THE NEW ONE-ARMED SWORDSMAN has the honour of being one of the finest Shaw Brothers movies I've watched and that's saying something when I enjoy the studio's films in general and have yet to find a film from them which I've really disliked. For me, their best work seems to be that made in the early 1970s, in which the plots were still delightfully old-fashioned but the action was harder-hitting than ever. This film happens to be extraordinarily gory, the goriest I've seen from Shaw outside of FIVE ELEMENT NINJAS.
The plot is a reprisal of the films that made Jimmy Wang Yu a star, i.e. THE ONE-ARMED SWORDSMAN and its sequel. David Chiang is the hero who loses his arm in a duel and becomes a reclusive waiter until Ti Lung shows up and galvanises him into action once more. Chang Cheh was an excellent director and he's at the top of his game here; not only are the widespread action sequences impressively skilled and visually masterful, but the rest of the movie looks fantastic too, especially the framing shots. The incredible bloodshed is really ghoulish here and really goes over the edge at times. Chiang has never been better as the brooding hero - don't expect any of his trademark humour here - and Ti Lung excels in a star-making turn. Add in Ku Feng's truly malevolent bad guy and you have a classic of Shaw cinema.
The plot is a reprisal of the films that made Jimmy Wang Yu a star, i.e. THE ONE-ARMED SWORDSMAN and its sequel. David Chiang is the hero who loses his arm in a duel and becomes a reclusive waiter until Ti Lung shows up and galvanises him into action once more. Chang Cheh was an excellent director and he's at the top of his game here; not only are the widespread action sequences impressively skilled and visually masterful, but the rest of the movie looks fantastic too, especially the framing shots. The incredible bloodshed is really ghoulish here and really goes over the edge at times. Chiang has never been better as the brooding hero - don't expect any of his trademark humour here - and Ti Lung excels in a star-making turn. Add in Ku Feng's truly malevolent bad guy and you have a classic of Shaw cinema.