When farmer Fang (Wang Yu, wearing more eyeliner than a hooker) gets an invitation to a "dance" to determine a "King of Swords," he politely declines- but, this being a martial arts movie, backing out isn't an option. Other locals succumb to the merciless "8 Kings" in their quest for universal recognition: even a baby-faced Ti Lung succumbs (to "The Lady of a Thousand Hands"). Fang decides to cast his lot with the locals, but Shen (Chen Hsing) has already taken it upon himself to kidnap Fang's wife in hopes of persuading him to help. Before Fang can find Shen, the 8 Chiefs do- but Fang arrives just in time to kill anybody and everybody he decides is a threat to his wife. Fang, throughout the movie, uses the broken sword he took from his dying father in the first film, laying waste to everything around him. (But, like BLOOD BROTHERS, RETURN OF THE ONE-ARMED SWORDSMAN is at heart a romance... wrapped in martial arts, of course.) At one point, Fang literally takes to the air, spinning spreadeagled like a propeller through a stand of bamboo stalks. Near the end of the movie, Fang's wife, Xiaoman, informs him that there's a little one-armed swordsman on the way (and I don't mean David Chiang).
Review of Return of the One-Armed Swordsman
