Anger And Revenge
The film begins when a trio of brothers assault a mansion owned by a prominent martial artist known as Du. The three brothers kill his wife and severe the arms from his only son. Du gets immediate revenge by killing them with his renowned Tiger style. But he and his son are forever scarred. They become further powerful in the town in which they live in, and everyone comes to know and fear Du and his son with the iron cast prosthetic arms. Both Du and son are expert martial artists, and angry ones. They spare no hesitation in crippling or killing anyone who gets in their way.
A young peddler and a local blacksmith challenge their authority. Neither are very skilled in kung fu at the time and both become crippled; the peddler blinded, and the blacksmith made deaf and mute. A third citizen has his legs cut off. An outsider sees the three men in their deteriorated state and seeks to stop Du and his followers from doing any more cruel acts. While the most talented martial artist to challenge Du, his son, and their first assistant Wan to date, he too is crippled when Du damages his brain, making him a simpleton (or as the subtitles call it, an idiot).
The four crippled men make their way to the Eagle Mansion, far away from town. Here, for the next three years (and for about thirty minutes of film time), the four men learn to overcome their weaknesses and become outstanding martial artists under the instruction of Master Lin. The blind man becomes acute of hearing and uses this ability to track opponents and their movements. The deaf and mute utilizes reflections to see upcoming threats from behind him, and he becomes versed in learning to defend at attack from all angles. The man with his legs cut off learns to walk again and kick with stunning speed and height with his new, iron-cast legs. And the simpleton, well, while an idiot, still has the innate training he learned years ago to be able to defend himself (for the most part).
With their new found skill, the Crippled Avengers seek to avenge their pasts and prevent Du and his son and their followers from harming others. As you can imagine, much combat ensues. There is a good balance between weapons based combat and empty hand action. The choreography is very good and keeps you watching the action closely. I wouldn’t call any of these fight scenes particularly standout or memorable against my favorites in the genre, but they’re very competent and captivating.
On DVD
I really like the cover art of this DVD release. The removable jacket cover reveals a standard keep case with the single disc inside. The menu system is functional, and basic. A clip from the movie plays with audio while the user has the standard options of Play, Scene Selection, and Setup. Audio is available in both Mandarin and English, with English and Spanish subtitles included. The image quality is just fine — the movie is presented in widescreen and looks good.
There are no extra features on this release, which is a shame, but not too surprising given the type of movie this is. It would have been pretty amazing to see some interviews or vintage making of footage, but it’s very likely that that material doesn’t even exist.
With that, let’s get to the summary…