One Foot Crane (1979) Review

Rating: 4 out of 5

Director: Min-Hsiung Wu

Year:  1979

Plot:

“One Foot Crane” has a very simple plot, and it was released in 1979. The main plot according to sources online is that an orphan girl studies the art of Crane Boxing for many years so that she can seek revenge on the culprits that slaughtered her family. Unlike other movies, the main plot comes at you fast. The beginning of the film shows the slaughter of the family by 4 swordsmen, meanwhile a little girl watches. She runs away and is found by an old man who teachers her kung fu. That story is the crux of the movie, a revenge plot, with a little minor element here and there, but it sticks to the larger story very well. Even the subplot is about revenge, and our  main heroine shines bright in the end.

Thoughts:

Let’s begin with the quality of the transfer, which is higher VHS, with good lighting and more than adequate dubbing. It is in standard definition, even on DVD and it is a rare one so you may have to pay a little if you want to have the physical copy. It looks good overall, and I had no problem seeing things, even in the dark lighting at times.

The movie’s plot moves fast for a change. We get going forward with the death of a family, and a young lady that survives. She is rescued by a martial arts master and she learns kung fu. She then embarks on a quest to find the men responsible for killing her family. These men are wanted in a city, and she tells the magistrates that she will find and bring the men to justice. This plot carries through the majority of the movie, even though there are some fights that progress things a little as well. I liked the plot, it’s interesting, and the revenge story makes sense, never really straying from the overall path.

The fighting isn’t bad, our hero gets ridiculed at times for being a girl but she shows up and proves the naysayers wrong. There’s a good flow to the fights, and they use different weapons throughout. Each fight builds the story a little, and features some high quality sequences. I was impressed with how the story’s continuity was proven throughout. As far as a fight film is concerned, this is a good one, and I liked the flow of things, which is sometimes hit or miss. Not in this case, it flows well, there’s good fighting, and for some reason it just caught me in a good mood. I give “One Foot Crane” a 4 out of 5.

Add “One Foot Crane” to your collection or stream it byclicking here.