The One Armed Swordsman vs. Nine Killers
Yesterday: 2 mile run. Today: 7am kickboxing class. This was my first class in seven (!) months, and it was as grim and plodding as one might theorize.
There are lots of things afoot, and I've been shockingly busy, so here's a kung-fu movie review:
The One Armed Swordman vs. Nine Killers
Synopsis: This is a late-entry in the "One-Armed Swordsman" series, and the filmmakers assume you've seen all the previous films. Therefore they spend exactly zero time telling you where you are, what's going on, or why this guy only has one arm. They just launch into the action, and you get to guess at what might be the backstory. (My guess: the guy was seeking revenge against the people who chopped off his arm, but, heck, maybe he was just gassy.) It starts off with a dark fight on a dark street where the one-armed guy, who, it must be noted IS NOT CARRYING A SWORD, kills some other dude. (Number One of the "Nine Killers" in the title.) The next day(?) he wanders into a clearing where an old white-bearded dude, (played by an actual old dude, unlike so many of these "old" people) is playing chess with human chess pieces. As you do. It's made clear that Old Guy is not one of the "Nine", so One-Arm has no quarrel with him. But somehow they end up playing "chess", which is really more like kung-fu mahjong, but still with human pieces. One-Arm beats the old man, and leaves. Old Dude, shamed in front of his chess-pieces, picks up a sharp stick and commits suicide with it. Then One-Arm rescues a prostitute, (I think) who was tied up in the sun for reasons unclear. Then somebody shoots him with a poisoned-dart, so he and the prostitute go to a chemist, who tells him the poison is deadly, which it isn't, and gives him an "antidote" which is actually a much deadlier poison. One-Arm convulses, but uses his amazing kung-fu skills to spit the deadly-poison pellet into the chemist's mouth, and the chemist expires immediately. One-Arm then goes to a temple and fights a hermaphrodite, I guess, for some reason. Uh...at this point you can see a linear plot-summary is impossible.
The Big Bad Guy is just some voice-from-a-tube, dispatching his minions to fight the One-Armed Guy, who is moving inexorably closer. One-Arm keeps whupping-ass. It was somewhere along here that my ($3 Hong Kong bootleg) DVD seized up, and skipped an entire chapter. I don't feel as though I missed out on much. We returned to the action with One-Arm tossing some guy off a cliff into the ocean. (Oh, bonus points for having outdoor-locations, as opposed to the sound-stages used in so many of these cheap old HK flicks. If only they'd spent some money on a script. Exposition, such as it is, comes rarely and is usually so deadly-dull that I use it to refresh my beer. There are also lots of shots of One-Arm walking up and down staircases. This is a common mistake with inexperienced editors. "If we don't see him walk up the stairs to the temple, how will the audience know how he got there?" Cue endless shots of people walking to and fro.) At some point One-Arm picks up a smiley-friend who works for the Big Bad Guy, but really just wants to be One-Arm's friend, and smile a lot. Okay, we meander to the end-scene, with some pretty decent pre-wire kung-fu. Apparently the Big Bad Guy behind the speaking-tube is actually that Old Guy who committed suicide back in Scene Two. So he and One-Arm go at it, and Old Guy hacks off One-Arm's one-remaining-arm. (Oh, I forgot to mention. The "One-Armed Swordsman" has never used a sword the entire movie, and would more accurately be called "The One-Armed Boxer.") So One-Arm is now No-Arms...Or is he?!? There's a bit more gimpy kung-fu, and suddenly No-Arms pulls his remaining Other Arm out from behind his back, where he's been hiding it the ENTIRE MOVIE, for no reason. And stabs Old-Dude in the gut in a move best described to Western eyes as "sneaky". One-Arm walks out of the temple and down a long path...The end.
Review: You may not be able to discern this from this synopsis, but I enjoyed the hell out of this movie. It made no sense, but in the glorious way of the best 70's kung-fu extravaganzas. It also moves very quickly, so you're not bored. Except when they're walking up and down the stairs.
Steve