Midweek Mention... The Eight Diagram Pole Fighter

Sidey: bit of

Reegs: Yeah ... isn't there about the eight diagram stuff? Yeah. And then there's a woman, and she's saying she has to sacrifice one of the, the kids, doesn't she? Before it leaps off to the battle.

Sidey: Yeah. Any kind of text, any kind of things that isn't a fight, it's just leading you, like it's just you're waiting for the next fight in this.

Reegs: Yes. Yeah, 'cause this is a Shaw Brothers

Sidey: movie. Yeah.

Reegs: And it stars Gordon Liu as well, so y- you should know what you're in for- Yeah ... with this sort of thing.

Dan: So let, let me just get that right, 'cause I didn't manage to see this film. So you're saying that she has to sacrifice one of her children before the war starts?

Reegs: what it starts with, doesn't it? The mother and the two... It's like-

Sidey: It doesn't really become a thing.

Reegs: No. It's sort of really disconnected, 'cause the film really kicks off with the, all of the Yang brothers, seven of them, being introduced one by one in their, like, dynamic poses. Yeah Each one following off the previous one.

A load of text that comes on screen that wasn't translated in the copy of the film that I

Sidey: I spent the fir- This is why I can't remember exactly what happened at the start, 'cause I was flummoxing around trying to figure out if I could have it in the original language- Yeah but with subtitles. But you couldn't.

Reegs: you couldn't. You couldn't, no. You could only have the great dubbing. You

Sidey: have it dub- and then you needed it dubbed with subtitles still.

Dan: Oh. So it was like the, "You wanna fight?" Look- Kind of, No, it's

Sidey: it's not completely terrible, but I just would've preferred it in

Reegs: You still get all of the original sound effects and musical score- Yeah which you've heard over, and over, and over again. So that,

Sidey: so let's get into it. That what, we went to see the Wu-Tang Clan. Yeah.

And then so like the algorithms got ahold of me, and I had a clip of RZA- You know, the, the Abbot of the Wuzheng Clan going through 10 of his favorite kung fu movies and where the samples for the f- well, a lot of the albums- where they'd c

ome from, and this is one of the-

Reegs: Yeah, absolutely ... films that he spoke about. I, I think I watched this was in his top three. Yeah. With the 36 Chambers of Shaolin. And he really related to it because he came from a large family as well.

He had eight brothers- Yeah ... and three sisters, and this is about seven brothers and two sisters. So i- there was some element of that that he connected with as well. Before

Sidey: into, let's get into our first big fight. You can tell it's like it's a set, you know what I mean? But who cares about all that

Reegs: Oh, but all the sets are amazing though.

Sidey: though. And especially the finale. But this one, essentially it is the this, this is Song dynasty, and this is the Yan family.

Reegs: The Yang family. They're famous throughout Chinese- Right ... history. Like, they're sort of these big mythical figures almost, but they were real.

Sidey: And they've been betrayed. Yeah. And this is a, an ambush for them by the Mongol, the Mongol

Reegs: Yeah. So they're down at this place called the Golden Beach, and it's Pan Mei. Yeah. He's the traitor who's a general in, in the Yang dynasty army. He's turned against him.

Sidey: Yeah.

Reegs: And the sons are massacred on the beach. St- they, they sort of line up, and they're obviously impressive fighters, and they've got these spears. But like one of them's taken do- like he has his eyes ripped out, doesn't he?

And another one- Yeah ...is taken down with a load

Sidey: they en- they, they have ... So the, the Mongol, it's what are they? The, the L- Liao army. They also have these big staffs, but there's, you know, like a fizzy drink straw that bends at the

Reegs: That's

Dan: yeah. That's

Sidey: exactly what theirs are like. So, so the, the s- the Yan ones, they're just, like,

Reegs: A spear.

Dan: actually- Pokey

Reegs: they are the golden spear.

