The Flying Guillotine (1975)

(Six years after this review I rewatched and raised my rating, updated comments below my original review)

Just as weird as the title suggests. The emperor has an elite guard who throw round spinning weapons that lock on to their target’s head and decapitate them. It’s a 1970’s movie so it’s not too gruesome, but you do see the headless flailing bodies for a few seconds.

Chen Kuan Tai is the most skilled killer on the squad. He figures out the emperor is ordering the executions of scholars and ethical government officials and though he’s sworn an oath to the emperor he can no longer be his assassin. Someone else is scheming to use the guillotine squad to take out personal enemies and impediments on their path to the throne and hates the moral minded killer. Chen flees with a lovely musician and they start a life together elsewhere, but the emperor’s men never give up keeping them on the run.

Lots of kung fu and wild guillotine action. The kung fu was okay, but given that CKT was actually trained in the martial arts, the fight scenes seemed slow and stodgy. That didn’t stop them from breaking all the furniture in the room though! Plenty of unsuspecting people lose their heads with the flying killing machines while their loved ones or colleagues look on in horror.

Even with all the action and actual character development of the lead the story seemed slow at times. Wai Wang played a great dastardly villain, but didn’t seem to have enough time on screen to be a more menacing threat. Despite those drawbacks, I never expect much from kung fu movies. This one kept my attention and if you enjoy kung fu movies it’s worth seeing for the creative guillotine fights.

March 24, 2026

I pretty much agree with my original thoughts. Chen Kuan Tai's skills were underutilized with the slow fight choreography. This was one of my earliest reviews. Having watched around 400 martial arts films now, I can see this one is better than I thought it was in comparison to its competitors. The Shaw Brothers quality still holds up and the Guillotines had their own motivations. Ma was repulsed by the murders of innocent people. Chief Xin Kang may not have been completely upright but his life and the life of his family were always under threat. "Our heads are not our own." Wai Wang's Xu only desired to get ahead and if that meant others losing their heads, so be it. Norman Chu's Guillotine would show up in a later movie. It's amazing how many films reference this one. Much more entertaining than I remember it being so I bumped the score from a 6.5 to a 7.5. Good average for the genre and as always, rated on a kung fu curve.

TRIGGER WARNINGS:
Numerous decapitations and flopping headless bodies. Bare female breasts in one scene.
A dog was decapitated though it looked fake, goodness, I hope it was. A chicken was also alluded to being brutally slaughtered.

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