ONE ARMED SWORDSMAN AGAINST 9 KILLERS (1976)

DIRECTED by  Teng Hung Hsu

SCREENPLAY BY  Jimmy Wang Yu and Ching Kang Yao

STARRING  - Jimmy Wang Yu as Liu Ching Wu aka Liu Yi Su, Shan Wan as Chu Lu.

PLOT  -  Liu Ching Wu is a man on a mission. A mission of Vengence.

Several years ago, his entire family where mercilessly butchered by the evil overlord -  Chu Lu and his 9 deadly killers. An expert in Kung-fu and the deadly art of one armed fighting, Liu Ching Wu is the one armed swordsman and he's coming for the 9 deadly killers.

One by one he takes them on and takes them out, but Chu Lu is watching, ever vigilant and may be closer to our vengeful hero than he realises...

The day of reckoning is coming and it's guaranteed to be swift, bloody and brutal. Only one can survive...

DIALOUGE - WU - " I must admit that's long...how long ?"  Mr Lu - "Six feet."  Wu - "Width ?"  Mr Lu - "About 12 inches." - Don't worry,  they're only talking about a sword - but there's so many metaphorical dick measuring contests in this movie that they might as well not be.

PERFORMANCES - I've said before that with dubbed films it's very hard to judge the merits of the acting as you're only getting half of the original performance, the other half is somebody putting on a silly voice. This film is no different, although in this instance it doesn't really matter, as with the martial arts genre, you're never going to get subtle, nuanced performances of three dimensional characters - it's all about the fighting and the action, which you get in spades in this film.

The main performer is Jimmy Wang Yu - at the time he was the biggest star in Asian martial arts cinema before he lost his crown to the mighty Bruce Lee. He was also, allegedly, connected to the Triads and narrowly avoided being charged with murder at one point, so all in all he was a bit of a wrong 'un in real life, poles apart from the avenger with the moral high ground that he portrays here. Such is life I suppose. Ironically enough, in later life Wang Yu suffered a stroke and lost much of the use of the left side of his body, through sheer hard work and training he managed to regain the use of the left side of his body, including his left arm, but he was never quite the same afterwards. His left arm he could only use in a limited capacity - a true example of life imitating art.

Wang Yu's martial arts skills are amazing in this film, and he throughly deserved his acclaimed status regardless of whatever his off screen antics may have consisted of. He slices, dices, kicks and chops his way through hordes of evil henchmen all with one arm strapped to his body. The fights are - as expected - brilliantly choreographed. The other opponants he faces are all equally adept.

The dubbing of the voices on the other hand is largely awful, particularly Wang Yu's character who sounds like he's been dubbed by Matt Berry. It's NOT Matt Berry of course (Berry would have been a toddler when this film was made) but it sure as hell sounds like him, once I got the mental image of Douglas Reynholm from the "I.T. Crowd" playing the voice of a vengeful assassin, it really added, unintentionally,  to the films comedic value.

SFX - Gouts of very red and watery blood spurting into the air, mainly.

SEX & VIOLENCE - See above, also head choppings, Hara-Kiri and our hero really does become a one armed swordsman in the final scene - with a fake, plastic severed arm that looks like it originally came from a menswear dummy to show for it.

RATING - There is really little more to say about this film. Its standard fare Asian action cinema - if you like this sort of thing then you'll like it, if you don't then...you won't.

I enjoyed it. It's a simple film - there are no hidden agendas or complexities to the plot - what you see is what you get and that's fine - we all need to sit back and put our brains in neutral and let something just wash over us from time to time, and this fun little beat 'em up allows its audience to do just that.

3 amputee assassins out of 5. Go and watch it,  chop chop.