Sidey: But these ones are a bit more high-tech, and when they are fighting, they're able to hit them, and the end, the straw bit, wraps around them and won't come undone. Yeah.

And, and quite a lot of the times you just see people just get impaled. And you can see then that they're really getting fucking lifted up and- Yeah like, moved around. And when they do it to the girl later on, it's fucking

Reegs: Yeah, absolutely. And they're heavily outnumbered, these guys.

You know, they're fighting maybe, I don't know, in the background there's maybe 20 guys just stood there waiting to get, to go in, and they're fighting 10 or 15 guys at once in this super fast great kung fu.

You know, a bit of wire work and, and that sort of thing. But the, the brothers are pretty much dispatched. Somebody's axed. And

Sidey: But it's cool the way they, they refer to each other as, like, fourth brother. Fourth

Reegs: Fourth brother, third brother. Five

Sidey: fifth brother, you know?

Reegs: Eventually, pretty much they're all killed. One's trampled underfoot. The fifth brother kinda gets away, and we'll come back to him. That's Gordon Liu that you'll have seen in Kill Bill probably.

Sidey: Yeah, the guy with the white beard in King Bill- Yeah ... Part Two who trains... That, it's hi-

Dan: Yeah ... him as a

Reegs: Part II who trains that ... It's him- Yeah ... younger. But a legend of Shaw Brothers and, and all this kind of cinema. And sixth brother gets away as well, doesn't he? He's, like heavily traumatized.

Sidey: Alexander Fu Sheng, his role was heavily, heavily altered during filming because he died died he died, in a car crash- Yeah ... him and his

Dan: Wow. Right. Yeah.

Sidey: So they, yeah, they get away, and they, so Sixth Brother, he's able to go back home.

Reegs: But he's got PTSD though, and he's, like, reenacting the-

Sidey: is there a message first? It's seven brothers ... 'cause the mum, the matriarch- Yeah ... she misinterprets the message.

Reegs: She does, yeah.

Sidey: I can't remember what it says. Seven Brothers-

Reegs: She doesn't realize that two are still alive, basically. She, she

Sidey: one has died, though. The way she reads the message, she thinks that one has died. But it's only, the message actually, and, and the message is wrong because the message assumes that w- only one survived, but actually two have

Dan: have survived. Yeah. Okay. Right.

Sidey: So there's a lot of confusion, but he makes it back,

Reegs: But so she's expecting most of her sons to return. Yeah. Only sixth brother returns, and he's, like, got bad PTSD. He's, like, reenacting the thing and screaming

Sidey: tries to fight them all. He just wants to carry on the battle there with his own crew. So then this is just another excuse for some more fighting.

We see even the mum's a badass, and she, like- Yeah has to put him down, and, you know, everyone's just fucking kung fu fighting.

Reegs: Yeah.

Dan: carrying on

Reegs: so, well,

Sidey: Well, Fifth Brother, he makes it to a monastery. first- first of all, he he- ... there's

Reegs: that trapper guy. He

Sidey: meet, he meets a guy in the woods

Reegs: guy that he just meets. His ... Like, he goes into his house. He's escaping from the Mongol army, and he goes into this trapper's place, and he ends up fighting him because he's taken some of his food and some of his clothes.

So th- he turns out to be brilliant, and they have this crazy fight, and then he ends up sacrificing himself, doesn't he? Fighting off the Mongols to,

Sidey: he's got a secret tunnel ... find his tunnel Yeah. And he, they realize after a little bit of fighting that they're kind of kindred spirits. They, they're both kind of... He was used to be a general in an army or

Reegs: something. Yeah.

Sidey: And he's, he's sort of wants to help him then once he

Reegs: at first he thinks he's a deserter, doesn't he? But then when he knows who, finds out who he is, like, obviously he's a legend throughout the parts as well. He's a member of the cha- the What are they called? Yang. After ... Yang,

Dan: And it's all, like, the Mongols they're fighting, is it? The is it Genghis Khan's kind of lot, or is this different time period in

Sidey: I don't know the exact t-t time, but it's the Song dynasty China period. I don't know where that aligns with the the whole,

Dan: genghis timeline

Reegs: No.

