Event

The One-Armed Swordsman

Wed Jan 23: 7.30pm

Chang Cheh
Hong Kong
1967
1h 56m

About
** Sponsored by Confucius Institute of the State of Washington **

One of the first breakthrough films for legendary director Chang Cheh (perhaps Shaw Brothers greatest and most prolific asset), One-Armed Swordsman functions as a sort of Dr. No for the SB studio, as it lays out many tropes later featured in wuxia martial arts classics to come. Features a heavy body count, wicked swordplay and a truly outstanding anti-hero.

An orphan having a rough time at school gets his arm chopped off by his classmates, which means hell embark on a very complicated relationship with violence before he becomes well, look at the title. The disabled fighter concept that eventually went nuts in Crippled Avengers got its start here, along with the thoughtful philosophy that became the backbone of the genre.

Like a revisionist western or samurai film, this movie questions its heros violent profession as he gradually realizes all this tradition is for the birds. And it does all this within the gloriously artificial context of the Shaws studio-bound world. Michael Barrett, PopMatters