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One-Armed Swordsman AKA Dubei Dau
R1 - America - Dragon Dynasty Review written by and copyright: Pat Pilon (9th July 2007). |
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The Film
 First thing's first. You should know this is a classic and though didn't make Chang Cheh's career, it did propel him quite high, and he never looked back. If you're expecting an all out brawl for two hours, though, you'll be disappointed. The characters and plot are more important than the action. The movie is actually a parable for teenagehood. The lost arm is supposed to mean teen alienation or something of the sort. In fact, you can consider this the equivalent of 'Rebel Without a Cause', but with more swordfighting. Jimmy Wang Yu doesn't try to find trouble, it just sort of finds him. Mr. Wang is great to watch. He brings great angst to his role. He wants to be happy but he's torn by his master's teachings and the love for the girl who kept him alive. The struggle inside him is played out very well. The movie concentrates on drama, like I said. It's a dramatic story where the action is incidental to the characters. It's not 'The Water Margin' or 'The Deadly Duo' but that doesn't matter because after about 10 minutes, you realize there's something special about this movie. Either in the writing or directing or acting or a combination of all three, you know this movie has something more than what you see. It's nice. The fights are well done, although not as complex or elaborate as in later Chang Cheh movies. The movie started a new trend in action movies, in that it had some relatively realistic action sequences. People sort of jump over 20-foot walls and the editing makes some guys faster than the wind, so cinematic licence has been taken when the plot demands it. The bad guys can be kind of slow and awkward; I mean, you've got five guys fighting another guy whose got one arm. How realistic can you make it? Liu Chia-liang (or Lau Kar-leung) does a good job, making the fights as good as possible. Like I said, the excitement is there. This is actually one of the first movies with actual martial arts moves in it, instead of just people flailing swords around in an attempt to do action. In this movie, Mr. Liu added actual techniques, bring great authenticity to the fights. This isn't a perfect movie but it's very nice to watch. The fights are kind of sparse and they aren't as realistic or exciting as they could be (some one-armed guy fighting five guys with swords is extremely hard to make plausible). When I rented Tsui Hark's 'The Blade' I didn't know what I was in for. I was just blown away. Then, I learned it was based on an old Shaw Brothers movie. I just couldn't find that movie for some reason. Finally, Celestial released it and I was really happy. Now, Dragon Dynasty released it and it's a great package. It's one of those movies you should see simply to see where many other movies had their roots. I still prefer 'The Blade', but 'One-Armed Swordsman' is still very good.
Video
2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen. Well, this is really impressive, that's for sure. The print is way too good to be from a 1967 movie. It's clear and without specks, scratches, discolourations or anything else of the sort. The colours are bight and strong, showing no degradation or obvious digital manipulations. There may be a very small amount of edge enhancement present, but otherwise, there's nothing wrong with the picture. It shows no noise or other compression artifacts. It's a stunning picture, especially considering the movie and its age (in fact, take a look at the director featurette on the disc to see the work done on the picture).
Audio
The movie comes in Mandarin Dolby Digital 2.0 mono and English Dolby Digital 2.0 mono. In my mind, the dub track is useless so I listened to the original track, and I was quite pleased. It may seem a bit tinny at times, but it's not a big problem. The track has been cleaned of any pops, scratches, and there's no screeching. The dialogue is clear, as is the music. The mixing is pretty good and everything is at good sound levels. The track may also be missing a bit of oomph, but the movie doesn't demand too much. It's a very nice track. There are English, English (hard of hearing) and Spanish subtitles.
Extras
As with the other Dragon Dynasty releases, this one has a nice gaggle of extras to keep you interested. To start things off, there's an audio commentary by by film critics/scholars David Chute and Andy Klein. These guys are pretty nice and Mr. Chute definitely seems to be the more knowledgeable of the two. Mr. Chute ends up talking about the cast and their careers, which is nice to hear. The pair also talk about Chang Cheh and how this movie started a lot for him (though, first he got noticed with 'Tiger Boy', released the year before). They also talk about the fights and the blood and the symbolism in the movie, which is pretty interesting. They also mention the western influences the movie has and what things this movie later influenced. It's a good track, if a bit slow-moving at times. They also seem to lack information that many reviews would probably know, which doesn't makes this track the authoritative one I would have hoped. They do have a lot of nice information to say, and add very nicely to the movie. Bey Logan’s track for 'The Heroic Ones' is better and much, much more informative, but this is a nice track, especially for those not too familiar with Shaw and the films of Chang Cheh. There is also a very short commentator biography for each commentator, if you wish to read them. The next thing is a featurette called The Master: Chang Cheh (17:29). Those owning some of the Hong Kong releases, such as 'The Water Margin and 'Vengeance', will have already seen this featurette. It talks about the director's life, basically. It's a good overview, taking you from his childhood to his death, interviewing such stars as David Chiang, Ti Lung, Jimmy Wang Yu, Tsui Hark and John Woo. 'One-Armed Swordsman' is given a bit more weight than other movies of his, but that's only because it’s so important in his career. This is informative and a very good watch. After that is an Interview Gallery, with interviews with star Jimmy Wang Yu (10:56) and film critics/scholars David Chute and Andy Klein. Mr Wang has a great interview. He talks about how things worked at Shaw when he worked there. He talks about how he started working there, as well as the daily routine and how 'One-Armed Swordsman' changed his career. The critics talk about all the was 'One-Armed Swordsman' defined Shaw's martial arts movie, and Chang Cheh's style. They talk about the plot, the characters, the symbolism, Mr. Chang's penchant for blood. It's a good interview gallery and has very nice bits of information. Next is a huge Trailer Gallery The first subsection is One-Armed Swordsman Trailers, which has a very bad-looking original theatrical trailer (4:02) and a nicer-looking new home video trailer (1:08). You can definitely see the differences in advertising mentalities when watching these. They couldn't be more different, but they both have lots of action. The second subsection is Other Films from the Filmmakers, which has 'The Boxer from Shantung' (3:35), 'The Chinese Boxer' (4:04), 'The Chinese Professionals' (1:04), 'Crippled Avengers' (3:41), 'Duel of the Iron Fist' (aka 'The Duel', one of Chang Cheh's best) (2:40), 'The New One-Armed Swordsman’ (3:23), 'Return of the One-Armed Swordsman' (3:59), 'Seven Blows of the Dragon' (aka 'The Water Margin', another one of Chang Cheh's best) (2:24), 'Street Gangs of Hong Kong' (1:03) and 'Vengeance' (2:28). What I really hate here is that, for a label that prides itself on delivering the Shaw Bros. library, uncut in the original language, they show the trailers with the horrible American release name, using the horrendously cheesy American release trailers. 'Duel of the Iron Fists' and "Seven Blows of the Dragon' (which, as a title, makes no sense at all) are the best examples. The third gallery is Shaw Bros. Currently Available, with 'King Boxer' (1:08), 'The 36th Chamber of Shaolin' (3:53), 'My Young Auntie' (4:19) and 'The Shaw Bros. Collection' (1:33). Good trailers, but nothing spectacular, other than being extremely long. Last but not least are the Dragon Dynasty Trailers for 'Born to Fight' (1:43), which has insane stunts, 'Infernal Affairs 2' (3:15), a great sequel and 'Seven Swords' (1:56), Tsui Hark's great return to directing after a 2-year hiatus. They're good trailers, nicely spiffed up by Dragon Dynasty. The last thing on this disc is a Stills Gallery. It's a pretty nice gallery. It shows various posters used for promotion as well as plenty of (B&W) promo pictures. They're good moments from the movie.
Overall
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