One-Armed Swordswoman
Director: Chin Sheng-en
Year: 1972
Rating: 5.5
With
subtitles. A decent copy up on YT.
Pan Yu Feng (Chang Ching-ching) known to
her friends and enemies as the Jade Raksha is having one of those days where
she should have just stayed in bed. She comes across a group of hooligans
out in the country playing the traditional game of tying a man to a horse
and dragging him down the road. Boys just wanting to have fun. She puts an
end to it and kills them all with the exception of one guy who she has pinned
down, his head between her two swords. She tells him she will let him go
and hopes that he has learned his lesson. No, he (Li Chiang) keeps trying
to kill her throughout the film. The lesson is when you have a man who looks
like Li Chiang down, you kill him. Then she takes a sit-down and sure enough
a group of men harass her - and die for it. Finally, another group of men
challenge her and she is doing fine but a man who pretends to be on her side
stabs her in the arm with a poisoned sword. Shitty day. It gets worse.
She is saved by the Dragon in Black (Chiang
Ming) who is completely covered in a black outfit with a black-like birdcage
covering his head. He takes her back to her home where to save her he has
to cut off her arm and then he leaves. To Pan's maid he says I am a wandering
man. I'm the type of guy who will never settle down. I roam around, around,
around. To which she asks, "Can I have your address". He answers
"I roam from town to town. I go through life without a care. Cause I'm a
wanderer". When Pan recovers, she trains for three years and masters the
One-Armed Style. She decides to go in search of the Dragon Dressed in Black
to thank him. For cutting off her arm.
Instead though, the King of Beggars (Lui
Ming) plays a trick on her and has one of his men dress as the Dragon and
romance her. He (Tian Ming) does and more and when she wakes up in the morning
he has gone. She becomes obsessed with finding him but it turns out the Dragon's
fashion has caught on and lots of men are wearing it and she has a fight
with them all. Turns out they are wearing it to hide facial disfigurations.
She finally figures out that she was fooled and goes looking for revenge.
An enjoyable wuxia from Taiwan with a lot of sword fighting and jumping about
on to roofs and trees. On one occasion she chops off an umbrella and sends
it high into the sky and gracefully rides it down. This is the third film
recently that I have seen Chang Ching-ching in and she impresses with decent
enough athletic skills but more with her looks and cold cold stare. The director
is Chin Sheng-en who went on to direct One Arm Chivalry Fights One Arm Chivalry
and the lower budget The Fellow with the Left Thumb Cut Off.
