The Crippled Masters DVD Review!

I first came across a clue to the existence of this insane gem, The Crippled Masters, courtesy of the 42^nd Street Forever Blu-Ray I checked out back in 2013 (see review of 42^nd Street Forever here) and soon afterwards I possessed it. Honestly, why hadn’t I known about this all my life? Old school martial arts films are artworks of the grindhouse era. Think Shaw Bros, Golden Harvest, and Bruce Lee.

I’ve seen so many movies over the years that it becomes a great pleasure to find something so different. When I watched Jimmy Wang Yu in the early ‘70s epic, One Armed Boxer, with the added attraction of a bad guy with tusks, amongst other curios, I often wondered what other bizarre corners of the genre existed — blame it all on The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires (see review of The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires here) which I saw aged around 9 or 10. I do love a pure martial arts flick like the best of us do, but I just have to mix it up a bit sometimes.

Obviously the two central actors in The Crippled Masters are genuine to the abilities which their characters have. We haven’t got a Lon Chaney situation here where the legs are strapped up the back, or the arms tied out of view; this is the real deal. What we have here could be seen at first glance as a freak tent attraction, but in reality, it is a very tight fighting picture.

“Cut his other arm off!” orders the harsh-dubbed voice as we are plunged right in the deep end. Li Ho (Frankie Shum) has done something to annoy Master Lin Cao, for poor Li has both his arms lopped off whilst the landowners gang look on gleefully. Laying in the dirt (his severed arms plopped beside him) he decides not to bleed to death – in fact, other than a bit of red rawness to the stumps, he seems all right in that respect. “Li Ho! You broke the rules here, so you deserve everything you got!” states Tang, the henchman of Lin Cao sternly. “As we work together, I’ve been as lenient as I can. You should be grateful!” Then they throw him out of the village gates, he is banished.

So, what’s a man supposed to do? He goes wandering (incredibly his right-hand stump heals and loses all blood on that side of his tunic in some shots, then it’s all bloody in the next) looking for help and food. Allowed in a tea house, he sits and struggles to drink his cuppa, so other customers are freaked out. The proprietor, annoyed that his paying patrons are leaving, orders his staff to “get rid of that cripple!” A rather ill-humoured waiter eases Li Ho out by waving a piece of chicken in front of him. That doesn’t work, so a big guy comes out. “That’s him! Beat him up!” orders the proprietor and points to a rather horrified, Li Ho. The massive bloke slaps Li around with thunderous smashing face sound effects only to be found in martial arts cinema until he loses consciousness. Everyone assumes he’s dead, so the local coffin maker, Chin, takes him and finds he’s still alive. He nurses him to health.

“They turned against me. The swine.” Li Ho tells Chin. The old man understands completely. He also knows that Master Lin Cao is a very cruel and evil man. He realises by the number of coffins that are purchased from him, sometimes several a day. “I must have been blind before…. To help his evil ways.” Li Ho curses himself. We can gather he was one of the elites of Master Lin Cao until recently. Suddenly, some of his ex-comrades arrive to order coffins and spot him and make their attack. Poor Li Ho isn’t having a very good day all round. After a very lengthy beat-down, they go.

Li Ho realises it’s too dangerous to stick around so he leaves the village. Travelling around he chances upon a farm, telling the owner his story he swears he will be a success away from the tyranny of his previous employer. The owner puts him to work on the land.

Meanwhile, Tang, the man who instructed the lads to chop off Li Ho’s arms, is in a bit of trouble with the boss. Laid out in some woods, Master Lin Cao has decided that Tang needs to be punished for wanting to be a success, so, rather than kill him, he takes a small pot ornament of acid out and pours what appears to be an endless stream of acid onto the Tang’s legs whilst grinning like a villain.

Just for giggles, they stomp all over his withered legs afterwards. Tang recovers in seconds to call his ex-Master a sadistic monster, which is met by laughter. “You know too much!”

Thrown over the side, Tang drags himself around alone. Master Lin Cao and his mob head over to a martial arts school which he wants to acquire to be a casino. The teacher firmly says no, and a fight begins which demonstrates Master Lin Cao isn’t a push over bad guy.

I do like that in a film if the central villain is a bad ass himself. This guy is hard as hell and has a neat scar on his face. He doesn’t need to hide behind his gang at all. Afterwards he goes to get the rent off some poor antique dealer who owes him three months. Fair enough.

Li Ho is enjoying his quiet life working on the farm and fishing when he sees a tumbling doll of flesh rolling down some rocks. He recognises Tang as his enemy (using migraine inducing rapid close-up zooms). “Bastard! I’m going to torture you slowly!” He decides to kick the living shit out of Tang for a while. This only stops when they realise, they aren’t alone. A skinny old bald bloke is all contorted in a basket. Once this stranger is out, his legs knotted round his neck (I never said this was going to be a simple movie, did I?) he has them team up reluctantly and soon they realise they have to unite because they share a common nemesis.

The old man trains them, in strength, how to use their bodies to their advantage, but equally how to use one another and rely on each other’s skills. Their first stop is the tearoom where Li Ho can satisfy himself with some comical revenge, and to settle the score with the big guy.

Soon enough they are detected by Master Lin Cao and his group. Like a video game, the duo of half men work their way through the ranks until they take on the end of game baddie in a big showdown (we have seen throughout, Cao has a hunchback, and we finally see why, it’s pretty nifty). In the meantime, the plot thickens with the theft of eight jade horses from Cao. As weird as the story gets, we are guaranteed endless skirmishes with super loud punch noises.

In all honestly, the complexity of the plot kind of becomes distracting and pointless in the end, but at its heart, The Crippled Masters is a good to honest vengeance flick. Frankie Shum and Jackie Conn are both nothing short of amazing. They perform techniques far in advance of anyone I’ve seen in martial arts movies who have all limbs (apart from the great Chia-Hui Liu/ aka Gordon Liu who is second to no one!) Of course, they don’t have many films to their names, they stayed together in their brief career. Like Ted Vollrath of The Amazing Mr. No Legs (see review of The Amazing Mr. No Legs here) your skills and ambitions are limited in the eyes of the filmmakers if you appear to be different, unfortunately.

The basic quality of The Crippled Masters (read as VHS transfer) DVD from TGG Direct states it has extras, yet all I found were chapters and not the biographies, trivia, and such they advertise on the sleeve. Hmmmm.

The Crippled Masters is an amazing experience — a total one off. It deserves a resurgence in interest and definitely a better transfer. There’s a couple of other DVDs out (and sequels) so here’s hoping this movie has had a better treatment. If one film could be shown as a reason exploitation cinema exists, The Crippled Masters would probably be it.

AKA: 天殘地, Les monstres du kung fu, Il colpo maestro di Bruce Lee, The Crippled Master, Zombi 16: No Arms vs No Legs, The Crippled Heaven, Miracle Kung-Fu: Ashuru, Os Mestres do Kung-Fu.

Directed by: Joe Law | Written by: Joe Law | Produced by: Lang Yung Cheng | Special Effects by: Pi-Yung Chang | Cast: Jackie Conn, Frankie Shum, Chiu Ho, Chen Mu Chuan, Boon Saam, Hsiang Mei Lung, Chan Muk Chuen | Year: 1979 | Country: Hong Kong | Language: English (Dubbed) | Colour: Colour | Runtime: 1h 28min

Distributor: TGG Direct