Jin bi tong

The Kid With The Golden Arm is easily the best Kung-Fu movie ever made. It was made by the Shaw brothers, the same people who made the classic Five Deadly Venoms. It also stars many of the same people as FDV.

The movie has no main character but is more or less centered around the main villain Golden Arms (played by Meng Lo, Toad in Five Deadly Venoms) and his efforts to steal a wagon full of gold. Golden Arms is the leader of a gang called the Chi Saw gang. It has four cheifs. 1 is Golden Arms who is such a kung-fu master that he doesn't need weapons. 2 is Silver Spear (Feng Lu, Centipede in FDV) who weilds a spear and throwing darts. 3 is Iron Robe (Lung Wei Wang, the Judge in FDV) who wears an iron robe and fights with a fan. And 4 is Brass Head who headbutts people with a brass helmet. Chien Sun (Scorpion in FDV) leads a band of guards who try to protect the wagon. Also, Sun's friends Long Axe and Short Axe (Sheng Chiang, Yan Tien The Disciple in FDV) and Li Chin-Ming (Pai Wei, Snake in FDV) a master swordsman help to protect the gold. Another character, Agent Hi Toe (Philip Kwok, Lizard in FDV) who fights better drunk, is hunting down Golden Arms with hopes to defeat him in battle.

With all these characters you know a lot of ish goes down.

FDV featured mostly hand-to-hand combat while TKWTGA has mostly weapon-based fights, and I like the weapons much better. All the battles are exciting and the plot moves fast without leaving the viewer behind. The acting is even pretty good and Hi Toe is a pretty funny guy. I recommend this movie for anyone who has ever enjoyed a chop socky flick. 10/10 Go Get It!!!!!

I LOVE this movie. It is one of the few violent movies "grandfathered" into my children's approved stack (Master Killer is another). The movie is a fantasy with superheroes such as Short-axe, Long-axe and Hai-Toh; and, super-villans, such as Brass Head, Iron Robe, Iron Feet, Silver Spear and the Kid with the Golden Arm. Many may disagree with me, but I find this movie better than The Five Deadly Venoms, mostly because it is a lot less sadistic...

It is an easy movie to make fun of, I'll grant you; but, there is a solid, if simple, plot line. Agent Hai-Toh is the main hero and easily the most charismatic character. The Kid with the Golden Arm is a less compelling character, with a face that makes you think that he was hit squarely with a board BEFORE becoming invulnerable...

The fight scenes are long, even for a Chinese movie; but, for a colorful piece if violent escapism, this is unbeatable...

I'd give it, for its genre, three out of four stars...

To be perfectly blunt right from the get-go, Kid with the Golden Arm is not one of the best Shaw Brothers movies, but neither is it anywhere close to one of the worst. I feel like it's somewhat middle of the road, but as it turns out, middle of the road for the greatest martial arts movie production company in history is still very good overall, when all's said and done. There are problems, and there are nitpicks, but I feel like for this specific movie, it's so direct and unapologetic about delivering almost nothing but action that most flaws are quite easy to forgive.

This is usually the part in a review where I'd try to summarize the plot, but it's too hard to do for Kid with the Golden Arm. There is a bunch of gold being transported, and slightly too many characters are all wanting to obtain it. Some want it for selfish reasons, and some characters seem more altruistic (even if it's not always clear who's who - there are so many characters here, and they're really only distinguishable by their fighting styles, which you do get used to as the movie goes on).

People in this film all vaguely want the same goal, and the movie is 86 minutes of them competing for it. It feels like a 120-minute-long movie edited down so that most dialogue scenes that don't involve people expressing a desire to fight were cut out, leaving the movie clocking in at under 90 minutes. There's one stretch shortly after the halfway point where it feels like about 15 to 20 minutes pass without any action, and that's the closest things come to feeling boring (honestly, just take the opportunity to have a toilet break here without pausing, or top up your beverage of choice if you like to indulge in a drink or two when watching martial arts movies).

As for the action, I don't think it's top quality by Shaw Brothers standards, but it's fun. I liked certain characters having certain physical quirks/fighting styles, and there were a few wild moments that surprised me and made me laugh. It's a good time if you're a fan of classic martial arts movies, but it's certainly not representative of 1970s Hong Kong martial arts cinema at its very best.

