Hong Kong superstar Jimmy "One Arm Boxer" Wang Yu stars as the Bamboo blade, China's top swordsman. His services are rendered by the Imperial treasury who want him to infiltrate a powerful gang of Highwaymen and get back the stolen silver bullion. After numerous deadly encounters the gang are beaten by the bamboo sword and only the gang leader remains, however he is a lot tougher than was originally bargained for.
This movie was a bit hard to rate due to any factors but it all comes down to how much I was entertained. The biggest problem I have with many Jimmy Wang Yu is how obvious it is that he is in fact not a good martial artist, he can sell it reasonably well most of the time but the filming and editing style really differs on his movies versus single wide shot that were popular at the time. Jimmy's acting here is pretty good as was most of the cast. The story was quite a bit better than most of the "police goes undercover" films. The fighting is pretty clumsy and slow at times but the length and brutality shown more than make up for any short comings. The end fight is the biggest highlight of the film and it's what really raised the rating for me, it showed me somethings I've never really seen in this type of film, this is the first time I'm seen a sword fight in the mud and I really enjoyed it. Also both fighters became exhausted which as most fan would know doesn't happen in most martial arts movie as fighter will fight hundreds of opponents for an hours without even breathing hard, so to me at least this was refreshing. Overall this movie really entertained me with it's complex but easy to follow story, decent acting and great finale.