Sidey: But they're Mongols, and there's some great, like, stuck-on beards and people just doing, you

Dan: beards a lot. Th-th-the like a, a- Another great- ... a good beard stroke i-is essential,

Sidey: But they have another great big battle here, and you're right. He, he keeps them all at bay while Fifth Brother escapes down-

Reegs: the tunnel

Sidey: And gets out of the tunnel and he, he is able to get to, to the ... It's, it's sort of booby-trapped, isn't it? Yeah.

'Cause he, he sort of hurls himself towards the tunnel and moves some rocks, and it all sort of collapses down, and they can't then get through to go after. Yeah.

And they're, they're under orders, so they're under pressure from their leadership, like, "We gotta fucking get all these guys if you..." And, you know.

Reegs: Well, Pan Mei doesn't want him to get word to the emperor, right? That's

Sidey: That's the- There'll be a, there'll be a sort of court martial-y type court case type thing Yeah.

Reegs: So the fifth brother then, this is when he does end up in the, at the monastery, doesn't he? Yeah. He, like, hears them first, and then he-

Sidey: then he- There's all these monks, and they're, they're, also trained fighters, but they're not, they're not trained to kill, though. They're, they're-

Reegs: no, it's expressly against. They d- I mean- They're very calm

Sidey: they'll do harm

Reegs: of the movie because they don't... They say about you don't kill.

Sidey: Yeah.

Reegs: use this technique

Dan: to kill. Just incapacitate.

Sidey: what I mean is they're not, not gonna kill. They, they- But they can still look

Reegs: fight back for themselves ... their, their whole thing is about protecting from themselves from wolves, yeah. Just kick- And they've got these wooden wolves

Sidey: You know, if you picture, I think it's Karate Kid III, you know, when Daniel's doing all the thing against the wooden

Dan: Y- oh, yeah, yeah ... dummy.

Sidey: they've got that, but they, it's a, but it's a wolf, and so they're training against this wolf, and it's got a mouth with, like, metal spikes as teeth, and they're just kinda, like, poking it a bit.

And they're, they're tidy enough, but then fifth brother comes along, and he's just, like, fucking demolishes it. And the, the, like, head monk's like, "No, you can't stay here. You're a

Dan: You're-" No. Right. You've gone, you've gone too far. Basically,

Reegs: like-

Sidey: He's still got rage

Reegs: he want... He's got the rage, and he sees these guys are pretty handy with this stuff, and he's like, "Oh, I could learn your techniques and go and kill everyone." But they're, they're Buddhists, and they're like, "No, man, this is, this is not about

Dan: This is self-defense

Reegs: Yeah. So he's told he's not allowed to be there, but he, he does the initiation ceremony himself anyway, doesn't he, with

Sidey: the

Reegs: Oh, the water ... no, with the

Sidey: Oh, yeah. With the This is where the eight diagrams is. He, they have just sticks burning, and he just plum... He, first of all, he shaves his own head, really recklessly.

Reegs: recklessly. It's really horrible 'cause he's got really long hair, and he shaves his head completely, like... It's really effective the way they did

Sidey: it. Yeah, but

Reegs: he's using a knife, but then at the end, he's, like, basically cutting his scalp off

Dan: and like- Right. He's, he's kinda scalping himself And then he

Sidey: his head against these burning embers to do the eight, the diagram. It's like a, it's like a big dice, basically, but with eights and a Wow.

