The Sunday Morning Movie Presents: Master Of The Flying Guillotine (1976) Run Time: 1H 33M

Greetings gentle readers, welcome to another installment of the Sunday Morning Movie. Today it’s a classic from Kung Fu Theater: Master of the Flying Guillotine.

Reviews:

DVD Talk says:

The best way I can describe why Master of The Flying Guillotine (1975 aka. One-Armed Boxer 2, One-Armed Boxer Vs the Flying Guillotine) is a classic and a film I’ve always immensely enjoyed is that for a good many years I was a smoker. Like the warm tickling rush of nicotine to a pair of lungs, Master of The Flying Guillotine is a complete guilty pleasure that leaves you feeling high off its empty b-movie fun. I love a good emotionally and intellectually stimulating movie, but there are times when Cries and Whispers just won’t click. When it is 1AM, you are with a group of wiseass friends, and the time is ripe for a 70’s action crowd pleaser, Master of The Flying Guillotine fits the bill perfectly.

letterboxd says:

Every now and then you’re able to find that one magnificently low budget masterpiece!

With Master of the Flying Guillotine, Jimmy Wang Yu (who was never a stranger to writing, directing, and starring in his own kung fu passion projects) takes his gimmicky character from One-Armed Boxer and drastically soups up the world around him, as if the film were a high-kicking episode of Pimp My Ride. Taking/plagiarizing cues from Enter the Dragon, where cavalcades of colorful fighters are brought together via a gladiator-style kung fu tournament, Jimmy now treats us to wondrous treasures that include: people fighting while balancing on sword tips, a man with elongated Mr. Fantastic arms, a guy choking another dude out with his hair braid, a chick cat-clawing someone to shreds, a giant human Goliath who gets taken down by the classic eyes-balls 1-2 combo, the act of punching someone though a roof and into his own coffin, an overly specific plot that requires there exist an abnormally prevalent number of capable one-armed kung-fu masters, and, best of all, the titular MotFG, a blind Gandalf-looking monk assassin who jumps 30 ft. in the air and wields a 100 ft. chain with a bright red beekeeper’s mask that can cleanly decapitate people.

Culture Vulture says:

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, for whatever elegance and classiness it has, is an homage to the kind of movie represented by Master of the Flying Guillotine–that is to say, kung fu pulp. And while Crouching Tiger is the superior movie in every way – production value and design, acting, cinematography, action choreography – it owes a debt to the likes of Master of the Flying Guillotine. It is a debt repaid since this 1975 kung fu adventure would not likely now be restored and revived without the popularity of Crouching Tiger.

My take:

If you were a fan of cheesy Kung Fu movies growing up, you’ve hit gold. It doesn’t get any crazier than this: fake beards and eyelashes, gallons of ersatz blood, wild fighting styles that defy the laws of physics and biology, weapons that simply cannot exist in reality, heads sailing hither and thither. The actual storyline exists simply to string together the over-the-top fights into a movie. The soundtrack is…eclectic. I had fun and I think you will too. One note: this is actually a sequel to The One Armed Boxer, so you may want to watch that first if you care about such things. Totally not necessary in this case.

Director: Jimmy Wang Yu

Notable actors: Jimmy Wang Yu

Plot (Spoilers!):

The One Armed Boxer has a problem: an imperial assassin wants him dead. Not only because he was a supporter of the previous imperial throne but because the Boxer killed two of the assassin’s students. The assassin, who is blind but from his facial twitches can apparently sense movement and objects with his eyelashes, utilizes a unique weapon. It’s a flying guillotine, it looks like an unfolding hat on the end of a chain. The twist is that when the hat lands on your head, it takes your head off.

There is a big martial arts tournament in town and the assassin is headed that way to see if he can find the One Armed Boxer there. He kills another one armed man along the way and yet another at the tournament but neither were his man. The real One Armed Boxer was in attendance but left before the assassin arrived and started killing people. Our hero seems safe but the assassin has three henchmen who begin to search for him as well.

Using his wits as much as his skill, the Boxer manages to dispatch the three underlings one after the other. The assassin is another problem though. He is too tough to take on head-to-head and the Boxer knows it. So our hero devises a clever scheme to first partially break the flying guillotine using bamboo poles, then lures the assassin into a coffin shop that has been booby-trapped by the Boxer earlier. Even without the assassin’s guillotine in full working order, it’s a tough fight. Only after taking some heavy damage is the Boxer able to punch the assassin through the roof of the coffin shop and into a waiting coffin.