Le défi mortel du karatéka

CHALLENGE OF DEATH (1978) is a made-in-Taiwan kung fu film that served as a follow-up to THE HOT, THE COOL AND THE VICIOUS (1976) reteaming its director, Lee Tso Nam, and two stars, Wong Tao and Tan Tao Liang, who play, again, friendly enemies who become allies in the course of a complicated sequence of events. Set in early 20th century China, the plot has to do with a search for an elusive broker supplying weapons to regional warlords during a period of civil war. It's colorful and exciting and features a lively cast of expert performers.

Wong Tao plays a gambler whose ex-girlfriend is an intermediary between the warlords and the weapons supplier. Tan Tao Liang (billed as Delung Tam, a misspelled version of his usual English name, Delon Tam) again plays a policeman named Captain Lu and forcibly enlists Wong in tracking down the supplier by jailing him on trumped-up charges involving a tryst with an under-age girl. Wong is a snake fist expert, while Tan is a dragon fist specialist (and high-kicker) and the two have a serious bout at one point before becoming allies. After much back-and-forth, the two realize they have a common enemy in the mysterious Master Sung (Chang Yi), a renowned spider fist practitioner. To beat him, the two heroes must team up and practice different strategies for overcoming his snake fist techniques.

The film opens with a pre-credits demonstration of dragon, snake and spider fist moves by the three stars. There are plenty of fights sprinkled throughout the film, although few are long enough to really showcase the stars' talents until the final battle in which the two heroes take on the lead villain (the underrated Chang Yi).

The film, shot on location and in a handful of cramped studio sets, never comes close to the visual finesse of a Shaw Bros. film, but the story moves along well, the characters and their relationships are quite interesting, and the performers are all fun to watch. It's not quite as packed with incident as its predecessor, THE HOT, THE COOL AND THE VICIOUS, but it's a worthy member of that group of late 1970s Taiwan-shot kung fu films that gave us such able performers as Delon Tam, Wong Tao, Chang Yi, John Liu, Hwang Jang Lee, Tommy Lee and Jimmy Lee.

Lee Tso Nam, the kung fu director who brought us THE HOT, THE COOL & THE VICIOUS, is the man behind this Taiwanese-made follow-up that features not one, not two, but three hard-hitting martial arts stars in its cast. It's also a film that showcases three differing styles (dragon, snake, and spider) which immediately adds interest for this viewer. The American title is CHALLENGE OF DEATH, but I prefer DRAGON AND SNAKE IN THE SPIDER'S WEB, which is a title that has it all.

In terms of the staging, it's a routinely ordinary production, with a couple of rivals forced to team up as they track down some arms dealers. The plot is a light piece of fluff with a few average fight scenes mixed up with some of the typical lowbrow comedy and cross-dressing shenanigans familiar from this genre. The two stars are the unlikely-named Delung Tam and Don Wang, each of them proficient in a single style, while the villain of the piece is regular kung fu star Chang Yi, whose spider technique seems to be heavily indebted to Spider-man!

As is inevitably the case with these films - you could even put money on it - by far the best part of the production is the final extended two-on-one fight scene. It's set in a wood and features all manner of aerial acrobatics and power moves, and by itself serves as a fitting showcase for the three styles mentioned in the title. The cheesy, super-power fighting techniques bring to mind the later excesses of the ninja action genre. A shame the rest of the film couldn't match this high point.