most importantly, he comes to this decision on his own terms after paying back his debt to his mentor.

Director Chang Cheh got the idea for One-Armed Swordsman and picked Jimmy Wang as he felt that the character had a personality similar to the actor. They had worked together before and he asked Jimmy to be in it. The actor found filming to be challenging as he was right-handed and had to learn how to fight with his left. His right arm was tied down and he often lost his balance during fight scenes. Jimmy also had to learn how to fight with a short sword and was hit often as a result. His arm was covered in bruises, as was his face from falling down.

The phenomenal success of One-Armed Swordsman spawned two sequels – Return of the One-Armed Swordsman (1969) and The New One-Armed Swordsman (1971) – and countless imitators but none of them reached the operatic heights of the original.

SOURCES

“Interview with Star Jimmy Wang Yu.” The One-Armed Swordsman DVD. Dragon Dynasty. 2007.

Shaw Brothers September: King Boxer

BLOGGER'S NOTE: Every week this month I plan on taking a look at different kung fu movie from the legendary Shaw Brothers studio that helped pioneer the genre in the 1970s.

During the 1970s, the Shaw Brothers produced some of the very best kung fu movies, or wuxia as it was called in China, ever made. Their first big success actually came out in the 1960s – One-Armed Swordsman (1967), which made $1 million in Hong Kong, but it wasn’t until a few years later that they made in-roads all over the world with King Boxer (a.k.a. Five Fingers of Death, 1972). It was the first of its kind to be picked up by Warner Bros. and distributed in the United States. It helped kick start the kung fu movie craze of that decade.

The movie gets right into it as an old martial arts teacher is attacked by a group of thugs armed with knives. Despite his advanced age, he is able to hold them off, jumping through the air like a man half his age. Fortunately, one of his best students, Chao Chih-Hao (Lieh Lo) arrives just in time to scare them off. The teacher realizes he can no longer teach his pupil anything new and sends him off to study under a superior master, Shen Chin-Pei (Fang Mian).

Meanwhile, local martial arts despot Ming Dung-Shun (Tien Feng) controls the five northern provinces and maintains dominance by befriending and then enlisting martial arts experts like Chen Lang, an man with an exceptionally hard forehead that he uses to best a local strong man (Bolo Yeung) by headbutting him into submission!

Chao shows up at Master Shen’s school and is easily bested by one of his students only to be relegated to the kitchen. He toils away there but is tested regularly and randomly until he is soon dodging spears and breaking branches with his bare hands. He is then deemed worthy enough to be a student.

There is an upcoming national tournament among the various martial arts schools and Master Ming sends Chen Lang to trash Master Shen’s school. He makes quite an entrance by taking the school’s sign and breaking it in half with his head. He then proceeds to thrash the students, sending one through the ceiling and another through a wall. Chen Lang confronts Master Shen and bests him through cowardly tactics.

Chao decides to confront Chen Lang and amazingly is able to defeat him. He is rewarded by Master Shen with being bestowed knowledge of the Iron Palm technique that causes his hands to glow red as he channels his inner chi to deadly effect. He plans to compete in the tournament. Being a dishonorable man, Master Ming brings in ringers from Japan to ruin Master Shen’s school’s chances.

By making Master Ming’s brutal hired guns Japanese, the Shaw Brothers cannily appealed to Chinese national pride. No wonder King Boxer did so well in Hong Kong! They fight dirty, are remorseless killers, and punish Chao so severely that we want to see him get better and exact well-deserved vengeance on the bad guys. Ming even uses his own son, Meng Tien-Hsiung, as an enforcer. You can tell that his son his a bad guy by the sly, arrogantly evil expression permanently affixed to his face and the long cigarette holder he uses while perpetually fondling two ballbearings as his goons do the dirty work for him.

Director Chang-Hwa Jeong employs sudden zoom in and outs and even the occasional freeze frame during many of the movie’s dynamic fight scenes. This is a beautifully shot movie with expert use of the 2.35:1 widescreen aspect ratio (Shawscope!) and superb compositions of every frame. The use of shadows for dramatic effect in one scene and a brief fight that takes place at sunset resembling something right out of 1950s Technicolor era, is part of the reason why King Boxer is so revered among kung fu movie fans.

