The Flying Guillotine (1975)

The Shaw Brothers The Flying Guillotine is set during the Ching Dynasty with a paranoid Emperor Yung Cheng who believes everyone is out to get him.  One of his officials Chief Xin Kang comes up with a weapon that can behead people from a distance of a hundred yards.  The Emperor has him recruit twelve of the best palace guards to perfect the use of this weapon to kill ‘traitors’ in secret.  In effect a secret assassin squad!  However a few members of the 12 have misgivings!

Ku Feng as Chief Xin Kang

Ku Feng as Chief Xin Kang

 This movie is quite good.  Part intrigue, part horror and part drama.  There is some nice character development with the main five characters especially with Chen Kuan-Tai’s character Ma Tang and his wife played by Lau Ng-Kei. Even a few of the side characters tend to get more screen time as we learn just a little about them.  This, as far as I can tell, is the first of the Guillotine movies.  However it is not as famous as many of its predecessors such as Masters of the Flying Guillotine which came out a year later.

FG 3

Kong Yeung as Emperor Yung Cheng

Chen Kuan-Tai (The Duel, The Water Margin, The Iron Monkey 1977, Dragon Tiger Gate, 14 Blades) as Ma Tang

Ku Feng (The Twin Swords, Come Drink with Me, One-Armed Swordsman, The 36 Crazy Fists, Five Deadly Venoms) as Chief Xin Kang

Lau Ng-Kei (Trilogy of Swordsmanship, The Fourteen Amazons) as Mrs. Ma Yu-Ping

Wai Wang (Shaolin Temple, Flying Guillotine, Part II, The 36th Chamber of Shaolin, Dirty Ho) as Ah Kun/Xu Shuangkun

Kong Yeung (The Spiritual Boxer, The Idiot Swordsman) as  Emperor Yung Cheng

Ai Ti as Wanzhu the girlfriend to Xie Tianfu

Wong Yu as Xie Tianfu

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