Director: Raymond Lui
Year: 1977
Rating: 6.0
Dubbed
Have Flying Guillotine Will Travel. To Taiwan. After having conquered Hong
Kong audiences with films such as The Flying Guillotine in 1975, Master of
the Flying Guillotine in 1976 (aka One-Armed Boxer vs the Flying Guillotine)
and The Dragon Missile in 1976, it was time to move on. There is something
delightfully sublime and artistic about the killing contraption. One moment
a man has a head, the next he doesn't and his body struggles on for a few
more steps before he crashes to the ground - his head still in the device
wondering where his body has gone. Dali would have loved it.
In this case like a two-handed gun fighter, there is a two handed Flying
Guillotine Master who can control two at the same time. Besides being able
to remove your head in one neat clean flick of your wrist, this one has sharp
cutting rotating blades generated from some mysterious energy force that
can do severe damage. These are basically metal helmet shaped contraptions
that can be sent flying into the air defying gravity controlled by a wire
with a 100 foot radius to gently land upon someone's head, clamp down and
tear off. At least those are the written instructions if you get one for
Christmas. No matter how many times you see someone running like hell, ducking
down, doing somersaults all to avoid the Guillotine, it is vastly entertaining
when that moment arrives. And way too silly.
Raymond Lui who directed and wrote the script should probably have spent
more time on creating a plot that made some sense. This has very little and
its 79 minute running time and weird ending has me wondering if my version
was missing some vital plot detail. IMDB has it as 88 minutes. I perused
a few reviews and they generally are as confused as I am. Not that the plot
was really the point. Action is and a fight breaks out about every time you
turn around. If you go off to the bathroom, the chances are you will miss
at least two fights. None of them making sense really. The action is solid
enough (Blake Matthews of the It's a Beautiful Film Blog site goes into detail
in his fine book It's All About the Style) if not brilliant. It feels like
every kung fu style is used at some point as well as weapons in the film.
But of course the Fatal Flying Guillotine is the main crowd pleaser.
I will attempt my take of the plot. Shen Mo Chao (Chan Sing) has been living
in solitude in the Valley of No Return for 20-years after leaving his wife
and son because his heart had become weak due to too much exercise. Too much
exercise? So cut back. I am the Master of No Exercise. But he leaves, goes
to this valley which you can only get to through a tunnel in a mountain,
sits on a perch all day and makes a Guillotine to deal with enemies. Why
does he have enemies? No idea but he kills everyone who enters his domain.
Thus the Valley of No Return. The Fourth Prince has designs on the throne
and so tries to ally with Shen but everyone he sends is killed. Running for
their lives.
Meanwhile, Shen Ping (Carter Huang) keeps beating up on monks at a temple
because he wants them to lend him a book that will allow him to cure his
dying mother (the great Ou-yang Sha-fei in a zillion Shaw films). The monks
will only do so though if he beats the head man. Which strikes me as very
un-Buddhist. Just give him the cure. The Prince's men keep going to the Valley,
losing their head or being killed (look for Mang Hoi and Yuen Bun as two
of his victims - Corey Yuen gets killed in another fight). The Buddhists
send kung fu masters as well and they get the same treatment. So eventually
Shen Ping goes and seems unaware that Shen Mao Chao is his long lost father
and vice versa and in my version he never learns otherwise. Which is why
I am surely missing footage. So solid action, confusing plot and the Flying
Guillotine which seems to have made a minor comeback in the past decade.