The kinetic fight scenes are exciting to watch and, at times, surprisingly brutal with plenty of blood, eye gouging and even a decapitation! They are expertly choreographed, gradually build up in intensity and in terms of style to the final showdown between Chao and Tien-Hsiung at the competition where, of course, the Iron Palm technique is used, but this sequence is merely a warm-up to the penultimate fight at the end as Chao takes down all the bad guys, one by one, in an extremely satisfying conclusion.

Korean director Chang-Hwa Jeong was hired by the Shaw Brothers because he was capable of making a modern action movie. He received the screenplay written by Kong Yeung but felt that the story was “ordinary.” He took the core of it and then changed the content himself, creating things like the Iron Palm technique, the hired enforcers from Japan, and the character of Chen Lang. He wasn’t able to hire martial arts choreographers as they were working with Chinese directors and so he hired their assistants instead. At the time, wire work was the norm for fight sequences but he found it too slow and not realistic enough. He used trampolines, which he found conveyed fast, powerful action.

King Boxer follows a traditional hero’s journey as he must overcome insurmountable odds and personal hardships to beat the bad guys while maintaining his honor and that of his school. It tells a simple yet effective tale full of betrayal, torture, revenge and even some heroic style redemption thrown in for good measure – all heightened to melodramatic levels making for a very entertaining ride. Our hero has to deal with a devastating injury and his own self-doubts before he can face the bad guys and use the Iron Palm technique to save the day. You soon find yourself rooting for Chao to win the competition and make himself worthy of the cute woman he loves as well.

When King Boxer debuted in the U.S. under the title, Five Fingers of Death, it was a big hit, paving the way for Bruce Lee’s subsequent success and launching the kung fu craze of the ‘70s. In the 1980s, it inspired filmmaker John Carpenter to make Big Trouble in Little China (1986) and, more recently, was a huge influence on Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill films where he paid direct homage to King Boxer. It is a movie that still holds up and remains one of the best examples of its kind from the ‘70s.

SOURCES

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“Interview with Director Chang-Hwa Jeong.” King Boxer DVD. Dragon Dynasty. 2007.

The Street Fighter

Like many people of my generation in North America, the first exposure to The Street Fighter (1974), starring Sonny Chiba, was probably the brief clip shown in Tony Scott’s True Romance (1993), which was written by Quentin Tarantino, a big fan of Chiba, an actor who got his start appearing in science fiction and crime thrillers but is best known for his martial arts movies, chief among them The Street Fighter series. True Romance’s main character celebrates his birthday by going to see a Sonny Chiba triple feature at a local theater and there he meets the girl of his dreams. In explaining the allure of Terry Tsurgui – Chiba’s character in the film – he sums it up best by telling her, “Well, he ain’t so much a good guy as he is just one bad motherfucker. I mean, he gets paid by people to fuck guys up.” Based on the worldwide success of Enter the Dragon (1973), the Toei Company decided to release its own martial arts action films and the result was The Street Fighter. It would be this film that would make Chiba an international movie star. The film went on to garner a notorious reputation for its bone-crunching violence, which earned it an unprecedented X rating in North America – the first film to do so based solely on violence.

Terry Tsurgui (Chiba) is a mercenary hired by the Yakuza to free a convicted killer named Junjo (Masashi Ishibashi) from prison who is about to be executed. The man killed seven people with his fighting skills, which one prison guard says sarcastically, “He must think he’s Bruce Lee.” Terry enters the prison under the guise of a Buddhist priest (?!) and engineers quite a clever breakout by zapping Junjo with a move that induces paralysis thereby making him unfit for execution. It takes less than four minutes into the film and we get a pretty cool fight sequence in slow motion complete with funky sound effects that were the hallmark of 1970s era martial arts films. If that weren’t enough, a fantastic spaghetti western-esque theme song by way of Shaft-era Isaac Hayes plays over the opening credits sequence and off we go.

