Lei Li (David Chiang), a young swordsman with twin blades (David Chiang) is defeated by the clever and deceitful hero Lung (Guk Fung) and loses his right arm and retires from the martial world in shame. Yet when he befriends another twin-bladed warrior (Ti Lung) who suffers an even worse fate at the hands of Lung, Lei Li returns for a furious showdown.
Having reinvented the swordplay film with One-Armed Swordsman in 1967 and bringing it to new heights of visceral action in Return of the One-Armed Swordsman (1969), director Chang Cheh returns to the premise once more with his new favorite leading man David Chiang. The New One-Armed Swordsman is the quintessential tale of heroic bloodshed told with Chang’s flair for stylized violence and with the increasingly distinctive and sophisticated martial mastery of action directors Lau Kar-leung and Tong Gaai. Though uneven in places, the sterling performances of the leads and the maniacally fun bloodletting overshadows any gripes.
Lei Li (David Chiang) is an overconfident young hero whose mastery of dual swords is unrivaled until the crafty hero Lung (Guk Fung) comes along with a three-section staff and a technique for countering them. He engineers a confrontation that makes Lei Li appear to be a criminal. Lei is soundly defeated and as thoughtlessly promised beforehand, he cuts off his own right arm and retires from the martial world. The arm is left dangling from a tree by his own sword. Nearly two years later, Lei Li is a lowly waiter, bullied by patrons for having only one arm and still bitter at his loss. Enter swordsman Fang (Ti Lung), another dual-wielding hero who rescues Lei Li’s would-be girlfriend (Li Ching) from members of a nearby sword clan who are in league with Lung. Although Lei Li has forsaken the sword, the two men quickly form close bonds of brotherly friendship. Fang confronts the clan over the abduction and other crimes, but it turns out to be another trap set by hero Lung. Though be becomes wise to Lung’s game, the revelation comes too late for Fang is beaten and suffers a gruesome fate. Hearing of this, Lei Li takes up the sword again to seek revenge for his fallen comrade.
With David Chiang taking over the role once held by Jimmy Wang Yu, it’s inevitable that comparisons be made. Actually, the characters are not related. The “new” part of the title is accurate in that Chang Cheh delivers a completely different one-armed hero. Yet similarities persist. Both characters lose their right arm as a direct result of arrogance. They are both humbled by their disability and the scorn it produces. Where Chang mixes things up is in the way in which Chiang picks himself up again.
By 1971, Chang had well established his “heroes two” recipe of having two male leads form an unbreakable onscreen camaraderie and loyalty to one another that guides their actions above all else. So instead of finding strength in his sidelined female costar (Li Ching), Chiang finds it in Ti Lung. Of course, SB fans know that this duo formed the nucleus of a string of hit martial arts films from Chang Cheh in the early ’70s where the formula was repeated time and again. In this case, it works just as well as in any other example, but Ti’s presence does take away from Chiang. Aside from the beginning and end, Chiang spends most of his time getting sand kicked in his face despite having the skills, even one-handed, to overcome his bullies. It’s left to Ti Lung who appears in the second half to fill in as the hero. Even so, there isn’t a lot of action midway through, certainly less than what Chang offered consistently throughout Return of the One-Armed Swordsman but the bloody finale more than makes up for it.
Where the film makes a big improvement over its predecessors is in the all-important action choreography. Although all three films were choreographed by the team of Lau Kar-leung and Tong Gaai, by 1971 the improvements in wire use, weapons handling and sparring are quite noticeable. This improvement is also a reflection on the abilities of the leads. Chiang and Ti are both graceful and talented screen fighters who show off some of their best work in this film. Ti Lung nearly steals the show with his excellent twin swordsmanship. Years later he has stated that his most important job was to pose well at the beginning and end of each action scene, in reference to the use of doubles. Aside from the limited acrobatics, Ti is clearly not being doubled in extended scenes where he simultaneously battles multiple foes with smooth and deliberate movements. For pre-wushu swordplay, screen fighting doesn’t get any more artful than this.
Guk Fung also gets to strut his stuff in his three-section staff use. It may not quite rival what Lau Kar-leung cooked up a few years later with Gordon Liu, but it’s excellent nevertheless and made all the more fun by Chang’s gory influence. Rather than simply act as a blunt instrument to bludgeon foes with, the chain-linked staff can be fully extended to pierce its victim with its blunt tip, or in one awesome move it can turn the opponent’s sword against themselves (think of Liam Neeson’s finishing move in Rob Roy).
Despite a super cool opening credits scene where David Chiang cuts down a string of horsemen, seventy minutes in it appears that Chiang may be effectively upstaged by Ti Lung. Not so. The best, and I mean the best, is saved for an epic finale as bloody and exciting as any swordplay film could ever hope to be. It becomes the Star Wars of the wuxia genre with the young, but gifted Lei Li rising up to do battle with his arch-enemy Lung, who is his elder and a more cunning adversary – or is he? Chiang’s secret weapon is vaguely alluded to early on and becomes quite clear by the end. The body count is extremely high here and even puts Jimmy Wang Yu’s rampage in Golden Swallow to shame. The set up and execution is outstanding as Chang makes great use of SB’s expansive outdoor locales and what looks like every stuntman in their employ.
Kuo Ting-hung won a Golden Horse for his editing on The New One-Armed Swordsman, but just about everything is deserving of an award. The direction and camera work are slick, the action scenes are wonderfully staged with lots of exaggerated blood spillage, the stunt acting is superb, and the bombastic music with shades of Ennio Morricone and John Barry’s work for James Bond films suits the film perfectly.
by Mark PollardRelated Topics:
Chang Cheh • Shaw Brothers • The New One-Armed Swordsman (1971)
