Search - One Armed Boxer on DVD

The prequel to 'Master of the Flying Guillotine'

morgoth | omaha, NE | 03/10/2007

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Before Bruce Lee, there were a few kung fu movie stars. The first huge star was Jimmy Wang Yu who started working in the very first Shaw Brothers sword plays back in 1965. He directed and starred in 'One-Armed Boxer' for Golden Harvest in 1971 and is in top form both in front of and behind the camera. While you can clearly see Jimmy Wang Yu is not a real martial artist, he is still one of the best kung fu stars ever. At least 50 people die in this movie and he does the most damage.

The story is simple. A gang that is involved in opium smuggling and prostitution is looking to take out Wang Yu's kung fu school. When defeated, the gang hires Japanese fighters. Well, mostly Japanese. 2 Thai kickboxers, 2 Tibetan Lamas, a Yoga kung fu master(I never heard of Yoga kung fu, but hey, it's a movie), a Judo expert, a Taekwondo expert, and the unstoppable Lung Fei. Lung Fei also brings his 2 students, and obviously Wang Yu doesn't stand a chance against all of these guys. These are truly 10 of the craziest villains that you will ever come across. Wong Wing San played the Yoga guy with extendable arms in 'Master of the Flying Guillotine', but he just plays one of Lung Fei's 2 students in this. I will stop my review right now and let you find out for yourself how Wang Yu loses his arm and gets revenge.

If you are a fan of kung fu movies pre-Bruce Lee, this is a must have. Maybe the best basher ever. It's one of the movies that started the imaginary world where only martial arts schools exist. So the one martial arts school is a gang, and the other school is made up of good people. You just have to go with it, but it more than works. The movie is serious, but takes place in a complete fantasy world. "Never insult Tibetan martial arts".

There are too many good things to speak of when it comes to this movie. The great soundtrack, TONS of bloody fights (there is like 20 individual fights), Lung Fei's fangs, very creative training sequences, and best of all, Jimmy Wang Yu's acting. He was always the best at making me believe that he is in a really tough fight.

Overall, this is a one of a kind. They didn't make enough crazy movies like this that actually had good stories. A true classic in every way. 5/5

Red Sun version is widescreened with English and Cantonese languages. I don't know who they stole the print from."

Yes, it's a classic, but...

Above the Clouds | Australia | 04/19/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Unfortunately, the subtitles in this Red Sun release are absolutely terrible. I myself do not know the chinese languages, so the subtitles make the story for me, and I must warn, for others in my position, they have put in a very lousy effort, to the point that it can, at times ruin the storyline somewhat. I was disappointed and frustrated with this, and got to the point that I would rather turn the subtitles off and just try to remember what was REALLY said! Luckily, I still have the original movie subtitles on VHS that I dubbed from the TV so long ago. I had actually bought this DVD to replace it, however it looks like I will still have to hang on to my VHS for now.

The movie itself gets 5 stars from me and that goes without saying. I remember many years ago when I was only a child, waking up and turning the television on to find this movie showing... I was completely drawn in to the unique fighting scenes and story line, both of which have been explained well by the reviewer before me. It is a timeless classic of Hong Kong cinema, and really is a must own. Let's just hope that some day they release a DVD with better, more accurate subtitles..."