Point
the Finger of Death (1977)
aka: One Arm Chivalry Fights One Arm Chivalry
Chinese Title: 獨臂俠大戰獨臂俠
Translation: One-Armed Man vs. One-Armed Man
Starring: Jimmy Wang Yu, Lau Kar-Wing, Lung
Fei, Leung Kar-Yan, Wang Kuan-Hsiung, Hsi Hsiang, Kwan Hung, Yee Hung, Li Ying,
Wei Ping-Ao, Hsueh Han, Tian Ming
Director: Chin Sheng-En
Action
Director: Lau
Kar-Wing
You’d
think that by 1977, Jimmy Wang Yu had gotten the One-Armed [Fighter] bug out of
his system. He had already been in about seven movies about the theme, three of
which had come out the year before. I
guess those made enough money in the different Asian markets that Golden
Harvest funded just one more, just to be sure if that sub-sub-genre was dead or
not. The resulting film, One Arm Chivalry Fights One Arm Chivalry (or Point the Finger of
Death in the West), is actually pretty decent.
Set in
the Qing Dynasty, our main hero is Chi Chu-Chang (Jimmy Wang Yu), a member of
the Kong Hua Society of Ming Dynasty loyalists. Chi is just walking around
doing his job for the society when he comes across a man trying to rape a
woman. He intervenes, only to discover it’s a trap: the woman is Poisons Chi
(Yee Hung, of Four Real Friends and Shaolin Kung Fu), an assassin
for the evil Lord Hu Ta (frequent WY collaborator Lung Fei). Miss Poisons pokes
Chu-Chang in the arm with a poisoned (natch!) needle, and the latter is forced
to slice off his own arm to save his life. Poisons Chi gets away, while
Chu-Chan kills the fake rapist, Hwa Fung-Chun (Hei Ying, of My Blade, My
Life and Sea Girls).
This is
where the story gets complicated. Hua Fung-Chun was the top student and “heir”
of the Three Liang Chow’s School. The three masters of the school are members
of the Kong Hua society. But when a one-armed Chi Chu-Chang shows up at the
school calling their now-dead top student a Qing dog, they’re a bit miffed.
After a fight breaks out, they agree to settle the matter with the Kong Hua
elders.
However,
that night, Liang Chow Master #1 (Beach of the War Gods’s Kwan Hung) is
at his martial brother’s house, banging his wife. They are discovered by a
second one-armed swordsman, who will later be identified as Lu Tien-Chu (Lau
Kar-Wing, of Knockabout and The Odd Couple). Lu tells Master #2
(Hsueh Han, of Black Hurricane and a bunch of JWY movies) of his brother’s
treachery and they catch the two adulterers in the act. Lu kills both the wife
and her cuckold husband, although Master #1 is able to flee.
Since
Master #1 and Master #3 (Tiang Ming, of The Fist that Kills and Female
007) know that Chi Chu-Chang is on to them—they are indeed Manchurian
spies—they decide to pin the blame for Master #2’s death on Chi. After all, how
many one-armed martial arts masters are there in the vicinity? With the
help of fellow turncoat Pan Keung-Yan (Leung Kar-Yan, of Two Great Cavaliers
and The Victim), they accuse Chi Chu-Chang of murder to the Kong Hua
leader Yang (Li Ying, Fist of Unicorn and The Chinese Amazons).
Yang is reluctant to believe them at first, but once again, it’s three against
one here. Chi Chu-Chang is ordered to commit suicide, but fights his way out of
the kangaroo court and flees.
While
the Kong Hua men are looking for Chi, Lu Tien-Chu shows up again and fights
with the two remaining Liang Chow masters. He kills Master #3 and injures
Master #1 before Pan Keung-Yan steps in and fights him off. Once again, when
Chief Yang shows up after the killing, they say it was Chi Chu-Chang who
did it.
