Xin du bi dao

Compared to the other movies in the One-Armed Swordsman series, this isn't quite as good as the first, but I feel like it's an improvement on the second. It features a new actor playing the titular role: David Chiang, who I feel is one of the best leading actors who frequently headlines these old Shaw Brothers movies (it's either him or Gordon Liu - I honestly can't pick a favourite between those two).

This delivers everything you'd want from an old-school martial arts movie without truly excelling at everything. It's like the movie equivalent of a classy - but not super fancy - burger place: a step above mass-produced, fast food slop, but not exactly gourmet. Still, the action is good, the story is competent, and the ending features the main character taking on a small army worth of henchmen, and I'm always a sucker for seeing that kind of fight scene play out on screen.

This is 1 of the best movies I have seen so far!

Its always nice to see david chiang and ti lung playing togheter with eachother !

Like some guy explained before , you can learn from this movie , because although you have a handicap you can still be improving your skillz.

This story is well made , like mentioned before a guy Lei Li losing his arm to a corrupt "held" Lung. After being retired for a year a brother Feng come to his place where he acts like a bartender. While he was demolished by some people from the Tiger Fort , Feng teached Lei Li to appreciate himself again. Then one day Feng is losing his battle in the Tiger Fort against Lung , Lung used the same trick he used to do to Lei Li to with his sticks. After that Lei Li sworn revenge and the ending is amazing ! He defeats a whole squad of fighters from the Tiger Fort! And once again he meets Lung , the man that made him retire for a year. A very nice battle at the end !

Anyway just watch the movie then you know what I mean ! :-)

Greetz!

As a beginning martial artist at the time I saw this film,I was amazed at how realistic the fight scenes were.This man could handle a sword and to this day I wonder how they made it look so real.

I usually like more realistic action films like Bruce Lee. Not the latest Die Hard where they break the laws of physics every ten minutes. And I don't like the current stuff with too much CG and wire-work.

That said, I love this film. Especially in the original Mandarin. Fine production values, two heroes Chiang and Jimmy Wang Yu and a great villain "Hero Lung." A classic movie baddie.

The only possible improvement would be if Bruce Lee had starred. Still, I'll have to say Chian is perfect as a young master swordsman who would rather cut off his own arm than live with dishonor.

I've heard that Jimmy Wang Yu was not a trained martial artist, but a pretty tough guy in real life. Too cute guys.

It's very confusing. Director Che Chang made a series of five films which starred Yu Wang as the One-Armed Swordsman. However, Chang ALSO made some other films with the phrase 'One-Armed Swordsman' in the title...but not the same guy! In this case, the great martial arts actor David Chiang stars as Lei Li...A One-Armed Swordsman! Confused? I sure know I was! It is possible that the titles I am talking about are only the English language titles...but they do involve a hero who is missing an arm. My assumption is that the franchise was so successful that Chang decided to put out as many one-armed films as possible! Oddly, however, this is the only one- armed film with Lei Li.

By the way, the version of this I was was the American dubbed one. Because of this, it might have been edited heavily...I have no idea but this often is the case with martial arts films. It is a Shaw Brothers film...which generally is a VERY good thing, as they tended to make some of the best martial arts film of the era.

When this film begins, we can see that Lei Li is kind of stupid...at least when it comes to losing his arm. He's attacked by some jerks and he defeats them. When their master comes along and confronts Lei Li for this, Lei Li challenges him to a duel--and the loser promises to give up an arm!!! Naturally the master wins and he's decent about it...telling Lei Li to forget about the bet. But Lei Li is an idiot and soon lops off his arm in a memorable (and silly) scene! This is how this one-armed dude came to be in this film. Unfortunately, after this, Lei Li is pretty defenseless....or so he thinks. Jerks come to town and bully the crap out of him...simply because everyone sees him as a useless one-armed guy...and he is during much of the film. What happens next to make him go from a one-armed loser to a one-armed hero? See the film and find out for yourself.

This is clearly a better than average martial arts film. Even with the celery-crunching sound effects and silly dubbing (typical of most films in the genre), the fighting scenes are better than usual and the story a bit different from other one-armed films. Oddly, however, they did no follow-up films with Lei Li...and I would have enjoyed this.