La vengeance de l'homme à un seul bras

What a 'confuzzling', bizarre piece of martial arts madness. The plot has so many flaws, nothing made any sense, the acting is terrible (even for a very low budget Chinese movie) and to top it off the fighting scenes are unimaginative to say the least. But... for some twisted reason I think this film is worth the watch. It is like no other martial arts film I've ever seen, the only film I can liken it to is "nine deadly venoms" that only because of the craziness. You can pick up this movie on 'Vengeance Video' label, for around £6, so its a must buy really.

7/10

(Confuzzling = Confusing + Crazy + Bizarre)

Rule number one of the movie business is when something works you beat it to death. In 1967 the original one armed swordsman worked. In 1977, ten years and about six movies later, Jimmy finally finished his one armed swordsman movies. I am not counting all the other one armed movies. Had Jimmy stopped with "Master of the Flying Guillotine" he would have beaten the role to its peak. Instead, he tucked his arm in and made some more money off the role. The title of this movie tells the whole story.

There are many versions of this movie. I watched the "KungFuFlix" version. It is wide screen with good resolution and English dubbed by the A team of voice overs. The run time is only 1:23:36 which is a tad short but not the shortest. Whatever I might be missing I don't care.

What's fair for rating this movie? Compared to all martial arts movies? Compared to other martial arts movies of the golden age from 1967 to 1984? Compared to other Jimmy Wang Yu movies? I think this movie would not have existed without Jimmy so I rank it against all his movies. It is certainly not his finest. I rate it just below average.

I can't think of anything to write about this movie that isn't obvious. Jimmy is reprising a role that is worn out but fans would buy tickets to see him do it one more time. The fight choreography is minimum effort. Everything is minimum effort except the costumes because they simply come off the rack.

When Jimmy, the one armed swordsman, is asked "Where's your sword?" he replies that he does not need one. Could this mean that his skills have advanced so much he needs no weapon? Perhaps it was Jimmy's intention to surpass all the previous movies with his empty handed techniques in this movie? Regardless of intention it certainly didn't turn out that way.

Viewers paying attention will notice Jimmy uses his right hand in this movie. In the 1967 movie Jimmy lost his right hand and used a short sword in his left hand. One might also notice how the "missing" arm is hidden. For convenience and better balance the left arm is hidden in front over the stomach. It is also more obvious there. The arm tied behind the back hides it better from the camera but also adversely affects balance while fighting. In the earlier movies Jimmy always hid the arm behind his back. In the later movies he gets lazy and does it the easy way in front more often.

I must admit that I have seen the bad cut version of this movie. As soon as a fight begins and the enemies face each other, there is a cut and in the next seen, a dead man lies on the ground and the main actor continues its strange journey. I don't know who has cut this movie to pieces but that's probably the worst job I have ever seen as it makes this movie completely senseless in a ridiculous way and the little twists in the end which allow me to give at least some plus points for the final voting are really hard to observe and understand.

But I will try to ignore those cut down fight scenes and analyze this movie from another point of view and might realize that it doesn't get better in any way. The dialogues are simplistic and ridiculously humorist by accident. The acting is more wooden than in an old martial arts video game. The direction and filming is mediocre, the chosen settings are cheesy and ordinary, the music doesn't quite fit to the atmosphere. The movie represents some strange and provoking opinions: people joke about cripples, prostitutes, homosexuals, old people and women in general. Those racist, sexist and simply dumb prejudices are completely unnecessary and keep me away from getting an approach to any of the characters performed by the already quite wooden actors and actresses.

But the most important thing in such a movie are the fighting scenes after all and those that haven't been cut are simply terrible. the one armed fighter has no particular skills at all and not even a glimpse of elegance. His fights are as wooden, limited and crippled as the whole character and movie itself. You can see that the main character's enemies lose their battles in the most stupid ways and the nine guards and seemingly best fighters are nothing but a bad joke. One guy is fighting with a sword of two meters that burst into pieces like a piece of papier-mâché. Even for a low budget movie this scene was a great example for the quality of the entire movie. Ed Wood Junior couldn't have created a better piece of trash. That's probably the worst offering I have ever seen in a martial arts movie. Even Jean-Claude van Damme and Chuck Norris are faster and smarter.

In the end, I can't suggest this movie to anyone with one humorous exception. If you happen to have a party with some good friends and you had way too much beers or drugs in your head, you may laugh like hell while you watch this piece of trash but it's really hard to get yourself on such a low level that makes you appreciate this worst Asian movie I have ever seen in my life. No, honestly and to be serious, don't believe the good rating and avoid this at all costs. Check out my other reviews of Asian flicks, there are so many better films to find no matter what you're looking for.

The one-armed fighter (hardly a sword fighter, at least in this movie) Liu Yi Su (Wang Yu) wants revenge on 9 killers of the Chu clan who massacred his family and chopped off his other arm. One of the 9 killers actually offers help in finding the others, but can Liu Yi Su trust a traitor?

You guess it, that is a predictable plot line leading to at least 9 fight scenes for the hero, mostly done with only one bare hand against swords. However, since there is good variety and some bizarre ideas (a lady leading Liu Yi Su into a trap by her 'song of death', a weird monk, an attempted poisoning), it never gets boring. Different cuts of this movie are around. I watched the German dvd which runs 77:14 minutes and compared to the subtitled Chinese version running 89:18, most cuts concern gruesome fight scenes, breaking necks and spilling blood. Violent fun, but fun it is. One of my favorites among very cheap Kung-fu flicks.

Jimmy Wang Yu has to avenge his families death and tries to find his enemies one after another. Of course he's very cunning and uses his smart tricks to find out where they are. Along the road he finds a girl who decides to go with him because she's got no where else to go. One person of the Chu gang decides to betray his clan and join up with Yu.

Only the last fight is worth watching for the true kung fu fan because the old man at the end has got some skills (compared to Wang Yu), but it still isn't good. I don't get why Wang Yu got to make a lot of movies, because I haven't seen a good kung fu flick with him in it yet.

I noticed that the music in this film was also used in "the mystery of Chessboxing", and since this movie is older, I start wondering where this music originally comes from. I can't believe it was originally for this movie because also the music was used in a very bad way (suddenly stops etc.)

Not worth watching if you ain't a die hard kung fu fan.