The Secret of Shaolin Poles (1977)

The Secret of Shaolin Poles (1977)
aka: Prodigal Boxer 2; New Prodigal Boxer 2; The Story of Fong Sai Yuk
Chinese Title: 方世玉大破梅花樁
Translation: Fong Sai-Yuk Big Broken Plum Blossom Pile

 

Starring: Meng Fei, Yasuaki Kurata, Lau Kar-Wing, Chang Yi, Doris Lung Jun'er, Dorian Tan Tao-Liang, Joh Yim-Yung
Director: Ulysses Au
Action Director: Lau Kar-Leung

 

In 1977, Lau Kar-Leung teamed up with Taiwanese director Ulysses Au once more for another independent flick, this time with a lot more success than the blandly forgettable Ming Patriots. The cards were stacked more in their favor this time: this project seemed to have way more of a budget than their previous collaboration had and, consequently, a (relatively) longer shooting schedule (Ming Patriots looks to have been choreographed by Lau over the weekend while he was visiting relatives in Hong Kong). Moreover, the story, which involves Chinese folk hero Fong Sai-Yuk, hit closer to home for Lau, considering that Fong Sai-Yuk was a student of the hung gar style, the same style that Lau Kar-Leung had trained in. Furthermore, Lau had already worked on two Fong Sai-Yuk movies around that time: The Men from the Monastery and Heroes Two, so he probably had a deeper connection with the story.

Finally, Lau Kar-Leung had already worked with most of the cast by this point. After all, one of the principal actors was his own brothers (a veteran choreographer by this point, too), so there was no trouble there in knowing how to choreograph him. Lau had worked with Meng Fei on the landmark hit Five Shaolin Masters, so he was probably well aware of the actors' strong and weak points. Chang Yi had stolen the show in Ming Patriots, so there was little chance of him screwing this film up. It must make a big difference to an action director when you're intimately familiar with the actors you're working wit.

The Secret of Shaolin Poles is the second official sequel to the 1972 classic The Prodigal Boxer, a film that bore the distinction of being the first modern kung fu movie about folk hero Fong Sai Yuk. Fong Sai-Yuk would show up in numerous films afterward, being played by the likes of Alexander Fu Sheng, Chin Kar-Lok, and even some fellow named Jet Li. Meng Fei was the first, however. Meng had reprised the role in 1975 in Young Hero of Shaolin, which shares a lot of similarities between this film's cast and crew. This movie however, addresses a number of plot points from The Prodigal Boxer, including its main villain (Yasuaki Kurata of Fist of Legend), who's supposed to be the brother of the villain from the first film (also played by Kurata).

The movie begins with a pair of anti-Qing rebels being presented before Commander Ma (Challenge of Death's Chang Yi). In a moment characteristic of a Lau-choreographed film, Ma commands them to kneel, but their horse posture is so strong that Ma's soldiers are unable to force them to do so. Only through the manipulation of pressure points are they able to force the two guys to kneel, after which Ma kills them. We then get a few random fight scenes, including one of a guy who looks and dresses like Fong Sai-Yuk (Lau Kar-Wing, of Kung Pao: Enter the Fist) who beats up a bunch of soldiers with just his fan. At about the same time, Commander Ma receives news that Dragon Lee, brother of the Tiger Lee villain character from the first movie, wishes to challenge Fong Sai-Yuk to a duel atop some poles and wants Ma to pay him a reward if he wins. Commander Ma agrees, thus setting up a match-made-in-hell partnership between the Japanese fighter and the Qing official.

We then follow Fong Sai-Yuk (Meng Fei) as he makes his way to a village to visit his friends. There are two things wrong with that, however. First, there are quite a few assassins ready to kill him on the way, including a man dressed as an old woman and blind man armed with a garotte. Second, when he arrives, Fong finds out from Xiao Yu (Doris Lung, who had worked with Lau in Master of the Flying Guillotine, the local girl who wants to get into Fong's pants, that his friend were those two guys who were killed in the first scene. She informs him that an impostor--the guy we saw fight the soldiers--had secured the men's heads after the execution. Fong and Xiao Yu head for the local brothel in order to find out who the impostor is.

While hanging out at the whorehouse, Fong gets in a big kung fu fight with the fake Fong Sai-Yuk, who turns out to be a man named Fong Tin. Fong Tin receives an important hung gar lesson from Sai-Yuk, who beats him up and taunts him about the weakness of his technique at every turn. While leaving the brothel, Fong Sai-Yuk makes eye contact with a pretty prostitute (Joh Yim-Yung, who had been in Ming Patriots) and is rebuked by Dragon Lee, who tells him to stop looking at his woman.

