1967 - THE ONE ARMED SWORDSMAN, a very good Shaw Brothers film

Growing up, a person could usually find something called Kung Fu Theater on your afternoon television lineup.  Kung Fu Theater was usually some poorly dubbed marital arts film from the Shaw Brothers  or some other company which had a lot of weird mannered Kung Fu fighting that was usually filmed on some phony studio sets.  Rarely did these films actually film on outside locations.

For all the poor quality of many of these films some of them did actually stand out as good films, The One Armed Swordsman is one of the best.  The plot in a nutshell, Fang Kang a promising student of the The Golden Sword school ends up losing his arm after he rejects the daughter of the school.  In a jealous rage, she manages to wack one of his arms off.  Fang Kang ends up being nursed back to health by a farmer and his daughter.   While recovering he learns to cope with his disability and becomes a talented and formidable martial arts swordsman.  

This film is well directed by one of the masters of the genre,  Chang Cheh.  The film has plenty of the usual martial arts action but in this film there is a decent amount of attention payed to the motives of the characters  for a change. The viewer comes away with a  pretty entertaining film which for once deepens and creates a context for the motivations of the various people in the story.  Usually in these films it's just a lot of silly flying through the air and jumping around for no particular reason.

The One Armed Swordsman is one the best films in the wuxia genre.

The film was written by Chang Cheh and Ni Kuang.  The running time is 117 minutes

1978 - FIVE DEADLY VENOMS, classic Shaw Brothers kung fu flick?

The dying master of some kung fu clan sends his student out to find the Five Deadly Venoms, martial artists skilled in different forms of kung fu.  The student must determine if they are good or evil or something.

What a talk fest.  Five Deadly Venoms has reams and reams of plot which is occasionally halted for some silly kung fu action.  On and on the story goes and where it stops nobody knows or eventually even cares.  At their lowest entertainment level these dubbed kung fu films are at least worth a laugh but the cheesy dialog in Five Deadly Venoms isn't even that entertaining. 

I'm somewhat puzzled by this film's high reputation among kung fu film followers.  What interest  Five Deadly Venoms has for a viewer  is in some of the outlandish tortures and deaths that occur during the film. 

The film appears to have been filmed entirely at the Shaw Brothers studio, it has a phony claustrophobic look to it.

97 minutes, written by Ni Kuang and Chang Cheh.