DVD Review: The One Armed Swordsman
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More than 40 years after its original release, The One-Armed Swordsman remains a classic martial arts film. Its pageantry, performances, drama and unstoppable action exemplify everything audiences love about Shaw Brothers films, and rightly made stars of its director, Cheh Chang, and its smoldering star, Jimmy Wang Yu.
While we’re on the subject of noted genre pictures I’ve never seen, I have a shameful confession: one of them was the 1967 Shaw Brothers classic The One-Armed Swordsman. I’ve long been a big fan of Jimmy Wang Yu, but somehow never got around to seeing the film that catapulted him to stardom. Fortunately, a typically excellent Dragon Dynasty DVD released in summer of 2007 provided the opportunity to correct the situation.
What a great flick I’d been missing. Directed and co-written (with Ni Kuang) by Cheh Chang (Have Sword Will Travel, Five Deadly Venoms, Ten Tigers from Kuangtung and a host of others), The One-Armed Swordsman (Dubei dao) is a perfect example of Shaw Brothers at its best. Kung Fu Cinema’s Mark Pollard calls it “the single-most significant wuxia film in Hong Kong film history,” and it’s certainly worthy of the praise. It offers nonstop martial arts choreography, high production values, and great acting, especially the intense and star-making turn by Wang Yu, who performs most of the film literally with one arm tied behind his back.
Yu plays Fang Gang, the promising protégée of Golden Sword school master Qi Rufeng (Feng Tien). In a bloody and action-packed prologue, Fang Gang’s father defends his master from a treacherous assault, sustaining a fatal wound in the process. He only lives long enough to beg the master to train his son (and demand his son turn away from the dying father to bow in gratitude to his new master!). In a significant detail, Qi was incapacitated during the attack due to treachery – poisoned incense contained in a letter.
Years later, Fang has matured into an excellent student, but his humble origins earn him the ridicule of the spoiled rich mens’ sons sent to Qi to learn a little discipline. Qi’s equally-spoiled daughter Pei Er (Yin Tze Pan) barely disguises her infatuation with Fang under her own contempt. Not wishing to spoil the harmony of the master’s household, Fang decides to pack up his father’s broken sword and leave, but is confronted by Pei Er and two students.
None are able to prevent him from going, and Fang effortlessly defeats Pei Er in unarmed combat – he refused to fight with a sword so not to risk hurting her by accident. Unfortunately, Pei Er doesn’t return this noble sentiment – in a fit of humiliated rage, she slashes at Fang with her sword and severs his right arm! Bleeding profusely, Fang stumbles off in shock. Qi arrives on the scene moments later and berates his students and daughter for their stupidity. Following the blood trail to a river, Qi regretfully concludes Feng fell in and drowned.
In reality, he tumbled off a bridge into the boat of young orphan Xiao Man (Chiao Chiao), who nurses him back to health. Xiao Man’s father was a martial artist who died defending one of those obscure kung fu manuals, and Xiao Man prefers the humble life of a farmer to the violence of the martial arts world.
But even after his wound heals, Fang’s spirit is broken as his martial arts skill is now useless. Though she despises the martial arts world, Xiao Man gives Fang the remnants of the manual that cost her father his life, and he’s able to adapt some left-handed techniques for his father’s broken sword to once again achieve mastery.
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