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This is a fun one. Master of the Flying Guillotine sets up the vengeance angle and then, it's pure fights from there on. Besides Flying Guillotine and the One Armed Swordsman, you've got a martial arts tournament to boot! Fights feature armed and unarmed combat and lots of styles; there's a thai boxer who makes concrete blocks cringe in fear. Plus, any gal who can bust out Eagle Claws and shred clothing or skin is awesome in my book! A more amusing fighter is the Indian whose Yoga style earns him the nickname `Extendar'. You've got guys who can fight and the enemies come one after the other and they're no pushovers.

Jimmy Wang playing the One Armed Boxer is the real deal. His movements are fluid and what he lacks in appendage, his kung fu skills more than compensate for (look at him climb those walls!). Despite all obstacles, he never panics and does what he can to survive. Even though the battle in the Hotfoot Hut seemed unfair, I guess it's no hold barred when killers are after you. On a fun note, notice the hidden arm or a hand peeking out behind the guy's back in some fight scenes?

Flying Guillotine is a cut above the rest. He won't stop till he gets his revenge. His finely toned senses make him a deadly opponent especially when his hat goes flying. It also folds up nice and neat. There's a bit of dark humor when FG's search for a one armed man leads to several victims…of which he has NO remorse for killing.

Just watch this!

This one has to be seen to be believed! Jimmy Wang Yu, star of the Aussie cult classic 'The Man From Hong Kong', writes, directs and stars in this movie, which is one of the most entertaining martial arts movies ever made! The movie opens with wily old blind man Fung Shen Wu Chi (Kang Kam) receiving a message via carrier pigeon from his favourite nephews Tiger and Dragon telling him that they have been killed by the one armed boxer (Wang Yu). Now how they could write this message AFTER they had been killed is still a mystery to me, but this is the kinda movie where you just don't ask questions! So the old man goes off to avenge their deaths, armed with his secret weapon, a flying guillotine. This is a kinda hat box on a rope which he swings. It lands on people's heads and he decapitates them! He also likes to throw explosives at his enemies just to keep them on their toes. Anyway, he travels to a fighting tournament hoping that they one armed boxer will show. Of course he does and we eventually get an exciting climactic battle between the Master Of The Flying Guillotine and the One Armed Boxer. But before that we see a lot of the competitors having individual fights, the most memorable being the "swami master" from India. He's played by a Hong Kong actor in black face, and every time he comes on screen there's sitar music playing just so we know who he is I suppose. The swami has a special talent - he can make his arms extend. This makes for some supremely silly moments which are just hilarious. In fact the whole movie is hilarious. I loved every minute of it! If you like Kung Fu you MUST see this! Highly recommended fun!

once again another awesome movie from a genre that can do no wrong. The chpo socky samurai and ninja movie of the late 60's to the early 80's where a genre of movies that never were big on substance but they more than made up for it with an overabundence of style. Here we have a colorful cast of token good and bad guys each with some unique charecter aspect that allows them to stand out. I'm sure that in the early nineties when the Mortal Kombat and Street Fighter games where coming out the makers had had some of this movie's charecters in mind. Most notably the future street fighter charecter who is Indian and can stretch his limbs way out of proportion. The movie moves along through some really wonderful fight sequences with the usual array of weird weapons and fighting techniques. Thank god Quentin Tarantino has done enough name dropping to single handedly bring this genre back to life. For most of the eighties and early nineties finding these movies was next to impossible. Now their occasionaly even on cable. Way to go.

This is a sequel to director Yu Wang's 1971 film One-Armed Boxer (Dop bey kuan wan). Fung Sheng Wu Chi (Kang Kam), as the master of the flying guillotine, is a blind Ching Dynasty assassin, with a directive to quell potential rebels. After his two disciples were killed by Tien Lung (Yu Wang), the one-armed boxer (in the prequel), Fung has sworn revenge.

Although many rightfully consider this film a masterpiece, if you're not much of a fan of martial arts fight sequences in films, you probably shouldn't bother with Master of the Flying Guillotine. That's because there isn't much screen time taken up by anything else. Beside the fights, there is very little action or dialogue. Every fight in Master of the Flying Guillotine is engaging, but the last two are probably the best. These are two of the best fight scenes I've seen in any film.

We know right out of the gate that Master of the Flying Guillotine is going to be something special. The opening cinematography is beautiful, the introduction to Fung captivating, and we're quickly introduced to an ingeniously odd and sinister "growling/grinding" musical leitmotif for Fung, which is achieved by slowing down a musical recording (it's actually a song by the German band Neu!) As a leitmotif, the music reappears whenever Fung reappears, with all the impact and then some of Darth Vader's leitmotif music in the Star Wars films.

There are two factors that make this film so remarkable overall. The first is the fantastic and brutal nature of the martial arts. In a lesser film, the fantasy aspects could easily be unintentionally funny. Here, they're just enthralling. Every fighter has some unique style and/or skill, and the extended "kung fu gladiator" tournament focuses on these, to our benefit. The second, less obvious factor, is the depth of characterization and implied, complex plot and backstory achieved by Yu Wang solely through the fight sequences. Even though 90-something percent of the film is just fight sequences, nothing is lacking.

A 10 out of 10 from me.

First seen in a Shaw Bros. pic, the re-modeled flying guillotine returns in this superb fighting fantasy that is also titled MASTER OF THE FLYING GUILLOTINE VERSUS THE ONE-ARMED BOXER.

A non-Shaw, independently-produced production, this delivers everything a martial arts fan could want.

Director Jimmy Wang Wu, who also stars as the One-Armed Boxer, gives the fight sequences enormous energy and invention and layers in a little sadism when necessary.

The electronic, 70's-style score brings a surreal quality to the film.

Kang Kam as the bushy-browed "Master" is superb, making us believe that he is an old man with a lethal handicap.

Numerous other Shaw and Wang Yu regulars pop up, too.

The flying guillotine itself is more functional and exciting to watch than before. The head-ripping it performs is adroitly staged.

Although BEACH OF THE WAR GODS is my favorite pic of Jimmy's, this is, nevertheless, perfect.