I can't believe I've been putting off the flying Guillotine for nearly a month now. This movie is amazing.
There's an old man living in the Hills who is the master of the flying Guillotine style.
Essentially it's a form of martial arts involving this spinning blade thing that if it somehow gets around your neck it will rip your entire head off with a single jerk. It is simultaneously the silliest and most awe-inspiring weapon I've ever seen.
And this old man it seems is just minding his own business until a carrier pigeon arrives bearing the mark of a curved image resembling a one-armed man. Essentially this tells him that his two assistants possibly disciples have been killed by the one-armed boxer and now he boughs to take revenge and hunt this man down at whatever the cost. Also there's this weird commentary beforehand going on about the difference between the Ming Empire and the Great Shun.
The backstory between the two dynasties does have an effect on the film but I honestly couldn't remember which empire was supposed to be the predominant one I have to assume the ladder given that it's the 17 hundreds but it really doesn't matter.
Honestly most of this film is just an excuse to see a bunch of different people fight.
To such an extent that most of the middle of the film is literally just a singular tournament were various people fight one another and then move on to the next encounter.
I was honestly was wondering if that's where the entire film was going to go but then our flying Guillotine Kung Fu Master shows up and he kills one of the contestants and then murders the guy who organised the entire event, all because he heard the one-armed boxer was supposed to be here and he wasn't even present at the time of the guy showed up.
After this the movie turns into this weird preparation film in where the one-armed boxer School prepares for an attack by this flying Guillotine assailant and where they have to find a way to either destroy his weapon or manipulate their Battleground as to weakened their opponent because this old Master with the flying Guillotine is just too freaking powerful.
There's all these small story elements that can make for a really entertaining movie In Their Own rights. Like this weird Kung Fu rivalry between the guy who organised at the tournaments daughter and this Taiwanese fighter (or possibly Thailand fighter I'd have to go back and check) or just the tournament itself becoming its own unique story where you have all these people fighting each other and then gradually working their ways down to the final contestants. Which would have been a perfectly fine excuse to have all these different battles as there was enough variety from all the characters to keep the fighting interesting.
We had this Zorro inspired Japanese guy who had all these weird fighting techniques. A yogi instructor man whose arms could extend out to ridiculous lengths, his best fight was with the one-armed boxer simply because of the aesthetic the whole thing.
A guy who has super stretchy arms fighting a man who only has one arm.
You'd think it's incredibly one-sided. But our protagonist is just that good at fighting that he was able to hold his own and yet still needed to alter the situation to defeat the main foe.
The movie was really good at gradually building up tension and showing just how powerful everyone can be.
It really tries to convey just how immensely powerful the main villain is that you see all these other incredible fights between these other competitors and they just can't hold a candle to this one guy who's not overpowered for the sake of being overpowered but is uniquely adapted that just killing anyone who comes in friend of his path.
In conclusion this is an incredibly entertaining kung fu movie. It has just enough character development to get you invested in these people story but It ultimately just comes down to the fighting with little to nothing else to get in the way.
And it's really impressive given that it's able to go an hour and 20 minutes with nothing more then come back to show for it and still be enjoyable to watch.
I learned only after the film that this is actually a sequel to an already established movie from 1971. And now I'm really intrigued to watch that one just to see where all this stuff started.
Fung Sheng Wu Chi might be my favourite villain as of this moment. Even above Richard Jones from RoboCop and Count Zaroff from "The Most Dangerous Game".
I mean just look at the guy.
He's got that classic old fighter monk style to him along with a fantastic costume get up and the soundtrack that follows him around everywhere he goes is just phenomenal.
And this is in a movie that's filled with really fun aesthetic characters. There's a lot of competition here and he still manages to hold his own.
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