“The One-Armed Swordsmen” Theatrical Poster
Director: Jimmy Wang Yu
Co-director: David Chiang
Cast: Jimmy Wang Yu, David Chiang, Lo Lieh, Chang Yi, Liu Meng Yan, Han Ying Chieh, Lung Fei
Running Time: 109 min.
By Ian Whittle
Given Jimmy Wang Yu’s legendary bad behaviour on sets, and David Chiang’s long feud with Ti Lung, I’d love to have been on the set of this Wang/Chiang team-up, which they produced, directed and starred in.
The plot, written by Ku Lung, is a wacky “mystery” involving a mysterious one-armed man killing a policeman (Chang Yi). Naturally, since legendary one-armed swordsmen Fong Ping (Wang Yu) and Lei Lee (David Chiang) both show up in town, both ordering ludicrously enormous meals at the taverns, they are suspect – not helping matters is the fact that the only witness to the crime is an especially dumb kid! Lo Lieh, as Hua The Fox, is gloating and manipulating from the side-lines and gets most of the film’s best lines.
“Right, great fighting…good kung fu, good advice!”
“The One Armed Swordsmen having a fight…this is something one really shouldn’t miss! Yes…the fight of a lifetime! “
“You should realise by now that I am a very devious and extremely tricky fella…hence my nickname!”
For shear fun, I had a great time with this. It’s very silly but has a lot of energy. On the other hand it’s not what I would call GOOD – the action scenes are rather perfunctory (understandable given the literal limitations placed on the stars), and the overly complicated plot relies too heavily on convoluted mysteries. I’ve seen this film quite a few times over the years, and I still have no idea who the mysterious and masked Brother Dragon is supposed to be!
The two stars are amusingly yin and yang: Wang Yu overplaying his Clint Eastwood impression so monotonously his dubber has to speak in slow motion (and a New York accent), whilst David Chiang is lively and entertaining as usual. Besides Lo, we get antagonistic support from Han Ying Chieh (as an innkeeper with a deadly abacus), some looney ghost bandits, Lung Fei and San Mao (as Shaolin monks) and our mystery villain, who gets a final death speech that, thanks to the OTT voice acting of Ted Thomas, is really hilarious – the perfect combination of Shakespeare and Scooby Doo villainous send-offs.
Oh, and just so you know: Only the good die young!
Ian Whittle’s Rating: 5/10
That poster artwork is not very flattering to David Chiang – looks like he’s suffering from indigestion!
and Wang Yu looks like Toshiro Mifune in that one sheet.
I always thought Wang Yu was trying to look like Jo Shishido.
You know, this is kind of a great concept. Re-reviewing classics in a modern context. I never got why this film was a classic. It’s average at best. Calling the action scenes perfunctory is surely a joke given the fact that about a decade later we got Crippled Avengers (1978). I get the appeal at the time but wtf. Wang is a charisma vacuum and I’m sure your take, as well as mine is controversial in any context.
I’m reviewing the 1976 semi-sequel, not the Shaw Brothers original.
Could the mysterious masked killer Bloody Dragon and Hua the “Fox” could be the same person all along?