aka Tian Can Di Que

• Directed by Joe Law
• Starring
  • Frankie Shum
  • Jack Conn

I’m sure there are many who could argue that, really, this is a story about empowerment and overcoming obstacles, about perseverance in the face of adversity, taking arms against a sea of troubles, etc. There may even be those mouthing the sentiments above who actually believe those words as they fall trippingly from the tongue.¹ After all, there are people who believe any danged idea.

I’d like for them to be right, actually. Because it sets my PC-O-Meter clanging and sproinging any time I admit to myself that this feels like a good ol’-fashioned kung fu freak show here.

“I’ll feed you, sure, but I’m not doing your laundry.”

Most action movies try to start with a bang; this one starts with a thud — specifically that of a severed limb hitting the ground. The victim is Li Ho (Frankie Shum, presumably — credits are never too specific on kung fu imports), and the second arm soon joins the first in the dust. “Why,” you ask? Because the actor has no arms, and they needed to get them out of the way early on. Oh, you meant, “Why was the character divested of his arms in terms of story?” Got me there, really. Up until now, he’s been in the pay of moustachioed warlord Ling, whose paranoia about his employees is only matched by the bizarre scar-like thing on his left cheek that changes shape every danged scene. (Seriously, folks, high on the list of things to watch out for in potential employers is “Facial Blemishes Which Exhibit a Life of Their Own.”) The lackey calmly overseeing the disarming (hah!), Kung (Jack Conn), just gives the reason as “Orders,” with a blasé attitude that suggests to me that goings-on of this ilk are scarcely unheard of around chez Ling. (Maybe this is what he meant when he promised them a retirement plan so rich, “they’d never have to lift a finger.” Boy, I’m just cranking ‘em out tonight. Next!)

They toss Li Ho out on his keister, where he promptly bleeds to death. No! That would be too depressingly realistic. Instead, in this alternate version of human anatomy, having two arms severed leaves one only with blood-spattered nubs — or in this case, one nub and one four-inch arm stump with an odd two-fingered proto-hand on it. Aside from some fatigue from his beating, and the fact that he’s missing fully half of his limbs, Li Ho, isn’t much the worse for wear.

Even so, though, historical China isn’t an easy place to get along without any arms. He wandered into a nearby restaurant for some chicken, but customers start streaming out of the place, and the maitre d’ gets his jollies dangling the chicken leg like a cat toy, before finally siccing the bouncer on him. (Chicken joints got bouncers in China? Must be a helluva lunch special they got going on.) Thrill to the smug look on the chubby bouncer’s face; this is indeed a man who derives much self-value from beating up armless beggars.

Becoming a hackeysack master requires great sacrifice.

He wakes up from his beating in the workshop of the town coffin-maker, who clues him in on the fact that his former employer isn’t quite the saint-in-training that his press agent makes him out to be. For one thing, Ling orders coffins by the gross, and he doesn’t appear to be in the hospital or spook-alley business. The coffin-maker’s quite willing to nurse Li Ho back to health, but right then some of Ling’s goons show up for the day’s coffin shipment, and decide to take another few shots at Li Ho.

He ends up stumbling through the countryside, trying to get sips of water from rivers that end up knocking him downstream and washing the fake blood off his stumps. Eventually he hits the low when he shoos pigs from their trough just to get a mouthful of slops, and the kindly farmer takes him in. Not as a service project, mind you; as a farm hand. Now get to work!

And work he does. Without that tacky fake blood getting in the way, he manages to put his pseudo-arm to good use, along with his feet, his chin, and whatever else he can move. Eventually he’s watering crops, grinding wheat, and playing Blind Man’s Buff with the neighborhood kids.

Sometimes, no caption will do an image justice.

But Ling is still a paranoid creep, and so he gives a similar treatment to his henchman lackey, Kung. (Reason? “He knows too much.” Given the general ignorance of his other goons, I can see why Kung might stand out.) Not the arms this time, though; instead, he has Kung held down and pours a thimbleful of acid on Kung’s legs, which dissolves the muscles right through the skin, leaving him a paraplegic with floppy, useless lower extremities. And then out the door with him.

