The Eight Diagram Pole Fighter (1984, Liu Chia Liang) (Patreon)

77/100

Enjoyed this enormously on both the kinetic and the dramatic level. The latter turns out to be trickier than I thought while watching it, so let me first wax rhapsodic about Liu's (or Lau's, if you prefer; IMDb lists 15 different transliterations!) exhilarating blend of expert precision and utter chaos. The opening and closing fight sequences, in particular, have more going on than the human eye can possibly take in at once...yet whenever you focus on particular combatants, their moves are beautifully choreographed. Editing's fast-paced enough to convey pandemonium but never feels assaultive, nor gives the impression that quick cuts are compensating for the actors' lack of physical prowess. Everything's been conceived with the camera in mind, so that e.g. when one of our heroes executes a nifty maneuver that fells four opponents simultaneously, two more poles instantly get thrust into the frame (from beside/behind), re-directing our attention to a new threat before we've even had time to register the previous threat's negation. Obviously the climactic battle, with its villains rising out of stacked coffins like martial-arts zombies, builds to an unforgettable free-for-all (that seems like it must have been an influence on Kill Bill's House of Blue Leaves sequence, though I can't find any record of Tarantino having said so), but just about every skirmish, including the opening one, could serve as the finale of almost any other martial-arts movie. "How can this not be the zenith?" I wondered when someone leaps in front of his master to take at least a dozen arrows (way more dramatic than a single bullet, lemme tell ya) and then just remains standing in place, a valiantly deceased human pincushion with a crazed stare. It isn't, though. 

Equally impressive, until it wasn't, was what I perceived as remarkable subversion of what's generally a pretty macho genre. First, the film pulls a Suicide Squad (Gunn version), introducing seven brothers one by one, each character and actor highlighted*, only to immediately wipe out all but #5 and #6. That's already quite unconventional, and was very much by design. But I then became fascinated by the sixth son, who survived the massacre but suffers from extreme PTSD and spends the rest of the movie freaking the fuck out—so much so that Mom eventually sends the eighth daughter (confusing numbering system, there are no girls older than her) on a crucial mission, because #6 can't handle it. Some of you may recall my extravagant praise for Captain Phillips' final scene, in which Hanks' protagonist goes into shock after witnessing close-range violence; this is that idea stylized and sustained for a good chunk of the film's running time, and it's remarkably potent. More amazing still, there's no resolution to it at all—#6 never snaps out of it, never redeems himself, and actually vanishes altogether after a certain point. Only after experiencing all of this as artistic integrity did I discover that it was in fact practical necessity: Alexander Fu Sheng, the actor who plays the sixth son, died in a car accident midway through shooting, and Liu reassigned his third-act scenes to Kara Wai. #6 was supposed to snap out of his derangement and help save the day; indeed, Fu Sheng was meant to be the film's co-lead alongside Gordon Liu (with whom I'm much more familiar, hence assumed had always been Pole Fighter's primary focus). On the one hand, that's a bit deflating to learn; on the other hand, it doesn't alter the film as it exists, and so arguably shouldn't diminish my admiration. I did find it weird that #6 plays no part at all in the film's final third, and was mentally drafting a comment to that effect before reading about Fu Sheng's death, so the loss is still felt to some degree. Sad though it is, however, I might actually prefer this rejiggered version to the cut from an alternate Earth on which he never got into the car that day. 

* While this does work as a fakeout, the film actually keeps tossing "[Actor] appearing as [Character]" text onscreen for its entire duration, a practice I don't recall having seen before and would frankly like to see all the time. Not in heavy dramas, maybe, but go ahead and give us "Stephen Root as Bank Teller" when he shows up in Buster Scruggs.