With his sidekick and comic relief Ratnose (Goichi Yamada), Terry hijacks the ambulance carrying Junjo en route to the hospital. When the man’s brother and sister are unable to pay up, Terry proceeds to mess them up, including sending the brother out a window to his death and selling the sister into prostitution. When Terry dares to ask for more money to kidnap a rich Japanese heiress in order to control her fortune, his employers decide to kill him because Terry knows too much. As we all know from these kinds of films that that is a fatal mistake and boy, does he make them pay.

Terry only really cares about money and asks a lot for his services. He is a gruff, no-nonsense kind of guy. The film wastes no time in establishing Terry’s badass credentials as he takes on more than six guys that stupidly try to ambush him in his apartment. There’s a wild-eyed intensity that is quite unnerving to his opponents. What Terry lacks in finesse, he more than makes up for in ferocity. Subtlety is certainly not his forte. For example, he attempts to tail his target in a car without caring about or knowing to follow from a discreet distance. For his troubles, the car he and Ratnose are in is grabbed by a construction vehicle and dropped off a bridge! However, Terry’s not invincible and gets his ass handed to him when he takes on the head of a karate school who knew his father. There’s no denying that Sonny Chiba has a unique screen presence and an intense stare that puts guys like Jean-Claude Van Damme and Steven Seagal to shame.

Goichi Yamada’s Ratnose is a character whose only purpose appears to be as comic relief (“Who do you think you’re talking to, Madame Butterfly?” he says to Terry at one point in reference to his lousy cooking skills), groveling and being endlessly insulted by Terry. However, he does get his self-sacrificing heroic moment in the sun and this selfless act draws a rare tear of emotion from Terry, which in a weird sort of way humanizes the film’s brutal protagonist.

The Street Fighter is chock full of great, cheesy B-movie dialogue intoned by a guy dubbing Terry’s voice trying to affect a gravely Clint Eastwood-esque vibe. One choice gem has Terry tell some assailants, “So I’m to die because I know who it is that controls the Yakuza here? Isn’t that mean and nasty?” Another gem comes when Junjo goes into an oxygen coma, collapses right before being executed and a prison official asks someone nearby, “You’re a lawyer – what must I do?” It is how this line is said – in stilted, badly done dubbing – that makes it funny. However, there are also some pretty cool lines, too, like when Junjo confronts Terry and tells him, “I’ve waited a long time to settle the score.” Terry replies dismissively, “Sorry, I’ve more urgent things right now.” How cool is that? Yeah, I’m not too busy completing a job to kick your ass right now… maybe later.

In The Street Fighter, Terry punches, kicks and viciously gouges his way through a series of brutal encounters. Among the scenes that earned the film an X rating are one in which Terry castrates a would-be rapist with his bare hands, which still manages to shock with its intensity and graphic nature even by today’s standards. Guys are punched so hard they spit out mouthful of teeth and spew judicious amounts of blood. But the film saves the best (and nastiest) move for the final showdown, an impressive battle as Terry proceeds to single-handedly decimate a tanker boat full of henchmen with a climactic fight on deck in the pouring rain.

Shigehiro Ozawa’s direction is appropriately dynamic with plenty of skewed camera angles, slow motion, black and white flashbacks and even an X-ray shot of Terry crushing a guy’s skull with his fist. How badass is that? He makes excellent use of the widescreen frame, especially during the fight scenes, letting them play out along the entire length of the frame. When New Line Cinema picked up the film in North America, it was renamed The Street Fighter from its original title, which translated into the infinitely cooler sounding, Clash, Killer Fist! It earned an X rating for the gory violence and the studio re-edited the film significantly, cutting out 16 minutes in order to get an R rating. The Street Fighter was an international hit spawning two sequels, Return of The Street Fighter (1974) and The Street Fighter’s Last Revenge (1974) as well as a spin-off film, Sister Street Fighter (1974). None of them hold a candle to the one that started it all – a cult film that dispenses with niceties like political correctness and restraint for an unbridled romp through the criminal underworld led by Chiba’s unrepentant mercenary. For fans of down ‘n’ dirty martial arts movies, this one is pure catnip and a potent reminder of how good a decade the ‘70s was for the genre where you could have a mainstream masterpiece like Enter the Dragon along with no-holds barred carnage on display in The Street Fighter.