Shortly
afterward, Chi Chu-Chang is confronted by his fellow loyalists, who are now
accusing him of another murder. That meeting is interrupted by the arrival of a
quartet of Tibetan lamas in the employ of Lord Hu Ta, who want to kill Chi
themselves. Chi kills them all, and his valor is enough to convince most of the
other Kong Hua elders of his innocence. However, the Liang Chow henchmen attack
and injure him. He is rescued by fellow patriot Chen Yuen-Fang (Wong Goo-Hung,
of Adventure at Shaolin and The Swift Shaolin Boxer), who knows
the truth about the other one-armed swordsman, Lu Tien-Chu. Lu has a personal vendetta
against the Liang Chow school and Pan Keung-Yan, but will he be able to exact
his revenge in time? Will Chi Chu-Chang be able to clear his name before his
compatriots catch up to him? Will the evil Lord Hu Ta be able to defeat the
rebels by sewing discord?
The
story becomes even more complicated at this point, throwing in a second
adultery subplot (?) and a long-lost brother as well. The former is especially
interesting: two slutty villain wives in one film. Huh. That brings to mind an
infamous incident in the real Wang Yu’s life when his second wife, Wang
Kaizhen, had an affair with a young businessman and Wang Yu responded by
leading the press to his wife’s trysting place and exposing them publicly. That
doesn’t quite happen in the movie, but it’s hard not to think about it when you
see all the wives sleeping around here.
While
the film is paced well, it does get bogged down after Chi Chu-Chang is injured
and has to recover in a secret cave. That’s where the long-lost brother subplot
comes into play and we discover that female Qing assassins have cages and
spiked ceilings in their bedrooms(!). Otherwise, this a standard Ming-vs-Qing
storyline in which you can’t help but think that the pro-Ming movements were
never successful because their elders were gullible and stupid. This all leads
up to the titular fight, followed by a pair of parallel climaxes: Lu Tien-Chu
vs. Pan Keung-Yan and Chi Chu-Chang vs. Lord Hu Ta.
The
action was handled by Lau Kar-Wing, who had choreographed a few other Wang Yu
efforts, including The Deadly Silver Spear and Tiger and Crane Fists.
That certainly feels appropriate, considering it was his brother Lau Kar-Leung
who had choreographed the first two One-Armed Swordsman movies. I would
say that the fighting is pretty good, mixing equal doses of one-armed
swordsmanship and one-armed boxing. There are lots of scenes of Wang Yu
fighting off multiple opponents, which lack the mass slaughter quality of a lot
of his work, mainly because he’s fighting his brothers-in-arms. Don’t look for
anything resembling the finale to The New One-Armed Swordsman in this
one. But Wang Yu has his one-armed shtick down to a science by this point, so
if you liked his other films, you should enjoy this one.
As good
a choreographer as Lau Kar-Wing can be, Point the Finger of Death does
not represent one of his better fight jobs. I can’t help but wonder if he sort
of toned everything down so that the rest of the cast didn’t outfight Jimmy
Wang Yu. Perhaps they were on a tight schedule so there wasn’t as much time to
plan the fight scenes. There is a sort of sameness to the group melees, maybe
because there is only so much you can do with one arm while you’re trying to
hide the other one beneath your shirt. The best fights come at the end, when
Wang Yu faces off with Lord Hu Ta’s bodyguards (including the late Huang Ha),
who wield hook swords. He then has a sword vs. spear fight with Lung Fei which
is solid; Wang Yu always did his best work with weapons as opposed to
fisticuffs.
While
Jimmy Wang Yu movies often had their loopier moments, the action here is
generally played straight. There is one fight almost midway through when the
Tibetan Lamas show up to fight Chi Chu-Chang and they are challenged by one of
his cohorts first. That guy is played by Philip Ko Fei and his lama opponent is
played by a young Ricky Cheng Tien-Chi (of Five Element Ninjas fame).
The latter has a special move where he flips into air, comes down vertically
with a palm attack to the top of the skull, and then swings his other hand down
to gouge out the eyes. That is probably the most over-the-top movie in an
otherwise tame martial arts film.
Fans of
old school movies will definitely get their fill of one-armed martial arts
action with Point the Finger of Death, and the fighting is a few rungs
above Wang Yu’s early 70s basher movies. I’m not sure how his Taiwanese
counterparts from the previous year (save Master of the Flying Guillotine)
will compare to this one, so I’m hoping that he was able to maintain a
medium-high standard throughout this period of his career. You, the reader, and
I will find out in short order…
