[KFCC] One Armed Boxer Review

Story: Yes, a master has been killed, a school of martial artists has been demolished and humiliated, and a hero has been crippled. As the valiant Tien Lung, Jimmy Wang Yu is pitted against masters of the fist from all across Asia...and he has to do it all with one arm. What more could you ask for?

Review: Jimmy Wang Yu's ONE ARMED BOXER starts out just as any old-school martial arts movie should, inside a tea house. Enter Tien Lung, opposite a gang of bastards and brutes starting a fight with weaker men over some birds. Tien Lung's noble defense of these people sets off a chain of events, and the following fight sets the stage, but not the standard for this 1971 kung fu flick. The standard isn't set because the opening showcases so little of what this Wang Yu flick has in it, whimpering out of the gate with a dull little squabble right out of the bargain bin.

As the movie progresses, though, so does the quality of the fights. This is how a martial arts movie should be paced anyway; who wants to expend all the potential energy right at the beginning? There's not a whole lot of breathing room in here, as brief dialogues are book-ended by fights that are book-ended by even more fights. The range of martial arts styles is definitely the major pro in the 89 or so minutes of running time, with monks meeting Chinese boxing, which in turn gets pitted off against a bevy of other styles from across the surrounding eastern countries.

And thus, fans of the follow-up MASTER OF THE FLYING GUILLOTINE will notice a lot of similarities between the two movies. Most notable is the aforementioned country-spanning collection of fighters that are set up to challenge Tien Lung's school, and eventually Wang Yu himself. There's a fighter from India that isn't too far off in the ridiculous category from the Dhalsim-like brawler in FLYING GUILLOTINE. The scenes with these fights are the most enjoyable sheerly for the sake of variety. The wicked, long-haired arm-breaker from Okinawa has some stand out moments, not least of which includes the titular cause of Tien Lung's crippling injury. Then there are the obligatory lame duck fighters like the Tibetan monks, with "body pillow" pressure point protection on deck to bring the guffaws in droves.

First and foremost, Wang Yu's presence in the film is a reminder of why he was such a powerhouse star during his work with the Shaw Brothers. Though his independent productions would hit a steeply angled slope, movies like this and its sequel are great showcases of a charismatic kung fu star. He helps brighten the screen among a collection of wax museum villainy as the archetypal revenge hero, even if mid-moments of ONE ARMED BOXER (like the still frames montage sequence) are arguably laughable.

With the help of action director Chen Shih Wei, though, Wang Yu keeps the contents afloat and creates a martial arts flick that pretty much anyone can enjoy. The blaxploitation-esque pure '70s "wakka wakka" theme music seals the deal on the whole package. The action in the latter fourth of ONE ARMED BOXER is reason enough to pop this movie in more than once on an all-night action bender, with the one-armed Tien Lung poppin' up left and right like a speed-junky Nosferatu. Though there are Jimmy Wang Yu flicks of higher priority on the purchasing scale, keep this one firmly on the list at all times.