They're like, "Wow, he's a badass." And then he does this performance on it'd be like a ceremonial kind of pond thing-

Reegs: thing. Yeah, on these, like- So he's- ... water lily things

Sidey: he's just doing all these moves. And they're like, "Yeah, you, you ... We can see that you're tidy enough, but you still, you don't have it down. The ethos is not right. We're not

Dan: killers. You need to be in your heart, not in your head. In your head, not in your heart. And- Well, what they say,

Reegs: what they say is that

Dan: you can- Ancient fight,

Reegs: but they, they do it through the analogy of the wolf, 'cause they say, "We remove the wolf's teeth." This is what they say, isn't it? That's how... You render him harmless by removing his teeth, which will become quite

Sidey: could take that literally,

Reegs: 20 minutes of the movie. You know, There's

Dan: always a great analogy in kung fu movies. So now,

Sidey: movies ...I think sixth brother's have basically been edited out of it now because of what happened.

Reegs: Well, there's a lot of backwards and forwards at this point, isn't it? Because one of the monks from the temple goes off to-

Sidey: He goes to get help

Reegs: goes to their place- Yeah ... to check out the story. He ends up getting in a scrap there on the way and all that sort of thing.

Sidey: There's a load of, like, Mongol spies basically outside- Yeah ... the palace,

Reegs: Yeah.

Sidey: And when he, he goes off the, the mother gives him this jade dragon and says, "Take this back." Or does she give that to the daughter?

Reegs: She gives that to the daugh- yeah, 'cause then Eighth

Sidey: Yeah, so he goes out. He is killed. He actually kills himself rather than ... He, he ... So he knows obviously the fifth brother's back at the- monastery. All these Mongol guys are outside the palace. They, like, get ahold of him.

He fights them off, but eventually they've got him wounded, and they've shot him with an arrow. Yeah. And they've, they've got him pinned down, and they're like, "Tell us where he is.

Tell us where he is." And he just grabs the arrow and shoves it in his throat and kills himself- Yeah ... rather than give him up. Yeah. And then, yeah, you say there, the, the eighth sister- Yeah ... is now ...

She looked quite a lot like Chun-Li, I thought, the outfit and everything. Yeah.Dan: What, "Street Fighter" Trinh Le? yeah,

Reegs: she's sent off now to go and find Fifth Brother at the monastery. Yeah. So she heads out on the

Sidey: own. And she's told, "Just take this,

Reegs: This, like golden thing with the jade thing hanging off it

Sidey: Yeah.

Reegs: "Take that with you to prove to everybody that,

Sidey: Something, stuff stuff. Yeah. What

Dan: she do spinning kick?

Reegs: Oh, she's a badass as well.

Sidey: with a sword.

Reegs: Yeah. So she'll meet someone on the way. She gets into a fight with him and then he g- he's just a guy who owns the bar, I think, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah. Gets into a fight with him, and then ends up back at his place, and Pan Mei turns up.

Sidey: Which he turns out to have the golden sword. Yeah. Or the golden ... So he, there's, there's a ceremonial like yang. So it's a massive pole, but it's got an enormous golden blade on the top of it. Yeah.

That's b- I think there was more stuff in the film that must have ended up cut out because of what happened because they hadn't really referred to this earlier, I don't comes up. it just becomes a thing. And

Dan: thing. And,

Sidey: and so she wants that back, and then they sort of ... They s- realize that she's important. But there's more Mongols flying

Reegs: Yeah.

Sidey: 'Cause I think it's at the bar where it

Reegs: It's at the bar where it all kicks off, isn't it? 'Cause Pan Mei co- turns up. They try and sneak her out, don't they, in the basket.

Sidey: Yeah.

Reegs: And then she comes out and has a fight.

Sidey: She's d- like, hideously outnumbered.

Reegs: Yeah.

Sidey: She's been they infer that she's been killed.

Dan: Right. Yeah. Okay.

Sidey: Okay. She, she does do some really cool fighting and, and she's the first one that has, sort of, has a sword, and she's, like, really handy with that.

