The New One-Armed Swordsman
1971 film by Chang Cheh
The New One-Armed Swordsman (新獨臂刀) is a 1971 Hong Kong wuxia film directed by Chang Cheh and produced by the Shaw Brothers Studio, starring David Chiang. Chiang replaced Jimmy Wang, the star of the two preceding films in the series, The One-Armed Swordsman and Return of the One-Armed Swordsman.
Synopsis
Lei Li is a highly-skilled swordsman and rising star in the wulin. Long Yizhi, the leader of the martial arts clan Tiger Mansion, feels jealous so he plots Lei's downfall by sending his men to commit robbery and push the blame to Lei. Using his status in the wulin to cover up the crime and pretending to mediate the conflict between Lei and the victim, Long uses a three-section staff to defeat Lei. Disgraced, Lei cuts off his right arm and retires from the wulin.
Lei takes up a new job as a waiter in an eatery, where he is often mocked for his disability. Only Bajiao, the local blacksmith's daughter, respects and treats him kindly, encouraging him to return to the wulin. One day, two thugs visit the eatery and molest Bajiao, forcing Lei to use his skills to save her. Around the same time, another swordsman Feng Junjie who is passing by steps in and helps Lei drive away the thugs.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “The New One-Armed Swordsman” is 1971 film by Chang Cheh. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through One-Armed, Swordsman and film, not as a finished interpretation.
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The phrase “1971 film by Chang Cheh” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
Reception evidence should be dated and situated: later canonical status may differ sharply from the work’s initial circulation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Mar 4, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q911271. 8 of 8 selected statements include explicit references; 8 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1971.
Rights, attribution and provenance may remain disputed even when a general reference summary presents a stable account. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “The New One-Armed Swordsman” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.