It opens with the subtitles explaining the political turmoil of the times due to the eunuchs controlling the child emperor. Next the palanquin is attacked and the girl Jade is abducted. The abductors take her to a shack and a man named Hu. She is held for ransom. Wai Wang arrives and takes over. Yip Ching arrives next to fight them all. A beggar who was asleep in the shack wakes up. All these newcomers want in on the ransom money. Subsequently, Wai Wang wants to turn over a new leaf and help Violet escape.
My copy is a digital file that plays on a HDTV as a square shaped video. The hard subtitles are Korean with English over written. The English subtitles added "The Great Duel" and "(One-Armed Swordsman Vs Sorrowful Ghost)" to the title page. "Sorrowful to a Ghost" is a 1970 Taiwan movie with Yi Yuan as the villain character named "Dare Devil". These are certainly one and the same character. His role is minimal in this movie and the Dare Devil character is over the top in the other movies. The English subtitles also appear to be added by a fan. I know most of these fan works but not this one. My thanks to the unknown fan!
The movie has a fast pace and runs only 77 minutes. Despite that the story just doesn't get anywhere and the fights are few. To break it down the first 65 minutes of the movie are all about a kidnapping. The girl is kidnapped and that's all. The final 12 minutes of the movie finally account for the title. Wai Wang cuts off his own arm (I won't get into the logical or emotional reason for that action) and has a duel with a character who looks like his name might be Red Devil. Let me finish by saying some things are worth waiting an hour for but this final fight is not one of those things.
In the early years of this genre the actors were not fighters and the fighters were Chinese acrobat stunt men. A movie that was simply "not bad" was considered worthy of watching. There were so many opportunities to make something bad in a movie like this that not failing could be considered success. Simply put: I have nothing good to say about this movie and for the year and genre I have nothing bad to say about it either. Personally, I watched it once to write this review and I will not watch it again.
