Two actors sharing the same surname playing long-lost siblings? Well played, Shaw...
The Mighty One is a 1971 Shaw Brothers wuxia film directed by Joseph Kuo Nan-Hong, starring Ling Yun and Ivy Ling-po.
A cruel and ruthless martial arts warlord, Abbot Lung, covets the manual of the ancient Tong Zi sect, which could help him achieve immortality and invulnerability. In his quest to attain the manual, Abbot Lung killed a lawful martial artist, and orders to have his victim's children massacred, but the only boy in the family escapes the carnage and was subsequently adopted by an old master, who decide to raise the boy, Hsiang Kuei, as his own child. Years later, Hsiang Kuei is a famed warrior called the "Water Knight", due to his inner chi granting him abilities of water manipulation, and Hsiang is travelling the land seeking vengeance. But unbeknownst to Hsiang, he's not the only one with a score to settle with the deadly Abbot.
Contains Examples of:
- Action Girl: Hsiao Chu, the Swordswoman and actually the long-lost younger sister of Hsiang Kuei. Played by another Shaw action girl, Ivy Ling.
- Animal Theme Naming: The Big Bad is called Abbot Lung (Dragon), and his five acolytes are named Dragon Eye, Dragon Tooth, Dragon Tail, Dragon Gall and Dragon Claws.
- Badass in Distress: Hsiang Kuei, in his first penultimate mid-film confrontation against Abbot Lung, ends up being defeated and mortally injured by the villain. Hsiao Chu, then still posing as Abbot Lung's henchman, volunteers to slay him for her master... only to grab Hsiang Kuei and make a quick escape. She then spends the next several minutes nursing him back to health, and recognize him as her long-lost brother in the process.
- Brother–Sister Team: Water Knight Hsiang Kuei and Hsiao Chu, after they discover they're in fact siblings, having spent over a decade believing each other to be dead.
- Casting Gag: Ling-Yun and Ivy Ling-po plays two characters that turns out to be long-lost siblings. Let that sink in for a moment.
- Downer Beginning: The film opens with Abbot Lung and his followers challenging Hsiang Kuei and Hsiao Chu's father for the manual of the Tong Zi sect, where the father gets brutally killed by the Abbot in a valiant effort to defend the manual. Their elder sister gets killed as well, and both siblings' fates are left ambiguous until later on.
- The Drifter: Water Knight Hsiang Kuei spends his days travelling the lands seeking the villains who massacred his family, hoping to avenge them.
- Ear Ache: The Big Bad, Abbot Lung, is finally weakened when Hsiao Chu drives her sword into his ear, through his brain, and coming out of another. And it somehow doesn't kill him! That was actually part 1 (of between 5 to 8) of his excessively long Rasputinian Death...
- Eye-Obscuring Hat: The Water Knight always had his eye-obscuring straw hat on.
- Impact Silhouette: This happens when Big Bad Abbot Lung uses his chi skills to pin Water Knight Hsiang Kuei to the ground, leaving behind a human-shaped hole (arms and all that) where Hsiang got beaten down.
- In a Single Bound: In classic wuxia fashion. One of Hsiao Chu's most epic moments is her grabbing the badly wounded, unconscious Hsiang Kuei, and then taking a leap, which somehow allows her to literally fly away from her pursuers.
- Keystone Army: At the end of the film, after killing all of Abbot Lung's acolytes and finally killing Lung, Hsiang Kuei and Hsiao Chu both ends up heavily wounded, out of breath and barely able to put up a fight. Despite that, the mooks, of which there are at least forty remaining, doesn't even try to avenge their leaders - they simply leave Hsiang Kuei and Hsiao Chu alone and retreats.
- Making a Splash: Hsiang Kuei, whose Red Baron title is the Water Knight, proves that he lives up to his name when he chugs a mouthful of wine and spits it into the faces of three mooks, resulting in all three getting their facial skin shredded off. Somehow.
- Mind over Matter: Hsiang Kuei the Water Knight can move objects with his mind thanks to his chi, such as lifting three enemies in the air and smashing them together, throwing two benches simply by waving his hands without touching them, and probably the most powerful moment of all, during the fight in a temple mid-movie, moving a two-ton bronze urn to pin an enemy into a wall by sheer willpower.
- A Minor Kidroduction: The film opens with Hsiang Kuei and Hsiao Chu as kids, witnessing their father getting killed by the main villain. In a few scenes later, a Time Skip had occured, and a new, mysterious wandering swordsman called the Water Knight turns out to be that little boy from the beginning. In a twist of fate that borders on Bait-and-Switch, the Action Girl sidekick that tags behind Water Knight is actually his younger sister, Hsiao Chu, who seemingly died in the opening scene as well!
- Mook Lieutenant: Abbot Lung's five acolytes and best fighters, named Dragon Eyes, Dragon Tail, Dragon Tooth, Dragon Gall and Dragon Claw. The climatic final battle sees each of them leading their own detachment of mooks, all dressed in identical uniforms.
- Nigh-Invulnerability: This is the powers granted by whomever who learned all five creeds of the Tong Zi sect, coveted by Abbot Lung, who ends up being insanely invulnerable in his final battle. Lets just say getting a sword through his brain doesn't even slow him down...
- One Hit Poly Kill: In the final battle, the Water Knight throws a spear through five mooks, killing all and causing the remaining mooks to promptly go Screw This, I'm Outta Here
- Rasputinian Death: The death of Abbot Lung, which drags forever. After getting impaled through the ears, he gets pummeled by the hero Water Knight's chi until his lower body goes through the floor, but somehow that doesn't kill him. Water Knight then hurls his sword through Abbot Lung's torso, but that still doesn't kill him. It was quickly followed by a dagger hurled through Lung's palm. Nope, still alive. The Water Knight had to use his chi to lift and drop a rock formation, some fifteen tons heavy, on Abbot Lung's head, crushing him to the ground until Lung pounded into nothing. The death scene drags for oh-so-excessively long to the point that its almost a chore to sit through.
- Red and Black and Evil All Over: Played absolutely straight with Abbot Lung’s choice of attire. Black coats, red shirt, dark capes… and ruthless and evil to the core.
- Sole Survivor: Subverted; Hsiang Kuei, as a child, assumes he's the only survivor of his family's massacre when Abbot Lung and his followers kills his father and sisters. But he didn't know his younger sister survived and turns out to be the rival swordswoman, Hsiao Chu.
- Sweet Polly Oliver: Hsiao Chu spends most of the film disguised as a man, fitting her actress, Ivy Ling, whose career consists mostly of cross-dressing roles. Even after the confession that she is Hsiang Kuei's sister, Hsiang still tells her to remain disguised as a man to avoid suspicion from Abbot Lung's followers.
- Thought You Were Dead: Water Knight Hsiang Kuei does assume that he lost his entire family in the massacre during his childhood. But as it turns out, his younger sister was actually alive and is his secret rival.
- Weaponized Headgear: Water Knight in the finale uses his Eye-Obscuring Hat as an impromptu razor disc, throwing it through Dragon Tail.
- Wuxia
