Oct 6, 2020
五郎八卦棍 (The 8 Diagram Pole Fighter, 1984)
"Abbot, you're breaking your vows!"
"No! We're only chasing away wild wolves!"
#The 8 Diagram Pole Fighter#五郎八卦棍#Wǔláng Bāguà Gùn#films i done watched#hong kong#shaw brothers#Lau Kar-leung#Chia-Liang Liu#Lily Li#Wong yue#Lau Kar-wing#gordon liu#Alexander Fu#Kara Hui#Kara Wai#Lam Hak-ming#Wang Lung-wei#Yeung Jing-jing#Yuen Tak#Ko fei#I've not watched a whole lot of martial arts films‚ and my exposure to Shaw Bros has mostly been their horror output#But even with my limited grasp of the genre I can tell this is something special. Ambitious in scope and design and featuring#Some incredible choreography‚ not just in the fight scenes but in every scene of people interacting with one another#Original star Alexander Fu was killed in a car accident during production‚ and the film hastily reworked to move the emphasis from his#Character onto Gordon Liu; honestly‚ they did it so well that I'm not sure I would have noticed the rewrites and shuffling around of#Characters if I hadn't read about it before watching. Some incredible setpiece fights and characters that you actually care about..#This is good hong Kong cinema. Kara Wai comes from nowhere to steal the film right out from under her male costars#Opening battle scene is fascinating in its artifice‚ being so clearly performed on stages and sets that seem to have been designed to be#Almost expressionistic rather than realist. Feels like the capturing of a legendary historical event on camera#Good stuff this. But be warned‚ the ending features perhaps the most dental trauma I've ever seen in one film