Death Duel of Kung Fu
July 3, 2001
Review
Format: English Dubbed Cropped Taiseng DVD
Stars: John Liu, Wang Tao, Han Ying, Chung Fa

Wang Tao, an assassin, is wanted by Han Ying, an official for the Qing (or Manchu, can't remember whuch). Han hires Liu to find Wang Tao and the two band together to defeat the evil Han Ying.

It's a bit more complicated than that, there are some oddball characters, including one woman whom you see topless more times than necessary, but as you all know, what drives me wild is the fighting. If any of you have see The Secret Rivals, you might know how well John Liu and Wang Tao work together. This time I swear they're even better. Wang's hand techniques have been even MORE refined except this time he uses a version of mantis which is a bit different from normal (very nicely done), and Liu's kicking has more variety and he also gets a good showcase for his handwork. Not only that, but it seemed like Liu had fully developed his own Zen Kwon Do art which he now teaches in Paris. You can see how much different he is in this than in SR1 and 2. Tons of fights here, Wang Tao taking on 2 men, Liu taking on the same 2 men, one of whom is Chung Fa at his physical peak, Liu fighting Wang Tao, twice, Wang Tao fighting Han Ying, Liu fighting Han Ying, the two of them fighting Han Ying, training scenes for them all, and a few others. Amazing, and all of them are exceptional. In fact I think that the first fight where Wang faced 15 men was cut out because the movie was long enough with all the fights already in place. I'll add also that everything seems to be shot in Korea again, which is so refreshing, the scenery is gorgeous. The Taiseng DVD is surprisingly respectable. Even the full screen transfer never bothered me, it didn't seem like action was ever cut out. Because of this, everyone who fights looks enormous which is a really cool feeling. Wang Tao, who is huge to begin with, looks menacing and Liu's legs extend all the way across the screen.

The first fight is the worst I think, it's short, Han Ying interrupts one man's fight against 2 others, one of whom is Chung Fa! He reappears a few other times in the film. Han Ying does some solo mantis and crane, and he's obviously a real fighter. The man he fights at first is a little slow.



The action starts off right from there where some assassins try to take out Wang Tao. The man is impossbile, even though the other two have swords. There's something about his fighting, maybe it's the total springiness in his legs that keeps him moving all over the place, or his jumping hand attacks that are unique to him alone (he does similar moves in SR1 and 2). Or maybe it's just his stunning mantis technique. He's doubled for acrobatics, but do I care? Nope. Whenever he's doubled for, say, backflips, I realize Wang can't do backflips and such in this film, but I notice that the double doesn't posess half the grace as Wang himself. So really it doesn't bother me a bit and in fact it gets in the way of things.



Liu comes into the scene as a very classy low-class, unemployed bum-sort with nice clothes and a cocky yet funny attitude, quite a mix of personality and yet I still love the guy. He's not really the nice, gentlemanly type in SR1 nor 2 nor Snuff Bottle, which seems to be a big change. Liu enters with a fight against one man and then against Wang, who throws one or two modest kicks. Amazingly, Wang Tao was a Tae Kwon Do master (still is I presume). And yet he throws maybe 5 kicks in this whole film. Ah the days... Liu is great here, as is Wang, they're both so crisp when fighting together, luckily they go at it 2 more times later. Some upper female nudity ensues shortly afterword.



Liu fights the woman (who showed her chest), she's clearly doubled for anything interesting, and Wang intervenes, a short but spirited fight between them, but look at the power! The dust left from Liu's single kick!! Simply wild! Scenery and camerawork are great as well.



Wang gets a fight against 4 officials and does more mantis, great work on his part, he's fierce looking up close, obviously getting into the fight mroe than the others. Right afterwords he fights Chung Fa and another, both of whom have blades. Take note of the scenery, which looks far better than your standard old-school HK film, variety in the background adds to this. Also notice how Wang uses his right hand almost all of the time, yet he's very efficient with it. Liu intervenes this time after Wang is getting beaten around and shows off his Zen Kwon Do in full effect. Very unique hand movements, refreshing to say the least. Exceptional kicking as always. Han Ying comes in and has a small exchange with Liu, another spirited segment. Han Ying does his version of mantis which is quite different from Wang's. Han's is 2 handed with some kicking yet less waist movement, Wang does more single handed and adds in quite a few hops and bends. Ah so nice to see some real fighting FOR ONCE. I compare this to some of the old school films of the day like the Lo Wei or Bruce films and they didn't have this kind of variety, but then again maybe I'm speaking on a different level and nobody can understand me. I guess what I'm saying is that when I find a movie, which has a generic abusive-government plot, with two people doing their own takes on mantis and one more guy who's using his own INVENTED STYLE, I get a bit happy. Guess that's why I'm so wild about this.



