It’s hard to hate a movie whose first scene depicts a tough guy trapping a Filipino midget in a phone booth and throwing it into the bay. As the box goes splash, the film freeze-frames to announce its awesome title: The One Armed Executioner. That’s so promising, I forgive it for not including the hyphen it so sorely needs.
Said title refers to Ortega (not related to the taco shells), a man who seems to have it all: a job with Interpol, a good head of hair, both arms, and a blonde American wife (Jody Kay) who writes children’s books, sleeps with a doll and basically acts as if she’s been kicked in the head. Yes, for Ortega (Franco Guerrero), life’s a pretty sweet fruit. Then coke-dealing, Caucasian crime boss Edwards (Nigel Hogge) wants his diary back from the cops, and orders Mrs. Ortega dead; his pantyhose-masked minions stab her fatally, then take Ortega’s left limb just for shits and giggles.
As spoiled by that title, Ortega isn’t about to take his handicap lightly. Trained by the Philippines’ equivalent of Tommy Lee Jones, he becomes a ruthless warrior, albeit one with a sleeve flopping around. Ortega then goes hunting for Edwards (“What balls!”), whose boat bears a swastika and who keeps a henchman on staff whose sole purpose is to act as a human thesaurus. (His lone African-American henchman is dubbed by a redneck.)
In this thrilla from Manila, everyone points and looks greasy sweaty. On one hand (pun not intended), it isn’t exploitative like, say, Hong Kong’s infamous The Crippled Masters, because in real life, Guerrero doesn’t park in handicapped spots. On the other hand (pun still not intended, pinky swear), one wishes it were, so it’d be a ton more fun. As is, it’s just a-little-more-than-passable fun. —Rod Lott
When I finally caught up with this one, I thought it was surprisingly good; things moved at a good clip, the acting was good enough, some inspired bits, and sh*t blew up on a regular basis. And if you consider the director’s Cleopatra Wong flicks, this might be to Bobby Suarez what THE SWORD AND THE SORCERER is to Albert Pyun.
The trailer for this film was a staple of Paragon Home Video. It seemed to be on each and every Paragon VHS tape that I (or my college roommate) rented. We were baffled by the title card image, which we could not figure out. So we rented the movie, of course, which led to one of the more humorous (and memorable) verbal exchanges between us.
“That’s what it is!”
“A midget drowning in a phone booth!”
I think we guffawed about it for a full five minutes, at least.