La venganza del espadachín manco

After defeating The Long-Armed Devil and his armies, our nubbed hero has been living in retirement as a farmer, but circumstances causes him to come out of retirement and take on The Eight Kings, each warrior with their own unique fighting style. The time has come for the one armed swordsman to return.

Before Chang Cheh was making his "Five Deadly Venoms" films, he was perfecting the wuxia with the One-Armed Swordsman series. Is part two better than the first? Maybe, maybe not. But it is at least as good, with some more solid villains -- including a woman with a thousand blades! The martial arts genre, at least under the direction of Chang Cheh, is interesting in how steady and consistent it remained -- even up through the 1980s, the use of scenery, camera tricks and more remained largely unchanged. But, as they say, if it ain't broke, why fix it?

"The One-Armed Swordsman" is a classic and one of the best martial arts films of all time. So, it's not surprised that the movie had sequels. While not nearly as good, Yu Wang is back as the title character and it's interesting enough to merit watching if you like these sorts of pictures. If you don't, this one is unlikely to convert you.

When the film begins, a group of baddies named the 8 Kings attack the leaders and best students of the 40 martial arts schools. They then send an ultimatum to all the surviving students back home...."Cut off one of your arms or we'll kill your masters". Not surprisingly, they decide instead to seek out the One-Armed Swordsman and enlist his help. Will he come out of retirement to help? Well, considering the title of the film, it's pretty much a foregone conclusion.

Along the way, they encounter a lot of treachery and baddies. My favorite was the evil woman who smiles so convincingly...as she murders folks right and left. She is an amazingly good villain and it's a shame she's only in a small portion of the film. In addition to her, you'll see LOTS of blood and gore and tons of ridiculous fight scenes using 'wire fu'. This is the most serious problem of the movie. In the first film, there is some wire fu but mostly it's just really, really great swordsmanship and martial arts. Here, however, the quality of the fighting is much, much lower with blood substituting for quality fighting. Not a terrible fighting film but certainly not near the quality of the first one despite having the same leading man and director. Diverting but far from a must-see. After all, you DON'T expect total realism from a one-armed film...but you do expect better than this.

By the way, if you want to make this film a drinking game, I suggest everyone take a shot every time a character is mortally wounded yet miraculously, for a few seconds, begins fighting again despite losing gallons of blood or having HUGE swords thrust through them! I especially love the scene with the guy impaled with a sword and he manages to kill a dozen more guys for about the next five minutes before he ultimately expires!

After watching the original One-Armed Swordsman, directed by Chang Cheh and starring Wang Yu in the title role, I knew I had to watch this direct sequel, as the others had David Chiang replacing Wang Yu as Fang Gang.

Continuing where the first movie left off, we see Fang Gang leading a life of a farmer, without a care of JiangHu politics. But as the saying goes, and in martial arts movie, so long as you're a reputable swordsman, trouble will always be looking for you. The emergence of the evil Eight Demon Swordsmen clan brought about chaos, with their issuing of forced challenges and a grand meeting amongst the swordsman clans. The senior members of various clans get annihilated or captured, and its down to the junior members to try and convince Fang Gang to come out of "retirement" to assist them in their quest of rescue, and getting rid of the Eight Demon Swordsmen.

It's also pretty cool to see the main villains being crafted with various deadly weapons and different personalities. Like the one with the deadly chain-attached sickle, or the mean looking knife-shield. How about a weapon which seemed to fire pellets of poison, and a sword with extensible blade? Perhaps the more interesting villain was the lady assassin, with her demure looks, and deadly hidden knives, giving a new meaning to back-stabbing! However, being villains, our hero and his gang of merry men, while on the way to the villains' fortress, get to dispatch them one by one in deadly, bloody fashion. Although by today's standards the blood is pretty fake looking, it's still quite a bloody affair with slashing, stabbings - knives through body, and squirting blood. But I must add that it did give a sense of cheesy nostalgia to how blood was created for the screen in those days.

Classic martial arts movie scenes like the bamboo forest also get featured in this movie, though the forest did look a bit sparse, since it was filmed in a sound stage. Added to the fight scenes was a demonstration of superb "qing-gong" (light-skill, fleet-footedness) by Fang Gang, though the wire work used was extremely elementary, and came across quite laughably. Back in those days, this sequence would have been da bomb though.

The story's nothing to shout about - it has almost every thematic element that you'd expect from a martial arts movie, and classic scene settings like forests and inns. But it sure is one heck of a fun ride - bigger, bolder, badder than the original, with a lot more disposable characters for the body count.

Code 3 DVD extras contains a pretty weak lineup of only the trailer (and trailers for other movies), colour stills, the poster, selected cast and crew biography and filmography, and a one screen production notes. The DVD for the original seemed better and more thorough.

RETURN OF THE ONE-ARMED SWORDSMAN (1968) is a direct sequel to ONE-ARMED SWORDSMAN (1967), a seminal Hong Kong martial arts film that, unlike earlier swordplay films with Wang Yu (e.g. TWIN SWORDS, MAGNIFICENT TRIO), placed the emphasis on technique and training in order to defeat a superior enemy.

Also directed by Chang Cheh and starring Jimmy Wang Yu, RETURN dispenses with the whole training routine and focuses on a turn of events designed to get the title character out of voluntary retirement and back into action for a series of swordplay battles. A martial arts tournament is set up by Unknown Nemesis (Tien Feng) as a pretext to lure rival martial artists into a trap. Word of this treachery reaches Wang Yu and he reluctantly leaves his farm and wife (Chiao Chiao, returning from the first film) to free the imprisoned swordsmen and wreak vengeance on Unknown Nemesis. After the first half-hour the film is virtually nonstop bloodshed and swordplay, all beautifully photographed on lavish Shaw Bros. studio sets.

Future kung fu star Ti Lung appears as an ill-fated fighter in an early scene with crafty villainess Essie Lin Chia. The fight choreography is by Tang Chia and Liu Chia Liang (Lau Kar Leung), who would both have a great impact on the kung fu films of the 1970s. While Wang Yu went on to star in ONE-ARMED BOXER, he never again played a one-armed fighter in a Shaw Bros. film. When Wang Yu left Shaw Bros., Chang Cheh made THE NEW ONE-ARMED SWORDSMAN (aka TRIPLE IRONS, 1971) with David Chiang in the title role and Ti Lung in support.

Fang Gang and XiaoMan are living peacefully as farmers. Brothers Black and White Swordsman deliver him an invitation to a gathering by the Eight Warlords. Each warlord with their own minions fight using specific weapons and techniques. The Black and White brothers kill anybody unwilling to attend. Fang Gang refuses and rebukes the brother. The various masters who submit are slaughtered with some imprisoned. The Eight Warlords order the students of these sword clans to cut off their right arm before retrieving the bodies of their masters. In desperation, some of the students come to Fang Gang for help.

This sequel has far more swordplay and action than the original. There are more stunts, bigger stunts and even rudimentary wire work. The various fighting styles are fun. The story does have a few minor problems. The story isn't quite as compelling. It's relatively straight forward. It's still plenty of fun to battle each one of the Warlords.

Fang Gang says that he suspected Hua Niangzi (the Thousand Hands King) all along but he allow her to walk around killing so many men. He could have just searched her for her swords. Even worst, he allowed her to kill his badly injured man telling him to finish her off. The guy needed immediate medical attention. There are also a lot of coincidences and too convenient moments. I'm willing overlook all of those flaws for some some pretty awesome fun fights.