Daggers 8 (1980)

It is a performances centric movie

Excellent but underrated film

An Exercise In Nonsense

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

DAGGERS 8 is a singularly underwhelming kung fu feature that was made by the delightfully-named Honest Films Company in Hong Kong. The film features in Meng Yuan Man a young upstanding hero whose sole desire is to learn various martial arts techniques at the hands of various masters, including a cook, an acrobat, and a tailor. The only problem is that a rival master is going around killing each of those masters in turn and of course is coming for Man himself, so he has to find out why before he himself is killed.It's an oddly random story and the execution of this rather cheap tale doesn't really get the juices flowing either. I'm unfamiliar with Meng Yuan Man as an actor and fighter but he seems very wooden when required to act and emote. His fighting is passable but he doesn't really light up the screen in the way that other martial artists do. Wilson Tong is better as the villain of the piece, although the real stand out is popular starlet Lily Li, whose own brand of 'female kung fu' is the highlight of the movie.

this is a pretty basic story, with awesome kung fu. The acrobatic Mung Yuen Men (from Hellz Windstaff) stars as a young man who wants to learn kung fu. He goes to learn from a cook played by Chan Lung, but soon after he starts learning, Chan Lung gets killed. His next teacher is played by Alan Hsu, and once again, right when he starts learning kung fu, his teacher gets killed. I would say that this movie is a bit of a mystery, but I don't want you to go into it expecting a great story. It's a decent story, but the fights are why it's worth watching. Wilson Tong, Chan Lung, Alan Hsu, Lily Li-Li-Li and Mung Yuen Men are all in top form.

In the spawning era of kung fu movies good ones and bad ones have graced the scene with either yays or boos. Then you have those movies that because of the name or the not so recognized actors that people won't give them a try. I was one of those people before.Anyway from the bottom of the barrel comes Daggers 8, a not so known kung fu movie with high octane action. As the story goes, our hero wants to learn kung fu (played by Meng Yuan Man). His grandfather is against this, especially since Mengs' brother is brought to the house dead from an azzwhooping. Meng refuses to stop training and leaves home to learn more kung fu.He runs in to 3 different masters who takes him in as a student, but the bad part is that they all wind-up being killed by a master of Daggers (played by Wilson Tong). As each master is killed Meng finds another one. He finally comes home only to find out that his grandfather is the one that hired the killer to stop him from being taught. The same killer kills gramps which leads to an all out fight fest.This movie is hidden and should be dug up and placed in every kung fu fans' collection. There is no way this movie cannot compete with some of the other good ones out there. If you do not see this you are cheating yourself BIG TIME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

DAGGERS EIGHT (1980) tells a rather simple kung fu tale with some clever scenes and a light touch, but is ultimately too slight to rank among the more memorable martial arts films. It stars Meng Yuan Man as a young well-to-do student who defies his grandfather and goes off in search of kung fu teachers. In the course of the film he meets three consecutive teachers and learns a different style from each. One's a cook (Chan Lung), who teaches him movements based on kitchen activities, such as kneading dough. The next is an acrobat (Tsui Chung Shun) who teaches him somersaults and the last is a woman tailor (Lily Li) who teaches him women's style through the practice of such tasks as needlework, spinning cloth and laundry and who finally teaches him `soft fist.' The twist is that after each teaching sequence, each teacher is stalked, challenged and fought to the death by a hired killer armed with eight daggers. Eventually Ah Chung, the young man, who is baffled by the sudden demise of each teacher, must discover who commissioned the murders and then fight the killer himself.It's not very complicated, but it does feature some interesting performers including the star, Meng Yuan Man, who was more of an acrobat than a fighter and was seen to better effect in HELL'S WINDSTAFF, in which he was teamed with Meng Hoi. Wilson Tong plays the tall, menacing killer who fights each of the other four stars in one-on-one bouts. Wilson also co-wrote the screenplay and co-directed the film (with Cheung Sum).Lily Li (EXECUTIONERS FROM SHAOLIN) plays the woman kung fu teacher and has some of the best scenes in the film. She clearly takes a page from the `woman's kung fu' scenes that Gordon Liu shared with Kara Hui Ying Hung in FISTS OF THE WHITE LOTUS (1980). An ex-dancer, she invests her kung fu with grace, elegance, and dexterity, with a hidden reservoir of force.