One Arm Chivalry Fight Against One Arm Chivalry (1977)

Jimmy Wang Yu, the world’s first international kung fu star is a sword-fighting secret society rebel who loses an arm and his reputation when he’s framed for murder and rape by traitorous members of his own faction. Late 1970’s kung fu movie favorites Lau Kar-wing and Leung Kar-yan guest star along with Wang Yu’s frequent onscreen rival Lung Fei in this ultra-low budget fu flick, recommended only for hardcore genre enthusiasts or as fodder for MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATER 3000-style ridicule.

The original English title is the accurate yet unwieldy ONE ARM CHIVALRY FIGHT AGAINST ONE ARM CHIVALRY. This was trimmed down for its original U.S. release to the easier to digest yet meaningless POINT THE FINGER OF DEATH. That title is derived solely from a single line in the English-dubbed version where Wang Yu’s character refers to Lung Fei as having “pointed the finger of death” and declares that he must die for it.

Writer-director Chin Sheng-en’s only claim to fame is in helming a handful of now-obscure Taiwanese martial arts movies, including this one. A reason may be his lack of originality. The two one-armed fighters in ONE ARM CHIVALRY are played by Wang Yu and Lau Kar-wing. They’re both heroic characters who are repeatedly pitted against each other as part of Chin’s gimmick of expanding on Wang Yu’s famous role in Chang Cheh’s hit wuxia film ONE-ARMED SWORDSMAN. This was the final attempt by Wang Yu to exploit his fame as a one-armed screen fighter after having starred in at least six other “one-armed” swordplay and/or kung fu movies including the cult favorite MASTER OF THE FLYING GUILLOTINE.

This film is representative of Wang Yu’s steep decline into irrelevance as a martial arts film star in the late 1970s, brought on by Taiwan’s failing film industry, the emergence of far more skilled screen fighters, Wang Yu’s increasingly notorious off screen reputation, and the rising demand for kung fu comedy which is something Wang Yu never displayed much capacity for.

ONE ARM CHIVALRY definitely takes itself too seriously given the tiresome Qing-versus-rebel patriot theme and abysmal budget. Like many kung fu movies of its kind, ONE ARM CHIVALRY is mostly shot outdoors in familiar quarry locations. When it does use building and interiors they are generally cheap constructs barely capable of masking their artifice. This is especially true during an unnecessary sequence where Lau Kar-wing’s character is trapped in a bedroom by an iron gate that falls from the ceiling, which is followed by a portion of the ceiling in Lau’s “cell” suddenly descending with spikes pointed downward. Aside from the inconceivable notion that anyone would have such a trap installed in their own bedroom in Qing-era China, the spiked ceiling is only a couple feet wide and the flimsy gate flaps around as it is hoisted back up. This scene is a perfect example of what not to do in a low-budget movie. If you don’t have the skill, equipment or money to do a scene properly then don’t do it. That’s what script re-writes are for but then I doubt this film’s script was even completed before shooting commenced.

Despite having some modest kung fu exchanges involving the principle cast, a good portion of the movie involves poorly-paced and entirely uninteresting exchanges of dialogue that are meant to forward the overly complex plot but will more likely cause viewers to hit the fast-forward button in search of the next fight. Chin seems to think he is shooting a historical epic but someone forgot to tell him that this is supposed to be a cheap and disposable chopsocky flick to sate the not-so-demanding tastes of grindhouse theater operators in America.

To a degree, the film is intentionally ridiculous and there lies a measure of B-movie charm. One of the early action sequences has Wang Yu chopping his own arm off after being poisoned. Rather than retreat to nurse this rather serious wound, he proceeds to fight a mob of attackers with surprisingly little blood loss before flinging his sword into a leaping opponent and pinning his body to a tree above the ground. While this provides a solid start for B-movie entertainment, the movie doesn’t maintain anywhere near the level of outrageous fun that MASTER OF THE FLYING GUILLOTINE possessed.

The ’70s-style pop soundtrack is notable for being put together by Chen Hsun-chi who previously gave us the iconic punk theme for FLYING GUILLOTINE. Kung fu movie devotee Quentin Tarantino used some of Chen’s music for his film DEATHPROOF.

Having Lau Kar-wing and Leung Kar-yan in a movie with Wang Yu should have resulted in something better than ONE ARM CHIVALRY. But if going solely by casting, the same could be said of Wang Yu’s all-star turkey FANTASY MISSION FORCE starring Jackie Chan. By this point, Wang Yu’s true colors as an entertainer were showing and I say that as a fan. The film has some value in seeing Leung battle Lau. The two stars are vastly more skilled than Wang Yu, whose best screen fighting performances can be found in his initial Taiwanese productions in the early ’70s, right after leaving Shaw Brothers. This may partly explain why the two end up pitted against one another at the end while Wang Yu is matched up with his long-time cohort Lung Fei. While Wang Yu’s film career quickly nose-dived after 1977, Leung and Lau went on to star in a string of kung fu comedy classics. Of those, I recommend the Golden Harvest productions ODD COUPLE and KNOCKABOUT.