Heads Are Gonna Roll

Master of the Flying Guillotine is Kung Fu Theater at its best.

By David Walker

In the beginning, before Jet Li and Jackie Chan and Chow Yun-Fat--and even before Bruce Lee--there was Jimmy Wang Yu. A former champion water-polo player, Wang Yu was recruited by Shaw Brothers Studios, the leading film-production company in Hong Kong. His breakthrough film--and one of the most influential martial-arts films in history--was 1967's One Armed Swordsman.

One Armed Swordsman, directed by Chang Cheh, was a watershed film that birthed a subgenre of kung fu flicks while simultaneously setting the tone for what is now considered the standard chop-sockey film. Wang Yu followed up with the seminal kung fu film The Chinese Boxer, which he also directed. The Chinese Boxer was the first film to offer action as the axis of a film's plot and ignited a change in Hong Kong cinema.

Wang Yu combined elements of his two most popular films to create his most enduring character in 1971 with One Armed Boxer. Like many characters in the Hong Kong pantheon, Wang Yu's one-armed champion was symbolic of a culture that had been put upon--the ultimate representation of the imperfect, fragmented nation. The character spawned many sequels, including 1975's hugely popular Master of the Flying Guillotine (a.k.a. One Armed Boxer 2).

Flying Guillotine, directed by Wang Yu, is classic kung fu cinema. The story deals with a blind Buddhist monk/assassin who's out to avenge the death of two of his disciples killed by the One Armed Boxer. The Monk has the deadly flying guillotine, a bizarre contraption that looks like a beekeeper's hood outfitted with a saw blade, which he uses to decapitate his enemies. With the One Armed Boxer in his sights (pun intended), the blind Monk shows up to a kung fu tournament, where the participants are all the prototypes for future video games such as Street Fighter.

Master of the Flying Guillotine is a must for die-hard fans of martial-arts flicks, but it's also a great film for those uninitiated in the over-the-top genre. The plot takes a back seat to the action, which comes fast and furious--just the way it should be in kung fu theater.

Clinton Street Theater, 2522 SE Clinton St., 238-8899. 7 and 9 pm, Friday-Thursday, July 12-25, Additional shows 11 pm Friday and 2 pm Sunday. $6.

WWeek 2015

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