The Armless Swordsman (1969) Poster

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5/10
Show me the penguin
ckormos17 March 2019
My copy has the French title of "The Manchot De Hong-Kong". It is a film made in South Korea and dubbed into French. There are also English subtitles that seem to have been added by a fan. It starts with "Who are these people and why are they fighting in the snow?" Ten men surround the one swordsman. As usual they attack him one at a time and he has no problem killing them all. Then the title appears "Le Manchot de Hong-Kong". Stop everything! Manchot is French for penguin. Now I have two reasons to watch this movie: to see a swordsman with no arms swing a sword and to figure out what a penguin has to do with all this. The movie continues with the same plot as the Shaw Brothers movie about a one armed swordsman. The South Koreans then decided to outdo the Chinese with a swordsman with no arms. Our no arm man is saved by a girl, Lan Lan, who nurses him back to life. Once healed his rehabilitation begins. That is the fatal flaw of the movie. One arm is dramatic but no arms is really hopeless. The runtime is only 79 minutes but even that seems too long because the hopelessness is constantly front and center. The payoff for this movie is also beyond reach. There has to be a believable fight sequence that the armless swordsman wins. In my imagination that is impossible. For other people like the Yuen clan or Tsui Hark that might not be impossible at all but they did not make this movie. Only hard core fans of martial arts movies from the golden age 1967 to 1984 would possibly be interested in this movie. To them I can only recommend if you chose to watch this only to say you did just make sure you have another movie to watch right after it to raise you out of depression. As for that penguin, my guess is the swordsman wore a black and white outfit and maybe resembled a penguin.
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