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How The One-Armed Swordsman sequels took Hong Kong martial arts films to the next level
The two follow-ups to The One-Armed Swordsman are somewhat different to the original hit film but plenty of blood runs through all three
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The 1967 film The One-Armed Swordsman changed Hong Kong martial arts cinema forever. Its two sequels, while less influential, remain well-regarded and highly entertaining. Here is how those two follow-ups kept the legend alive.
Return of the One-Armed Swordsman (1969)
The massive success of the original film made Chang Cheh a “million-dollar director” – and a sequel inevitable. Although leading actor Jimmy Wang Yu returned, this follow-up was a very different film.
Screenwriting legend Ni Kuang gave the first film a dramatic undertow with his script, balancing action with character development. Wang’s Fang Gang had a well-rounded persona, and his nemesis was driven by romantic rejection.
Part two, written by Chang, is much more of a crowd-pleaser. Wang’s portrayal of Fang is less nuanced and much grimmer, drawing on Clint Eastwood’s violent loners in Italian spaghetti Westerns such as The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966), which were popular with Hong Kong filmmakers.
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The story, too, is more of a standard good-versus-evil construction that features acrobatic action sequences and flamboyant costumes, foreshadowing Chang’s later Venom Mob films.
“Return represents the kind of jump you saw Sylvester Stallone make between First Blood and Rambo: First Blood Part II,” says Grady Hendrix, a film historian. “It supersizes the original, leaving character moments on the cutting room floor in favour of bigger and better action set pieces.
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“The original movie spends a lot of time on Wang Yu putting his life back together after losing his right arm, whereas Return spends a lot of time on Wang chopping up guys sporting baroque weapons.”
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