Flying Guillotine II (1978)

Truly Dreadful Film

People are voting emotionally.

It’s an especially fun movie from a director and cast who are clearly having a good time allowing themselves to let loose.

This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

"Hero Ma" (here played by Ti Lung), who developed a counter to the Emperor's infamous Flying Guillotine in FLYING GUILLOTINE (where he was played by Chen Kuan Tai), is hunted by the Emperor's men once again in FLYING GUILLOTINE 2. Ma's counter-weapon, you'll recall, was The Iron Umbrella, a skeletal frame of iron with which he could catch the Flying Guillotine. (If you can buy the Flying Guillotine itself as a viable weapon, then the Iron Umbrella makes a viable counter measure...) To counter the Iron Umbrella, the Emperor has his weapons master concoct a counter counter-weapon. This can best be described as a "double-header," a Flying Guillotine with a SECOND snare that drops down below the first (thereby, hopefully, getting past the Iron Umbrella). Na Lan (Shih) and her bevy of beautiful female assassins volunteer to learn to use the new and improved counter-weapon. Bao (Lo Lieh) protests, but must capitulate when Na Lan passes the acid test (at one point, her loyalty is put to the test and she poisons her own father). Dressed in striking purple costumes and capes, the women are ready for action. While FLYING GUILLOTINE 2 is well directed, the fight scenes are a bit lacking- and the editing amounts to little more than a hatchet job (literally), with too many frames missing from each fight scene to often tell exactly what's supposed to have happened. Most frustrating of all is Ti Lung: his part amounts to little more than a cameo. It's not a bad movie, but it's not a great one, either.

There're four movies with Flying Guillotine as part of its title. This one closely follows the plot of the first Flying Guillotines (1975) where the main character Ma Teng was played by Chen Kuan Tai. Chen did a masterful job of portraying this character, and in this sequel, Lung Ti plays the part with equal authority. Beautiful Taiwanese actor Szu Shih plays the female lead in this movie.The plot picks up where the original Flying Guillotines left off. Ma Teng and his family has now established their life in the country, but they can never let their guards down because the emperor's assassins are after them. Emperor Yung Cheng is still the tyrant he was in the first movie, and demands that a modifications be made to the flying guillotine to counter Ma Teng's iron umbrella defense. Now a two stage flying guillotine is invented as a result. Na Lan (Szu Shih) is hired by the emperor to train a squad of women assassins to wield the flying guillotine, but she is righteous at heart, and sides with Ma Teng. A plot is hatched to assassinate the emperor, and together they go to the palace.In my opinion, this and the first Flying Guillotines are the two with first class quality which makes them classics amongst the kung-fu movies from Shaw Brothers. The other two, The Fatal Flying Guillotines, and Master of the Flying Guillotine is of lower quality production, and are not in the same league as these.Beautiful kung-fu action along with good story, good acting and great cinematography makes this one of the best movie to come out of Shaw Brothers. This is a really exciting movie and all the right talents have gathered to create one of the masterpieces of kung-fu movies.