DVD of the Week: Supercop: Two-Disc Ultimate Edition

Supercop (1992) is the North American name given to the third installment of the popular Police Story series starring international action movie star Jackie Chan. It was the first film in the franchise not to be directed by Jackie but instead by Stanley Tong. It was also the last film in the series to feature actress Maggie Cheung as Jackie’s girlfriend.

Chan Ka-Kui (Jackie Chan), or supercop as he’s known in his police department, volunteers for a dangerous undercover mission in mainland China to bust up an international drug ring. He is teamed up with Inspector Yang (Michelle Yeoh) and poses as a merchandiser of Foshan National Machinery Plant, while she poses as his sister, but not before displaying some of his fighting prowess sparring with the military academy’s top martial artist. This gives Jackie a chance to demonstrate his knack for physical comedy.

Yang gets to show off her impressive fighting skills when she saves Chan and Brother Panther (Yuen Wah) from being arrested. This allows the two of them to gain Panther’s confidence. He takes them to a compound where they meet his partner-in-crime, Big Brother (Ken Tsang), a ruthless psychopath. To further complicate things, Chan’s girlfriend May (Maggie Cheung in a thankless role) shows up on a vacation trip and assumes that he’s cheating on her with Yang.

What a “tough” choice Jackie has in this film – choose between the adorable Maggie Cheung and the beautiful Michelle Yeoh. It’s not really fair, though, because Cheung is relegated to a damsel-in-distress role while Yeoh is more Jackie’s equal, fighting and hanging off speeding vehicles. Did I mention that she spends part of a car chase hanging onto the side of a van? She is Jackie’s ideal foil as they banter and bicker like an old married couple – when they aren’t busy taking on numerous bad guys. Yeoh is also more than capable of handling herself in the action sequences. She matches Jackie at every step. Even when he’s hanging for dear life from a helicopter, she manages to jump onto a moving train with a dirt bike, which has to be seen to be believed. Even more impressive is that it’s done without CGI. She actually did it as the end credit blooper reel reveals.

Supercop is a fun, exciting and entertaining film that you would expect from Jackie Chan. It has all kinds of cheesy jokes, top notch fight scenes and insanely choreographed chase sequences, all done without the assistance of computer technology. In this day and age there is something refreshing about that.

Special Features:

The first disc features an engaging audio commentary by Hong Kong cinema expert Bey Logan. He talks about the differences between this version and the Hong Kong version. For example, there were different opening credits and musical scores for each version. This begs the question, why wasn’t the Hong Kong version included on this supposedly “Ultimate Edition?” Logan points out the members of Jackie’s stunt-team and talks about their excellent timing in the action sequences. Logan provides brief biographical information on Michelle Yeoh and Maggie Cheung as well as a wealth of production details on this very informative track.

The second disc starts with a real treat: “Flying High: An Exclusive Interview with Star Jackie Chan.” He talks about working with director Stanley Tong, who, at the time, was a young director. Jackie talks about working with Michelle Yeoh and speaks admiringly of her ability to do her own stunts. He also recalls how scared he was doing the helicopter sequence.

“Dancing with Death: An Interview with Leading Lady Michelle Yeoh.” She had a background in ballet and only started doing martial arts when she did her first action film. She learned something new on every subsequent film. Yeoh talks about how she got into acting and speaks eloquently and warmly in this engaging interview.

“The Stuntmaster General: An Exclusive Interview with Director Stanley Tong.” He talks about working with Jackie over five films and how they collaborate together. He talks about the challenge of doing the stunts in the film without CGI.

“The Fall Guy: An Exclusive Interview with Jackie Chan Bodyguard, Training Partner and Co-Star Ken Lo.” He recounts his first meeting with Jackie when he was bouncer and the action star asked him if he would like to work in films. they have worked together for 20 years.