The Vengeful Beauty (1978)

The third film in the Flying Guillotine trilogy - or is it the 1.5th? It came out right after the second film, but that was shelved and partially reshot years later so who knows when this one was actually made.

The cast is reshuffled again, with Norman Tsui stepping into the Ma Teng role - he is referred to as Ma Sen though and he has a [scenes deleted] credit for The Flying Guillotine II on HKMDB, so I wonder if he's actually Ma Teng's brother.

It doesn't make much difference, it's really Chen Ping's film anyway. She's is the focus throughout the film, with her story being a spin-off from the original(s).

Frankie Wei somehow landed the job of emperor this time round, quite a promotion, whilst Lo Lieh steps into the Jin Gang Feng role originally held by Ku Feng.

The Vengeful Beauty is the weakest film in the trilogy, feeling a bit cobbled together - which the 82 minute runtime would seem to support. It doesn't leave much room to develop a new story, and it is a bit perfunctory. The famous guillotines are mostly only seen in reused footage from the first film... maybe why they don't get a mention in the title.

The final act goes kind of nuts though, with some fun action, so I had a smile on my face at the end of the film... even if it did feel a little unearned.