One-Armed Swordsman begins when a group of bandits attack master swordsman Qi Rufeng’s school in the middle of the night. A servant valiantly fights back all the attackers and sacrifices himself for his master and before he dies, Qi promises to train the servant’s son, Fang Gang.
Years later, Fang Gang, now an adult, is a hard-working and accomplished student at the school, but he is bullied by his rich fellow students and decides it best to leave in the middle of the night. While he is leaving, however, two students and Qi’s daughter confront him, and the daughter impulsively cuts his arm off. He staggers away and falls into the hands of a farmer girl, where he recovers and learns to fight with one arm, while everyone believes him dead. After he learns that his master’s old enemies have a plan to kill all the old disciples from his school, Fang Gang must decide whether to return and help or live a peaceful life in seclusion as a farmer.
After the success of King Hu’s Come Drink with Me in 1966, the Shaw Brothers studio continued to produce these new style wu-xia pics and director Chang Cheh broke box office records with his breakthrough hit One-Armed Swordsman the next year. With Hu, Chang is ranked as a pioneer of this genre by taking a more violent, male-oriented, martial arts focused approach to his work, and this film is no exception.
Gory impalements, missing limbs, chop-stick stabbings, brotherhood, revenge—One Armed Swordsman has it all. By today’s standards, the story may seem very typical, but it’s no less effective in its simplicity. With exciting, well-choreographed fights from Lau Kar-leung, an inspiring hero marvelously played by Jimmy Wang Yu, and solidly paced storytelling, this pic is an undisputed classic. Viewers may have some trouble dealing the “secret weapon” that the enemies use to excess against Qi Rufeng’s disciples, or the roles of the two major female characters but these are minor quibbles in a film with much to offer. This is the first big film of Chang Cheh’s influential career and it is easily one of the best.
Reviewed by Tarun
