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The flying guillotine looks like an umbrella that extends into a red fondue pot on a chain. Its master is a blind octogenarian named Fung Sheng Wu Chi, and he has eyebrows twice that of even Andy Rooney. Fung's enemy is a one-armed bandit who killed his two brightest protégés in 1971's One Armed Boxer. Will there be a revenge mission in 1975's Master of the Flying Guillotine (a/k/a One Armed Boxer II, or One Armed Boxer versus the Flying Guillotine)? You bet. Will there be a score from Krautrock gods Neu!? You know it. Will there be a ridiculously entertaining orgy of punching and kicking and wonderfully bad dubbing? Lord, yes.
Guillotine (screens Friday, August 8 at the Dryden Theatre), which was re-released in 2002 with 12 additional minutes of delicious chop-socky action, doesn't waste much time on a story. It takes place in 1730 China, where the Ching Dynasty has just displaced the still bitter and vengeful Huns from the Ming Dynasty. That and Fung avenging the death of his disciples is merely an excuse to showcase as much bedlam in 90 minutes as it possibly can.
Most of Guillotine centers around a big Mortal Kombat-type tournament run by One Armed Boxer's brother's martial arts school. This allows for a vast array of different wacky characters, who are usually named after their particular moves and/or fighting style (except Wins Without Knives, who ironically uses knives to win). And, yes, MoFG and OAB (writer-director Jimmy Wang Yu) eventually meet up, after the former dispatches a hysterical number of guys missing arms, fighting not unlike how I imagine a blind man and a one-armed man would in a real-life brawl.
The best part of Guillotine, other than the over-the-top fighting, sound
effects and good-guy switcheroo, is that its editing and photography don't
mask the serious talent of any of its stars, unlike so many current pictures
made by modern actors (
Wang Yu is probably (and quite indirectly) known in this country for providing the background for Steve Oedenkerk's woefully misunderstood Kung Pow: Enter the Fist. In that film, Oedenkerk made like Woody Allen in What's Up, Tiger Lily? by dubbing and digitally inserting himself into Wang Yu's Tiger and Crane Fist from 1977.
1:33 - R
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