Tomb

Swords, knives and guns appear in countless movies, but the following weapons are considerably rarer:

• Blowguns are simple tubes, with sizes ranging from “enormous staff” to “drinking straw.” You blow in one end, and a poison dart flies out the other. Simple, silent and effective. Plus, it’s an incredibly easy weapon to safely fake on a film set. I’m amazed that more low-budget films don’t take advantage of this weapon. If you used blowguns instead of firearms, you and your friends could probably re-create the shootout from Heat (1995) this very afternoon in a crowded street — without even getting into trouble.

You can see blowguns in action in Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) (used by Peruvian tribesmen) and Hudson Hawk (1991) (used by hit woman Almond Joy to paralyze the heroes from the neck down. The victims yell and curse while the villains position them into funny poses).

• The Three-Section Staff is a long stick with two hinged joints dividing the rod into (you guessed it) three sections. It’s a bit like an enormous nunchaku with an extra stick attached. You might remember nunchaku or “nunchucks” from Bruce Lee films, or maybe from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. They are incredibly fiddly weapons to handle well, and many a would-be tough guy has bonked himself in the teeth trying to wield them. Imagine how much more fiddly they’d be if given a third joint and extended to a total length of six feet. That’s why there are so few expert users of the three-section staff, and why this remarkable weapon so rarely appears in films.

Still, in the hands of a skilled user, the three-section staff is an amazing weapon to watch in action. Jet Li uses one in Fearless (2006), and Gordon Liu uses one (after his character invents the weapon) in the martial arts classic The 36th Chamber of Shaolin (1978).

• The Captive Bolt Pistol, strictly speaking, isn’t a weapon at all. Rather, it’s a tool for stunning cattle in slaughterhouses. The device is placed on a cow’s head, and compressed air fires a bolt into the poor creature’s noggin, stunning it sufficiently that it can be quietly slaughtered. The bolt never fully leaves the device, as it is built to only protrude a few inches before retracting.

To the best of my knowledge, the captive bolt pistol is used as a weapon against humans in one film and one film only — No Country for Old Men (2007) — where it is used by the terrifying villain Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem, who won an Oscar for the role).

• The Flying Guillotine is a fictional weapon that has made a lasting impression in a number of films. Picture a beekeeper’s helmet on a long string; it’s swung like a lasso and tossed onto a target’s head. Then, a twist of the wrist activates spring-loaded blades which sever the victim’s neck, and a quick yank returns the weapon to the thrower’s hands, with the target’s head still inside. You can see this ingenious device in action in The Flying Guillotine (1975), The Flying Guillotine II (1977), The Vengeful Beauty (1978), Master of the Flying Guillotine (1976), Fatal Flying Guillotines (1977) and The Heroic Trio (1992).

• Chinese Linking Rings are a staple of magic shows everywhere. You’ve probably seen bits of the classic routine before; a stage magician produces several large metal rings that link together and separate at the user’s whim. Complex chains and configurations are formed, and then fall apart in an instant when the magician blows on them.

Surely these harmless things could never be used as weapons? Well yes, but only in the extremely bizarre martial arts flick Shaolin Drunkard (1983). The villainous kung-fu vampire Monstar (Shun-Yee Yuen) keeps several of these rings handy under his cape and uses them in a way very similar to the traditional stage magician’s act, only with a lot more violence. Good guys attempting to fight this snarling villain frequently get bonked on the head with the rings or find themselves trapped in an elaborate ring structure that gets quickly built around them.

In the end, the heroes defeat Monstar and somehow manage to arrange his rings into a spherical cage with the fiend trapped inside. Of course, as soon as they relax, the cage rolls away!