One-Armed Boxer (1972) The Good, The Shaft and the Okinawan Karate Vampire (Review)

Perhaps I should’ve seen this coming. When I watched the cult favourite, Master of the Flying Guillotine, the arrival of the bad guy was scored by krautrock legends Neu!. While not strictly legal, this use of music made the threat to the heroes feel more dangerous and substantial than any other composition possibly could. Anachronistic music sometimes works wonders, and this is long before the internet called out Quentin Tarantino for using modern hip hop in a western. Also directed by Jimmy Wang-Yu, the recent release from Eureka Classics of 1972 film, One-Armed Boxer, is exactly the same. What possible piece of music could be used to fit this traditional early shaw brothers movie of revenge and dismemberment? I could guess a hundred times and never hit the mark – Isaac Hayes’ legendary and award-winning music Shaft. Yes, Shaft, that soul icon in feuding states China, wild isn’t it? That too is a 1972 movie so it just goes to show how quick the Shaw Brothers knocked these movies out in their halcyon days.

Jimmy Wang-Yu directs and stars as the eponymous hero, a senior member of a Kung-Fu school in small-town China. He and a friend are drinking tea in a restaurant when members of a rival school, the hook gang, start throwing their weight around trying to steal in broad daylight. Being the upstanding young men that they are, a brawl breaks out, winning the brawl easily the hook school asks for another fight in a quarry later, which, again, they emphatically lose. Running off to their boss, a senior member of the hook gang utters something with all the nuance of a playground squabble, claiming that Wang-Yu said he was going to “kick your arse too, Master”. Any adult with a fully functioning brain would see that for what it is, not the leader of the hook gang though. He uses this as justification to march into his rivals school and kick off a full-on gang war which leads to him bringing in a group of foreign fighters to kill off Wang-Yu’s school, complete with an Okinawan vampire, Yogi with an unfortunate black face, a lama fighter who can inflate his body like a pufferfish and two Muay Thai practitioners who do a little dance warm-up before fighting.

There’s no way to sugarcoat this, but the martial arts are awful, complete with wild flailing that the hard man geezer at your local pub would have a decent shot at beating, never mind a crack squad of international assassins. The Okinawan Vampire Karate and Lamas are the closest to being competent or comparable to the high standards set by the Shaw Brothers movies that would later make stars of ‘the Five Venoms’ or Gordon Liu. By the by, it is never explained why the toughest of the lot has vampire’s teeth, he just does. While we are on the topic of the mysterious vampire, this one action should succinctly explain why the martial arts are both poor in their execution and delivery. The Karate Vampire grabs Jimmy Wang-Yu by the arm, pulls it behind his back and “karate chop”, his arm just comes off – super easy, barely an inconvenience.

Therein lies the angle and how to get the most from One-Armed Boxer. If you watch it expecting one of the early classics from the illustrious Shaw Brothers catalogue and this isn’t just going to be a disappointment it’ll barely be elevated above bad. Approach it on the level that it establishes, however, and your appreciation will be set to an altogether different level. This is high camp, above all else.

This, a film with vampires, inflatable men, and a school of kung-fu called “crippled fist” which you attain from a special herb, fire and crushing your fist under a huge rock. No training montages here, and while we are on the subject of montage, Wang-Yu’s love interest is introduced and becomes a pivotal character through the medium of stills and that Shaft score – minus Isaac Hayes vocals, of course. Pardon the phrasing, but One-Armed Boxer and the work of Jimmy Wang-Yu is from far out there in Kung-Fu cinema’s Wild West. This is Kung-Fu cinema neck-deep in the low-budget exploitation that birthed the likes of Sister Street Fighter, Chih-Hung Kwei (Killer Constable, and Bewitched) and Ngai Choi Lam (Riki-Oh, and the Seventh Curse). And just in referencing those three names, you’ll know fine and well if this Eureka release is for you or whether it is one to avoid.

Thanks for reading Rob’s review of One-Armed Boxer

The Nightingales’ drummer, joins us to talk about all manner of things including working with Cumming and Lee, her formative musical influences, the things that have got her through lockdown, the thrill of getting back on the road to tour the Four Against Fate album, and which stand-up comedian Graham sounds most like.

PATREON POP SCREEN

For more Music and Pop Music Chat, check out our Podcast, Pop Screen