★★★
“Mostly armless…”
Official disclaimer. I watched two seventies Taiwanese kung-fu flicks the past weekend, this one and Revengeful Swordswoman, and I’m having serious difficulty keeping them separated. You are therefore warned that some plot elements discussed here, may actually have seeped over from Revengeful, or vice-versa…
When we first meet heroine Li Feng (Chang), her count of functioning limbs does actually surpass one – it’s after she is poisoned by a blade wielded by one of her numerous bandit enemies, that the title comes true. She’s rescued from death by the mysterious, masked Black Dragon, albeit at the cost of her infected arm, before he leaves. Li wants to locate both the Dragon, to thank him, and the bandit responsible for her limb-deficiency. She manages the former first, eventually having a one-night stand with him, only to be callously dumped the next day (he more or less insinuates she’s a whore, giving her a pearl which she crushes, bare-handed).
She vows revenge on the man who took her chastity, and to this end, begins going after anyone wandering the countryside in his trademark hat and cape (looking like a sword-wielding beekeeper). Which, it turns out, is a surprisingly large number of people, only adding to the number of those who hold a grudge against Li. Admittedly, in this case, I can see their grounds for grievance, since they were guilty of not much more than an unlucky choice of couture. It turns out, too, that Li’s desire for vengeance is greatly misplaced, with her seducer only having been pretending to be the Black Dragon, in order to gain her confidence.
This 1972 film comes five years after Jimmy Wang Yu played the male predecessor to Li Feng in Chang Cheh’s seminal Hong Kong film, One-Armed Swordsman, which created a new bloody genre of martial arts movies, populated by anti-heroes. However, a more direct ancestor here is probably the Japanese series which included 1969’s Lady Sazen and the Drenched Shallow Sword; the protagonist there was also 50% short in the ocular department. [Though the character of the disabled female warrior dates back even earlier, perhaps to 1937 and Onna Sazen, played by Hara Komako] As such, there isn’t much new, but I did like the idea that the heroine spends much of the film looking for revenge on an innocent party.
Chang does a decent job of fending for herself, despite the arm shortage, even if the surfeit of trampoline work in the action scenes is disappointing, especially given her occasionally impressive skills. At one point, it looked as though the Black Dragon was going to end up saving the day. Doesn’t quite happen like that, and Li ends up by a river, having to fight solo against, not only the main villain, but also his sidekicks and their spears that spray acid. This isn’t exactly what you’d call a traditional martial-arts weapon – indeed, it appears more likely to have strayed in from a sixties 007 knock-off – yet we’ll just about give it a pass. The same goes for this overall.
Dir: Sheng-En Chin
Star: Ching Ching Chang, Ming Chiang, Ming Tien, Ming Lei