Review of Master of the Flying Guillotine (1976) by Sean D — 19 Sep 2009

This was pretty awesome. One of the worst prints I have ever seen on a DVD but it still shines through. Well, the flying guillotine is totally badass: the various ways it's used, the richochet-sound it makes, I honestly don't blame Tarantino for ripping off, erm, I mean paying homage.

The plot is established early on and then about 90 different fights happen, and unfortunately, it was a couple fights too many, because it went on for way too long and had characters that didn't matter. But the good fights were, again, badass. You got this dude who's a precursor to Dhalsim from Street Fighter, a guy with a hidden knife, a fight atop pieces of bamboo, a guy who takes like a hundred kicks to the balls, and of course the One Armed Boxer and the Flying Guillotine himself. It gets back to being awesome and story-driven after the lengthy tournament Act. The final 20 or so minutes has some genuinely well-crafted cat-and-mouse tension (with the best fight scene in the movie) that literally gets to the resolution 3 seconds before the film ends. And did I mention the great soundtrack? Fun film, see it.