Arrow Video’s third collection of Shaw Brothers martial arts movies hit just before Thanksgiving, and while I got an early copy, it still took me much of the long weekend to finish all of them. But as a Hong Kong martial arts movie completist, I did watch them all to sample what Shawscope Vol. 3 had to offer.
I had seen The One-Armed Swordsman before and found it slow. Perhaps I was spoiled by Master of the Flying Guillotine which was all action with Jimmy Wang-Yu’s One Armed Boxer. But, this established the subgenre of one-armed fighters and focused on the drama of Fang (Wang-Yu) adapting.
Return of the One-Armed Swordsman is about him trying to stay out of a tournament, so you get both the tournament and Fang fighting off the overlords who keep coming to compel him. The sequel had a bit more fun with all the unique clans, cool weapons and more wirework acrobatics.
With The New One-Armed Swordsman, I just love the Hong Kong tradition of just putting the word “New” in front of the title. But, this sequel mostly puts a new character through the same formula and runs thin on new tricks. Still, there are some fun recurring bits with rope and the climax on an outdoor pier.
The Lady Hermit is about a young whipmaster who comes looking for the Lady Hermit to study martial arts. Of course,e the literal whippersnapper is a show off so she’ll learn. Great fights in this and the rope bridge scene must have influenced Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.
Intimate Confessions of a Chinese Courtesan is a landmark erotic thriller and has been unavailable for years. It is brutal and probably would have qualified as Category III later.
The 14 Amazons is a war epic that runs over two hours. They identify all the leaders and clans involved, but you can just assume whoever wins the fights are the good guys. It does settle on the Yang clan, but it’s pretty epic and on location, not in the studio. There are some wild techniques on display like a human pyramid bridge and stealing food from the enemy army with sharm bamboo tubes.
The Magic Blade has blades in trees and bread, plus lots of other wild sequences. People play battle chess on a grid and fight over squares. in other scenes, people hide in secret compartments or surround the hero in a circle two people high, standing on each other’s shoulder.s
Clans of Intrigue has four censored scenes. They seem to be brief gore shots that only amount to a minute or so difference. It is pretty progressive with intersex characters as a plot point.
The Jade Tiger is the first one that lost me, but to be fair it’s also the ninth one I watched. It’s another movie about feuding clans so I lost track.
The Sentimental Swordsman is a similar melodrama of poisons and antidotes, but a bit more focused and easier to follow.
The Avenging Eagle is back to the simplicity of escaping The Iron Boat clan so the hero has to fight them all off when they keep coming for him. A fight over a torch is almost pre-Jackie Chan and there are lots of cool weapons like blades in the shoes.
Killer Constable is tasked with finding the stolen imperial treasury. There are lots of suspects he has to fight.
Buddha’s Palm starts to have the energy Tsui Hark and Cory Yuen would bring with tilted angles and quick cuts. It’s got comic book cutouts and plush creatures (a man or two in a suit) and animated energy bolts a year before Tsui’s Zu: Warriors from the Magic Mountain.
Bastard Swordsman has a new logo! So this must take us into a new era of Shaw Brothers. That bastard (literally they tease him for it) trains to save his martial arts school but with more flying wirework than usual in Shaw Brothers. Some of his supernatural moves hint at future Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat games, literally cloning himself or spinning a cocoon.
There are some new commentators along with the usual David West, James Mudge and Frank Djeng. Samm Deighan is a woman and the female perspective on Intimate Confessions is vital, along with her knowledge on the genre and filmmakers.
New Arrow historians give good context to these films, and the French archive preserves some interviews with the film talent. Wang Yu addresses his split from Shaw and the Jackie Chan Island on Fire controversy, but downplays both of course.