Cinema
The One-Armed Swordsman
獨臂刀
Chang Cheh · 1967
Synopsis
A servant dies defending his master, Qi Rufeng, head of a sword school, who takes in his son, Fang Gang, and raises him among his disciples. Destined to succeed him, the young man earns the contempt of the other pupils and the jealousy of the master's daughter, who provokes him and cuts off his right arm. Fallen into the boat of a peasant girl, Xiaoman, he is nursed by her; she entrusts him with a half-burnt manual and a broken sword inherited from her parents, and he learns to fight with one hand, until the day his former master is threatened.
Context
Written by Chang Cheh with Ni Kuang and produced by the Shaw Brothers, the film was released in Hong Kong on 26 July 1967. It was the first Hong Kong film to earn one million Hong Kong dollars at the box office; it made Jimmy Wang Yu a star and earned its director the nickname of the million-dollar director. The same source sees in it the first of a new style of swordplay film, with dark heroes and bloody fights. Chang Cheh gave it two sequels, in 1969 and in 1971, the second with a different hero.
Who it is for
A film in Mandarin of nearly two hours, with a violence new for its time; available in France on DVD.
Prizes and reception
Ranked fifteenth among the best Chinese-language films by the Hong Kong Film Awards in 2005.
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