Triumph by Two Kung Fu Arts or Triumph of Two Kung Fu Arts 1977 Taiwan with Gua Ah-Leh, Henry Luk Yat-Lung, Chow Siu-Loi, Kam Kong and Michael Chan It starts with mom (Gua Ah-Leh) looking for her son. After much abuse, a man finally has sympathy for her and she meets another man who used to know her son years back. When she finally reunites with him she is angry not happy. Son left eleven or so (inconsistent) years ago and has done nothing but turn into a beggar and acquired many tattoos. This course of action took up forty minutes of screen time and could have been set up in four minutes. Plus there were only two fights in all that time and they were quick and in the dark. The movie strives to capture the feel of the earlier Taiwanese movies such as "A Touch of Zen" but fails in that it simply drags with no action and the character development is more like character stagnation. All of the actors have about 100 movies to their credit but Michael Chan and Kam Kong are the only names I recognized. I stuck with it and about forty five minutes in our guy and his helper have hooked up with a master and know the location of father's murderer. Finally we have some action with training sequences all in the form of fights. This sets up the fact that the son's kung fu is rusty and he could not defeat his opponent. Nevertheless he walks right up to Kam Kong and challenges in in his own stronghold surrounded by his men. He defeats all the underlings but takes a sword in the belly. Kam Kong then finishes him off. Oddly, that fight is mostly a series of stills with a short song accompaniment. Helper guy and friends go looking for him and find the body. They formally challenge Kam Kong and fight him in the woods. The master intervenes otherwise Kam Kong would have beaten them. Then they set it up to make it appear that mom stabbed him with a knife to get revenge.
The copy is English dubbed and widescreen – not from VHS – but not restored so there are plenty of scratches instead of tracking lines. Overall I can only recommend this movie for fans of the genre with the warnings that the story drags and the action is minimal and I give it a below average five out of ten rating.