And so… aw, you’re way ahead of me. What are the odds that Kung, in crawling off to find shelter by the river, should run directly into Li Ho? Yep, and since Li Ho’s at least got the use of his legs, he uses them to kick Kung’s ass all over the place for having his arms chopped off. (Right here, in my notes, is a single line: “Better than Bumfights!” I’m not proud of it, but there it is.) And the only thing that stops Li Ho from killing Kung outright is… an old man in a basket.

No, really. There’s an old yogi folded up in a covered basket who stops Li Ho from taking his revenge, and suggests that the two of them work together to pay back Ling. And since the old man also happens to be a kung fu master, he’s just the man to teach them.

“Dude, tell him he’s got some stuff on his face.”
“YOU tell him.”

Before long, Li Ho can twirl a staff with his stump and throw rocks with his toes. Kung can walk on his hands (with his useless legs folded up beneath him) and do kung fu from the ground. They’re so confident in their new abilities, that they decide, “Hm, time for some chicken.” They go back to that very same restaurant and beat the crud out of the maitre d’, the bouncer, and anyone else who wanders too close. (Looks like somebody saw Superman 2 and liked it.)

Not that they did it all on their own, though. There’s another guy at the bar, dressed in white, who gets in a few licks. He comes across as something of a playboy bon vivant, although that impression may be fostered by the fact that I’ve been staring at a steady stream of crippled and limbless beggars, fat old men, skinny old men, and a melanoma the size of Cleveland; an able-bodied, surefooted young man is liable to wind up looking like a Greek god in that line-up.

I’m getting bogged down in my own cleverness here (I think I want that on my tombstone), so let’s fast-forward a bit. Ling hires the man in white to fight the cripples once he hears of their skill. The cripples, meanwhile, are being sent by their master into Ling’s place to retrieve the Eight Jade Horses, a meaningless McGuffin that Ling once stole from the master. But the man in white lets them go, since he’s actually a government agent supposed to spy on Ling. Then Ling has the snot beaten out of the man in white, and he’s rescued by the master and the two cripples. Then Ling sneaks up and singlehandedly defeats the master while no one’s looking, so finally Li Ho, Kung, and the man in white go back to confront him and mend his evil ways. The man in white occupies himself with beating up the comic relief, leaving Li Ho and Kung to take on Ling. But since they learned the kung fu secret of the Eight Jade Paperweights (which is basically that Kung rides on Li Ho’s back), they finally manage to beat Ling to death. The end.

Too bad Chewie and Theepio never thought of this.

What notoriety this movie has is entirely from the fact that, yes, Frankie Shum has no arms and Jack Conn has no use of his legs. Oh, and they know kung fu. Be that as it may, it’s pretty apparent that things had to be awfully carefully choreographed so that the two stars didn’t end up getting hurt too badly. I’m sure they trained well, and they look great in exhibition and all, but there are certain physical realities that just won’t go away. One of Li Ho’s main fighting techniques involves using his little proto-hand for blocking and pinning, as well as for striking. Uh-huh. Try to knock someone down using just a flick of your wrist. Works well, doesn’t it? And Kung continually has to walk on his hands, sit, throw a few punches, walk on his hands… It’s only slightly more believable than, say, Vanilla Ice throwing around his Vanilla Fu in Cool as Ice.

The biggest mystery for me, though, is Ling. No, not the Facial Growth That Conquered The World, I’m talking about his back. He’s got a pillow-like hump that, whenever struck in the course of a kung fu bout, makes a dull clang like metal. Yet, despite my expectations, the climax did not involve tearing off the back of his shirt and exposing whatever it was in there. And maybe then selling it on eBay.

The movie’s got novelty going for it, sure, but once the fascination of watching Frankie Shum’s little proto-hand wears off, the bloom’s off the rose.

Some Notable Totables:

• body count: 5
• breasts: 0
• explosions: 0
• ominous thunderstorms: 0
• jade horses: 8 (weren’t you paying attention?)
• actors who’ve appeared on Star Trek: 0

1. All right, I’ll knock off the Hamlet allusions.[back]