Reegs: So anyway, word gets to Fifth's, Fifth

Sidey: Fifth

Dan: She's gone

Reegs: that, you know, so he's like, "Right, fuck it," and he just grabs a load of poles, and you see him, like going up the street with these,

Sidey: he has to fight the, the monk,

Reegs: Oh, he has to fight the monk first. Yeah.

Sidey: do the stuff with the beanbags, and they're

Reegs: beanbags. Oh, it's amazing. Yeah ... But yeah,

Sidey: they have a, solo fight, and he passes on the ceremonial red robe as, like- He does ... your- They're sort

Reegs: of endorsing him ... going-

Sidey: whether that was like, "You're now the leader," or You're just one of us.

Reegs: He's amazed by his technique basically, 'cause he's really good

Sidey: Well, he fights him in a sort of passive You know, 'cause he's flicking the the cushions at him and- Yeah ... he realizes that he can fight, you know, just take the teeth out.

Reegs: Just take the teeth out way, yeah.

Sidey: And so yeah, he goes then down to the bar where he's got

Reegs: that- They hear a wolf. Their fight is stopped when they hear a wolf cry, don't they? And then they both just stop and bow, and that's it done, like- Yeah. Yeah.

So then it's all set up for the final scenes with him heading off to the bar- Yeah ... with his trolley load of

Dan: poles. Back in those days, still bar fights. Yeah. That's where it all kicks off, innit? Yeah.

Reegs: So he rocks up to the door. This was... Honestly, I was laughing so much about this 'cause he's got all these poles, and the guy's like, "Well, that's, they're just a bunch of bamboo poles.

That's shit." And he just slices off the end one, and he's like, "Well, don't worry about that. I've got several." And then he just throws them at them, and it just then sort of kicks

Sidey: off. He does like the wah on, on a load of them. Yeah, he just And it, which just impales about four of them, and then he does it again, and there's just multiple people down, and it's quite gory. It's quite ...

It just looks a bit silly now, but there's a lot of blood, and they're all-

Reegs: I don't think it does look all

Sidey: one where the guy gets his cheek cut off, and that was like fucking hell. That was

Reegs: Yeah, it's like all flapping around.

Sidey: But he goes into ... Then he f- he basically kills about 20 of them, and he goes into the bar, and it's just set up with these caskets almost like a pyramid. Yeah. And it's not Pai Mei, is it? It's someone else on, the other guy on the

Reegs: It's all the other guys. They come flying out of their

Sidey: And he's like, "Your sister's dead, you know," and he's, and he's ... "She's in here." And he's stood on top of her casket. he's like, right, he's really fucking not happy about that, so massive fight. This fucking choreography is so fucking cool.

Reegs: I mean, it really just goes off the hook. You know, beating multiple opponents at once, and then it gets really

Sidey: so he's got to, like, jump up levels, and they'll, like, open the lids of the casket, and he's jumping off there and fighting there. And then all the other monks turn up, and it all just fucking It's You

Dan: How many of them are ending up in caskets and,

Sidey: impossible to describe, like, the intricacies of the fight, but some of the stuff that happens is basically what Rigg says before. When they say you got to take their teeth out, so many guys get all their ...

So they'll just slam the staff into their mouth- And

Reegs: the teeth just go flying out

Sidey: the room ... and some, some guys got someone's teeth, like, embedded in his skull.

Reegs: Like, they put their mouth on the edge of the casket and then smack their head into it, so then they- Yeah and they fall away, and all their

Dan: teeth- Your teeth are still there ... left on the edge

Reegs: the,

Dan: oh, brilliant it's

Reegs: all teeth, teeth, teeth. And yeah, 'cause all the f- the monks turn up to help him as well. Yeah.

Sidey: Come in with the, with their wooden wolf.

Reegs: Yeah, they do. Yeah. Yeah, they do. Yeah.

Sidey: Yeah. Like, some of it, it's, it's just so entertaining. Do you know what I mean? It's, like, proper movie violence. It's- Choreographed ... choreographed kung fu stuff, but it is so fast. The athleticism, the fucking skill level, like, it's amazing.