There's a "touching" scene in which Fong Sai-Yuk, Fong Tin, and Xiao Yu go to a restaurant where a small shrine has been erected in honor of Fong's friends. We learn that Fong Tin had secured the heads of the men, found their bodies, and then sewed the heads back on and buried them so that they could have a peaceful afterlife. Huh. Anyway, the two Fongs become friends.

Commander Ma and Dragon Lee meet up at the site where the pole duel is supposed to take place. The latter makes a public announcement that he intends to duel with Fong Sai-Yuk. While that hardly seems worth mentioning, I have to point out that he does so while simultaneously physically abusing the prostitute from the earlier scene, whom he had bought from the brothel. When Fong Tin hears that a cocky Japanese fighter is challenging Fong and mistreating Chinese women, he goes to challenge the man himself. He soon finds himself on the wrong end of a sharpened bamboo stake at the bottom of the poles. Fong Sai-Yuk eventually arrives and fights Dragon Lee, but the poles atop which they're fighting are booby trapped and Fong is seriously injured. Only some quick thinking from Xiao Yu, the prostitute, and an almost-but-not-quite-dead Fong Tin save Fong Sai-Yuk's life.

Fong Sai-Yuk is nursed back to health by the prostitute, Xiao Yu, and Fong's own mother (Kong Ching-Ha, of My Blade, My Life). Xiao Yu's father tries to turn in Fong for the reward money, but the heroes fake Fong's death in order to get him out of harm's way. Fong ends up going into training with a crippled fighter named Ma Chiu (Superkicker Dorian Tan Tao-Liang), while Dragon Lee goes on a warpath, arresting the women in Fong's life and trying to rape them. Unlike Anderson Silva, Fong's more than ready for a rematch.

The quality of Lau Kar-Leung's choreography here is a lot closer to what he was doing for the Shaw Brothers in 1977 for films like The Deadly Mantis and Executioners of Shaolin. The moves are quicker and crisper and the hung gar techniques are more prevalent, even though Meng Fei spends much of the movie fighting with a fan. There's less overt hung gar philosophy here than in Lau's own directorial efforts, but one can see it in some of the training sequences and in the fight between the two Fongs. The neat part of the training sequence is how much Lau emphasizes solid footwork, despite hung gar being known mainly for his animal-based hand techniques.

In a burst of creativity from Lau not seen since Masterof the Flying Guillotine, the standard-issue Fong Sai-Yuk pole fight is given a breath of fresh air via the numerous traps hidden inside the poles. Apparently, Fong Sai-Yuk really did fight atop a series of poles, knocking his opponent off and winning it. This film adds to the legend by including exploding poles, descending poles, poles that split into two when someone steps on them, and sharpened bamboo that rises from the ground at certain intervals. It's nice touch and works well for the movie here.

The actors acquit themselves fairly well to the material here. Meng Fei is good as the cocky, but likable Fong Sai-Yuk, and his fighting is a lot more assured under Lau Kar-Leung's direction than it ever was under Lau's brother (who choreographed many of Meng's movies). His handiwork with the fan predates Jackie Chan's famous fan fight in The Young Master. Yasuaki Kurata and Chang Yi are solid as always, with the latter essentially reprising his role from Ming Patriots. Doris Lung, who looked great under Lau's direction before, is relegated to a flower vase role as a girl involved in a sort-of love triangle between her, Fong, and the prostitute. Even worse is Tan Tao-Liang, one of the great genre superkickers, who is forced to play the role of the master, with minimal fight action. A brief exchange between him and Kurata shows that he might've shined more than ever before under Lau's direction, as his career was hampered by one too many cheap Taiwanese films with choreographers who didn't know how to tune into his skills. Alas, that wasn't to be.

The main flaws to this film fall mainly on the shoulders of the writers and Ulysses Au, who fill the film with racist jabs at the Japanese and violence against women. Things get particularly ugly in the last act when Kurata's character tries to rape Doris Lung and then beats the prostitute to death. He then outlines his plan to Chang Yi, in which he plans to rape Doris atop the poles unless Fong Sai-Yuk shows up to fight him again. The rampant misogyny never adds up to anything more than the filmmakers trying to make the Japanese character as hateful as possible.

I almost wonder if it was Lau's experience on this film that inspired him to make Heroes of the East, which treated Yasuaki Kurata and Japanese martial arts in general with respect for once. You can just imagine Lau listening to Kurata's complaints about the character he's portraying and then rubbing his chin and planning out a film that would remedy that, occasionally exchanging ideas with Kurata in order to develop said idea. It certainly gives this movie another dimension of sorts in how it helped spur the creation of one of the greatest kung fu movies of all time.