Pride’s Deadly Fury

I linked a while ago to a Youtube clip of baguazhang. From the information supplied by whoever posted it, the clip is taken from an 80s martial arts film called Wulin Zhi, also known as Pride’s Deadly Fury, and The Honor of Dongfang Xu. I did a bit of searching around online, and it seemed that this film is pretty hard to get hold of these days. I asked some martial arts friends in Beijing about it, and they didn’t know anything about it, and said they’d never seen it in the shops.

Anyway, I sent the YouTube link to my classmate Jono, who looked at it and said “Do you realise who the older girl in the clip is?” And of course, it’s Ge Chun Yan, our teacher! Most of the actors are from the original Beijing Wushu Team, and are serious martial artists. Jono mentioned the film to Madam Ge and, lo and behold, at last night’s training she arrived with a fistful of copies of the film on VCD (with price stickers in RMB on the shrinkwrap, so obviously it is still on sale in Beijing).

==== (Added later) SPOILER ALERT ====
From the YouTube clip, of course, I had no idea what the film was about. It’s actually a variant of the story of Huo Yuan Jia and the episode in which he fought a number of Western and Japanese fighters – the story recently retold in Jet Li’s Fearless. In this version, the protaganist (Xu?) is a Baguazhang expert making a living with his family as wandering martial artists, giving demonstrations for money. They have a falling out with some students of Master He Da Hai(the Huo Yuan Jia role). He defeats the students, and then master He, who becomes involved to defend the honour of his school. However, when Xu is subsequently injured, M aster He and his senior students prove themselves to be moral, upright characters who give him money to live on. After this, Xu and his family are taken in by a baguazhang master who helps him to regain his strength, and trains him in bagua techniques (this is the section on YouTube).

Master He is engaged in a contest with three Western strongmen, who know Chinese kung fu as well as western boxing and wrestling. He defeats the first two, but time runs out, and the contest with the last and strongest westerner is postponed. Before it can be held, the Westerners and Japanese treacherously send a Chinese thug to smash master He on the head with a club swung from a moving carriage. Master He is incapacitated. Xu visits him in hospital, and returns the money He had previously given. To his suprise, Xu is named by He as He’s successor as head of the school, and asked to take on thefinal westerner. After a confrontation with some of He’s students, who refuse to accept the new head, Xu takes on the last Westerner, in a long and difficult fight, which he eventually wins with bagua techniques. As the crowd swirls around him, one of the dissident students tries to stab Xu in the back. Master He is nearby, sees the attempt and, pushing Xu out of the way, is stabbed himself and dies. Thus, the story keeps fairly close to the Huo Yuan Jia legend.

Ge Chun Yan has very little to do in the film except to look shocked a few times. I was getting ready to be disappointed, until very late in the film. There’s a fairly lame subplot, in which a little girl is kidnapped by thugs, and is rescued by Ge Chun Yan with the assistance of some of the students from the school (as well as the bagua master, who appears from nowhere). Anyway, Ge Chun Yan whups a lot of bad-guy ass with some impressive bagua moves!

I’m being vague on names, relationships, and detailed plot points because the film is naturally all in Mandarin, with no subtitles, so I missed a lot of detail (although I was pleasantly surprised at how much I could follow).

Great film, with some excellent fight scenes, wicked westerners, and a rare chance to see bagua being used properly in fight scenes (and no, Jet Li in The One doesn’t count!)