Reegs: amazing There's one point where he's got her eighth sister on his back, C-3PO style-

Sidey: Yeah. And

Reegs: he's fighting everyone, like, and she's, like, at the back holding off, and he's kicking everyone, and he's just got her tied to his back. There's so many impressive- Yeah ...

physical athletic feats, and you look at it, like, going how the fuck did they do that? Like, you know, when they're-

Sidey: She's held up by all four limbs on one of those fizzy drink straws. Yeah. Just being like swung around in the air, and she's... For real. Do you know what I mean? She's like getting- It's real ... bandied about.

Reegs: And due to, you know, the sort of lack of labor laws in this place, they can just twat people in the face. Nobody cares. Like, so it's brutally impactful, a lot of it. It's not just like, you know ...

It can be a bit balletic and dancey, but a lot of it looks really fucking painful.

Dan: Yeah. They, they've always given... What, what kinda year are we looking at for this movie? '84. '84? Yeah. Okay.

Reegs: So they get beaten. Pan Mei gets done. It's him who gets his cheek done- Yeah ... Pan Mei, innit? And then he gets launched into the coffin, and then that's it, isn't it, really for him?

Dan: So that's brother number five down.

Reegs: number five down. No. He- He's, he's all right. He lives to save the day.

Sidey: He... So eventually the goodies win. They... There's gonna be... I don't know if they kill them or they get, they are gonna stand trial, are they? I can't remember. Do

Reegs: They're gonna go off to that trial. They're gonna testify there- Yeah ...and make sure that Pan Mei is-

Sidey: is- So- brought to account so Fifth Brother's there, and Eighth Sister, and she's shouting off to him, and he just ignores her, and he walks up a hill- Yeah ... and he's like, "Fuck this shit.

I'm just gonna go live in that hut up there." And it's the most relatable ending of

Dan: Yeah. I've just had too much of this. And then he

Reegs: of his brothers, I think, doesn't he? There's, like, a little thing of his brothers as he ... And that's it. Close. Done. And about 20 seconds of credits. Yeah. It's amazing. With a movie like that,

Dan: Honestly- Yeah ... about

Reegs: 20 seconds of credits. So did you like

Sidey: it? I fucking loved it.

Reegs: Yeah, it was good, weren't

Sidey: innit? It's the most, like enjoyment, like proper enjoyment I've had out of a movie for so long. Mm. 'Cause you could just watch it and just, you know... I, I had the Wu-Tang connection. I was like listening out for

Reegs: Yeah. and there's so many good little ... You're like, "Oh, that's from Wolves," or that's from whatever.

Sidey: Brilliant. And then realizing that that's Gordon Liu, and that's- Yeah you know, he's Pai Mei, is it, in- Yeah ... in Kill Bill 2 and, and other things. So rad. And the fighting is, is so good.

I was, I was gonna like go back through Rizz's list and then watch more, but I haven't had a chance to, but I will, 'cause they're fucking great.

Reegs: You could buy them really cheap in HMV, the Shaw Brothers box sets. And the ... It was just a great thing to put on, especially when we were at university, to just put it on in the background. Yeah.

You know, just a load of people sitting around talking, and it's just on in the background and, you know-

Dan: Loads of action. Yeah. Always something happening.

Reegs: something crazy or ...

Sidey: Yeah. Yeah. were saying you Loved it too.

Reegs: Yeah, really liked it. I think I've seen it before because, like I say, I've seen a lot of Shaw Brothers movies. Yeah. Went through a bit of a phase of that and yeah, just great. Really enjoyed it.

Dan: Yeah. Well, it sounds like I missed out on this one, so I will catch up. I look forward to it.

Sidey: I think it's a £1.99 on Prime- Yeah ... if you wanna get

Dan: involved. Okay. Bargain. Strong