Jimmy Wang Yu was best known for one-armed swordsman movie role

Veteran Taiwanese actor Jimmy Wang Yu, best known for playing the "one-armed swordsman" in the 1967 movie of the same name, died yesterday aged 80.

His death was announced on social media by his eldest daughter, singer Linda Wong, 53.

She said she and her family will miss her father, who had been unwell for the past six years.

"We believe that his handsome and heroic image as the one-armed swordsman will forever live in the history of films and the hearts of fans," she added.

She posted three images of her father, including one from the 1969 movie Return Of The One-Armed Swordsman as well as a more recent photo of him.

Born Wang Cheng-chuan, he joined the entertainment industry in 1963 and was selected by director Chang Cheh, dubbed the godfather of Hong Kong swordfighting films, to play the lead role in 1967's One-Armed Swordsman.

The film broke the million-dollar box-office record for Shaw Brothers and earned Chang the title of "Million-Dollar Box-Office Director". He died at age 79 in 2002.

The movie also established Wang as a star and set the template for bloody, vengeance-themed Hong Kong action films for the next three decades. The film led to two sequels - the 1969 movie starring Wang and The New One-Armed Swordsman in 1971, which stars John Chiang and Ti Lung.

Wang went on to star in more than 40 martial arts and action movies in the 1970s, such as One Armed Boxer (1972), Master Of The Flying Guillotine (1976) and The Deadly Silver Spear (1977), before slowing down and appearing in just a handful of films in the 1980s and 1990s.

He left the industry in 1997 to become a businessman.

In 2011, Wang returned to acting in director Peter Chan's action movie Wu Xia, which stars Donnie Yen and Takeshi Kaneshiro.

Wang's final movie was horror film Soul in 2013, which also stars Joseph Chang.

Wang had been in ill health in the last few years. He had a mild stroke in 2011 and suffered a second stroke four years later when he fell unconscious at the Bangkok airport in Thailand in December 2015. He underwent two emergency brain surgeries and had not been seen in public after he returned to Taiwan in March 2016.

He married actress Jeanette Lin Tsui in 1969 and they divorced in 1975. Lin died at age 60 in 1995. Besides Linda Wong, they have two other daughters - Carol and Maria - who are not in the entertainment industry.

Wang married former flight attendant Wang Kai-chen in 1981 and they divorced after he caught her having an affair in 1999.