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Richard James Havis

Although it is an unlikely weapon, the “flying guillotine” was a big hit with martial arts fans when it featured in the eponymous film The Flying Guillotine in 1975.
The gruesome invention quickly inspired numerous copycat films, as well as a sequel and a rival version featuring no less a star than Jimmy Wang Yu.
The flying guillotine is a nasty weapon which consists of a circular metallic hood on a long chain. It is a decapitation machine – the user throws it over the head of an adversary and internal blades snap shut, cutting it off.
Not only is the weapon somewhat repulsive, it defies the laws of … everything.
It is big and heavy but glides through the air with ease, and it seems to possess a built-in homing device that enables it to always find its mark, even if deflected.
Many weapons used in wuxia films are genuine, but the flying guillotine as shown in films is a fabrication. It is said to have been based on a real Qing dynasty weapon of unknown design. Ho Meng-hua, who directed the 1975 film, was convinced it was an actual weapon.


The flying guillotine is said to have first appeared on the big screen in 1956’s Fourth Madam Lu Thrashes the Flying Guillotine, then in a rudimentary form in 1973’s Zatoichi vs the Flying Guillotine.
The more common version sprang from the fertile imagination of Shaw Bros scriptwriting maestro Ni Kuang.
The flying guillotine’s appearance was not entirely out of the blue. Although the new wave of martial arts films produced by Shaw in the late 1960s were thoroughly Chinese in setting and spirit, they drew heavily on the idea of clever gadgets espoused in the popular James Bond films.
Here we look at some of the best-known films starring the flying guillotine.
1. The Flying Guillotine (1975)


The weapon achieved fame in this violent film about courtly intrigue, starring martial arts legend Chen Kuan-tai and directed by veteran director Ho Meng-hua.
It details how the flying guillotine was invented at the behest of the Yongzheng Emperor in the Qing dynasty, who wanted a weapon which could kill from a distance subjects who displeased him. The film recounts the weapon’s invention, and shows the training of the 12 elite assassins chosen to wield it.
After putting a novel spin on customary martial arts training tropes – scenes which were reportedly difficult to shoot, as the prop guillotines were hard to control – The Flying Guillotine unfolds according to ea typical martial arts storyline about brotherhood, honour and betrayal.
Ho said before shooting that the film would focus on the characters, and the weapon itself adds novelty to an effective, if mundane story about Chen’s character being betrayed by a jealous fellow assassin and finding his humanity in the process.

The fight choreography looks old-fashioned for 1975, but every time the flying guillotine appears, the action is elevated. The special effects and trick shots – developed by Ho – are excellent for the time.
“The Flying Guillotine truly left a bloody trail in Hong Kong film history,” wrote the Hong Kong Film Archive.
2. Master of the Flying Guillotine (1976)
Written and directed by Jimmy Wang Yu and shot in Taiwan, this flying guillotine story is very different to the original. It’s essentially a kung fu film featuring the weapon as part of the plot, rather than a story revolving around its invention.


Wang made the film as a sequel to his One-Armed Boxer (its alternative title is One-Armed Boxer vs the Flying Guillotine), and the story picks up where that film ended.
Wang’s character does not wield the flying guillotine – that is done by the blind Buddhist monk Fung Sheng, who is seeking to avenge the deaths of his two disciples in One-Armed Boxer.
The guillotine itself is slightly different. It’s smaller, flies much faster, and its saw-like edges are just as effective as its head-chopping trickery.
“It is one long fight – its iconic action scenes start at the opening credits and continue right through to the axe-hurling finale,” bestselling novelist and expert on Hong Kong films Grady Hendrix tells the Post.
“Its over-the-top combatants, and its wild weapons, also served as the inspiration for pretty much every fighting video game, from Street Fighter to Mortal Kombat.”

“An aura of heavy metal doom hangs over the whole movie, from its sadistic blind assassin [to] its wall-to-wall deaths, its dank Krautrock soundtrack – mostly by the band Neu! – and its grim finale in a coffin shop,” Hendrix notes.
3. Flying Guillotine 2 (1978)
Shaw’s Flying Guillotine 2 had a very troubled shooting history, and was shelved and restarted three times.
First, leading lady Liu Wu-chi, from the first film, disappeared near the start of the shoot. Then Chen Kuan-tai walked out of his Shaw Brothers contract – and Flying Guillotine 2 – necessitating a fundamental change to the storyline.
Delays mounted up, director Cheng Kang was replaced by Hua Shan, and Ti Lung was brought in to star mid shoot, although he is absent for much of the film.


The movie fares surprisingly well considering these problems, focusing on a group of Han rebels fighting the oppressive Qing emperor.
Shaw star Shih Szu leads a pack of women fighters who infiltrate the guillotine squad in a novel spin on the story, and there is an “improved” version of the weapon itself.
Shaw’s third guillotine film, Vengeful Beauty, hardly features the weapon at all, and seems to use clips of it from the 1975 version.
4. The Guillotines (2012)
This attempt, by director Andrew Lau Wai-keung, to update the flying guillotine story with 21st-century production values shows very little of the weapon.
The flying guillotine is only part of the story for the first 30 minutes, and its main appearance is right at the start, in a special-effects sequence that aims to numb viewers into submission.
The weapon itself is again significantly different – it is a spinning disc launched from a scythe.


Like Flying Guillotine 2, Lau’s story focuses on a group of Han rebels fighting against an early Qing emperor, who is using the guillotine squad against them. Once again, palace intrigue abounds.
Although the film is nominally a remake of the 1975 version, Lau told the Post that “such elements as the plot, its focus on the brotherhood theme, its visual style and choice of ending come from me”.
In this regular feature series on the best of Hong Kong cinema, we examine the legacy of classic films, re-evaluate the careers of its greatest stars, and revisit some of the lesser-known aspects of the beloved industry.
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An assassins’ weapon that removed heads, the fictional ‘flying guillotine’ was featured in a number of Hong Kong wuxia films


An assassins’ weapon that removed heads, the fictional ‘flying guillotine’ was featured in a number of Hong Kong wuxia films.