The Kid With The Golden Arm was produced in the late 70's by Shaw Brothers in Hong Kong. At the time, their "A-list" group of kung fu actors were a top notch crew who their fans have since labeled "The Venoms" (after the first movie they starred in together, "The Five Deadly Venoms"). The Venoms were all EXTREMELY talented (although some more than others), and their skills elevated virtually every movie they appeared in to the classic status. Golden Arm is one of the best. Vastly superior to Five Venoms (IMHO), it has an excellent story (which Five Venoms did, as well), but it also has many fight scenes (which Five Venoms does NOT have), and every fight scene is EXCELLENT. The true highlight of the movie is Silver Spear's (Centipede) battle with Short Axe (Hybrid Venom) **For those not in the know, the Five Venoms each had a "poison", or venom, style of kung fu that they had mastered in that movie. Their style in the movie gives rise to the name the fans affectionately give to the actor who portrayed that character I.E.- Wei Pei portrayed the Snake in the Five Venoms movie, so Wei Pei is called "Snake".** An awesome display of weapons prowess, Silver Spear vs. Short Axe will leave you reeling! Anyone who thinks that a Jet Li movie contains 'awesome' kung fu fights has never seen a Venoms movie, PERIOD! How these guys are humanly capable of some of the things they do in their movies is beyond me, they are true athletes in every sense of the word. Of course, do not expect a movie with Hollywood production values to come out of Hong Kong for this time period. Part of the charm of real kung fu movies is their slight air of corniness. Still, I would stack Golden Arm against ANY Steven Segal movie, any day! Lizard and Toad (the titular Golden Arm)also put on an awesome display in the movie's final fight scene. As a side note, if you think Jackie Chan is the best Drunken Boxer out there, he is NOTHING compared to the Lizard!!!! Watch this movie and find out what I am talking about. There is no "wire fu" in this movie (something that has inexplicably become all the rage these days, wire fu is the use of wires on the actors to suspend them in mid-air while they fight or allow them to "fly", wire fu is ridiculous and it SUCKS, watch any Jet Li movie for copious examples of wire fu), just old fashioned kung fu A*S KICKING. The costumes are also excellent in this movie. If all of this does not convince you, how is this: The venoms are FAR more talented at making movies, and produced FAR better fight scenes than Bruce Lee EVER did *GASP!* Its 100% true, Bruce Lee can't hold a candle to these guys, although he was definitely an awesome martial artist (and a VERY tough guy).

I recently watched The Five Deadly Venoms and, not knowing much about this genre, did not realize that the general group of actors from that film stayed as a group for other projects; so it was merely by chance that I watched The Kid with the Golden Arms and found that many of them were here again. As with Wu Du, the plot here sets up a series of strong characters and then sees them battle each other; in this case the plot device is a transportation of gold with a collection of people responsible for it while the Che Sa gang are out to get it. Those responsible include Hero Li and Miss Leng who are both skilled with the sword, two skilled axe-men and one drunken sheriff called Hai Tao. On the other side is a collection of chiefs including Silver Spear, Brass Head and of course old Golden Arms himself.

In terms of characterization and narrative, it is as simple as a series of confrontations but it still works very well as a plot because this is what the viewer is after and this is what is delivered. What plot there is does move along pretty well and keeps the characters busy, but it is the action and the characters that sell it. In terms of the use of the same actors I saw before, it is easy to see why this group are popular because they are very effective and engaging both in the action and in their performances. Meng Lo is imposing as the title character even if he seems very similar to his Toad. Kwok is a lot of fun with his character and also has a great closing line. Pai Wei and Helen Poon are a bit too po-faced for the rest of the film and their bits feel a little less fun as a result. Sheng Chiang, Feng Lu, Chien Sun and others are equally more in keeping with the action and fun and their deliveries are good. The fight sequences make the most of their skills too and there are many impressive combat sequences with great moves – the camera as ever sits back and we get good steady shots which show off the actor's skills (as opposed to frantic edits like you get in some Hollywood films, which are to hide the lack of skills!). The action is frantic and fun.

The Kid With the Golden Arms is not quite as good as Wu Du but it is still very enjoyable with lots of good performances from a strong cast and lots of engaging and well executed action sequences. I look forward to seeing the group in action again.