Liu's training scene is breathtaking. He does some Zen Kwon Do solo-ing for us, and kicks eggs off the tops of vases, some maybe 6 feet off the ground. Afterwords he proceeds to destroy the vases, all of them in one cut as well, no room for mistakes here Mr. Liu. Then he kicks at some targets which is just awesome looking, who thought of this stuff?



Liu and Wang meet up at what looks like the original SR1 finale grounds, kind of a little treat. They go through straight fighting, almost non-stop, some of the choreography is astounding, the camerawork meets the criteria for 'art', and again I don't care about the 3 or so cuts (of the, oh, 50 or 60?) in this scene where they're doubled for silly things like jumping over a tree. They can fight so well, and Liu's hand movements are utilized quite nicely here. Wang does all handwork, Liu does great kicking, and then Han Ying intervenes (there's a lot of intervening in this isn't there?).



Han Ying and Wang fight right then and there with the same force as the last one, except Han does less legwork here than he does later on. The form is all here, again, and seeing 2 different kinds of mantis going on is a real sight. These 2 fights, in total, run over 5 minutes long, and it's all great. Worth watching in slomo at times. Keep in mind though that this isn't the speed fighting you'll find in The Victim, but instead power-based style, short on acrobatics and tricks but heavy on handwork.



Liu fights the 2 men with blades. Chung Fa and the other man do nice falls and acrobatics while Liu does a mix of hand and footwork. He has some nice defense against the blades, lots of 2 handed stuff, and Liu throws in some of his own splits in all directions to show of his own agility.



Wang Tao has a training scene where he does one handed pushups without much of a problem, followed by footwork weighted down by some clay pots hanging. At the end he shows a MEAN double kick to both of the pots, suspended perhaps 6 feet off the ground. Why he didn't do this kind of kicking in the movie is beyond me, maybe it's the same reason why Yuen Biu didn't play golf in his movies. I dunno. Note Wang's fingers in the first pic.



One of the villians from SR2 returns to fight Wang and does some Eagle on Wang, which seems accurate as he grabs at Wang's elbows and wrists, etc. 2 handed stuff everywhere, most of the time they're locking up trying to get around to making their own attacks. Very cool, Wang seems a little faster than the other man but still they make a great fight together.



The finale is huge, as I expected. Han Ying is menacing against both Liu and Wang. Liu starts it off. They begin with great handwork, non stop except for those annoying moments where they bring in the doubles to do some falls and a kick or two that look terrible. After, oh, a minute and a half of this, they do almost straight kicking, great kicking that is. Once Liu does a kick, recoils and curls his right leg up behind him as though you'd kick a soccer ball in the air to your side, quite nice. Wang enters when Liu starts to have problems, throwing an arial side kick to Han's head. Yes kids, that's real contact in the little picture. They both do mantis, some of their moves are the same, others distinct. Wang's attacks are spot on, he makes contact every time. Liu joins in and there's more and more, sometimes Wang's spots get closeups so you can see what intricate handwork is going on, and for Liu it typically zooms out to see the kicking. They're able to finally finish him off by teaming up and doing their powerful moves on him. Great. I'm still short on words, I can't really describe anything right now.



I guess that's how good this movie is. One fight after another, long fights at that. Great scenery, camerawork captures everything to perfection. But the best part is the actors, Liu, Wang, and Han. All three are excellent, the doubles cannot do them justice by coming in and doing breakfalls, it doesn't work that way, they should have simply kept with the actors and let them do easier falls. Every fight they have is fast, powerful, and precise, the choreography works every time, and despite it's "two-beat" nature, this movie is harder hitting than most modern pieces. Personally I'd be happier watching this again over Dance of the Drunken Mantis, quite a bold statement from a YWP fan. The only fault here, again, is the doubling. But that's just excess, kind of like fat on a steak that you can simply cut off. No problem whatsoever. Something else that's SO NICE about this DVD is that Tai Seng only dubbed the necessary parts, serious dubbing as well. The fights are all in their original sound, and as you can tell, the action is NEVER cut off because of the cropping. The picture is also crystal clear.

a 5/5

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