As I recently mentioned on my other blog, I recently bought a new (to me) iBook. There are many reasons why I’m glad to be using a Mac again, but the one most pertinent to this blog is that I’m once again able to watch one of my top five favourite films, The Eight Diagram Pole Fighter.
I picked this up in Beijing, attracted by the bagua diagram on the box. I’m trying to remember which store I bought it in – it was either the one one the northwest corner of Hua Qing Jia Yuan, where the really pretty girl with curly hair (and thuggish shaven-headed, tattooed boyfriend) worked, or the one further down the road towards Beijing University’s west gate, opposite Tsinghua University’s south gate (which was run by people from Beijing’s rock and arts underground scene). Anyway, enough reminiscing 
After my Powerbook’s screen died, I wasn’t able to watch it; for some reason, neither my Windows laptop or my DVD player can read it. Apple computers can, though. I have no idea why this might be.
It turned out not to be related to baguazhang, but it’s still an absolutely superb martial arts film. It’s not the 1983 Hong Kong film of the same name starring Gordon Liu, which is the only one referenced in the IMDB – reading the reviews there really confused me at first (wooden wolves? wtf?). In fact, it’s a much lesser-known1990 film, made in the PRC in Mandarin.
From what I read on IMDB, the plot is based on the same story as the earlier Hong Kong film: two brothers of the Yang family, both generals, escape a massacre of their family by the Lao Kingdom and its whip-wielding female warriors (stop smirking…). One brother seeks refuge in a Buddhist temple, the other with surviving retainers and sisters in the jianghu.
The elder brother in the monastery becomes absorbed in the monks’ way of life, becoming a “monk with hair” and the favourite of the abbot. His story arc comes that of Huineng, the sixth patriarch of Chan Buddhism: he trains the warrior monks in his family’s staff fighting, telling them that it’s better for them to use a pole than a spear because monks shouldn’t kill. With his allies in the monastery, he prepares to battle the Lao. He defeats the senior monk in a poem-writing contest (done in suitably flying-wushu style with huge brushes). Defeated, the other monk is subverted by the Lao, and becomes a traitor to the monastery.
Like Huineng, the elder Yang brother is secretly given the Abbot’s robe, as a sign of transmission of the Chan lineage. The abbot is subsequently killed by the evil, moustache-twirling Lao warlord. Unlike Huineng, the ‘monk with hair’ doesn’t have to flee from the other monks – instead, they join him in a climactic battle alongside the remaining Yang siblings, their retainers, and a female warrior whose love for the elder Yang is unrequited, to defeat the Lao. Immediately after the battle, as his family and friends look on in stunned amazement, the elder Yang shaves his head and takes his place as the monastery’s new abbot.
The film has some really great martial arts scenes, although it’s marred by over-enthusiastic special effects in places. These don’t distract from the plot too much, though – much like the subtitles, which are comically bad in places and only barely manage to explain to the non-Mandarin viewer more than they mystify.
The real appeal of the film is its combination of excellent martial skills with a very sympathetic portrayal of Chan Buddhism. Like any ‘fighting monks’ flick, it has its share of shaven-headed tokens, but the senior monks are very well fleshed out, and are certainly not caricatures or stereotypes. The calm reflection and compassionate outlook of Buddhism shine through and, as the film ends, the main character’s abandonment of mundane attachments in pursuit of the monastic life is – for me, anyway – inspirational and moving. (It also gives a brief and simple summary of the Shaolin philosophy as the monks prepare for battle: “Brothers! We monks should not kill – but we must also defeat evil!” Worth remembering for those who think Buddhism is all about vapid pacifism…).
Overall, a really great film. One to watch over and again.
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