Warriors Two

No pun intended - and I know it should be fight the power - but in this case it is about getting ahead and taking a position for the bad guys in this. And Sammo Hung does not only have a major role in this, but did direct it too. And he is able to inject a lot of humor in a quite serious movie.

Golden Harvest and Shaw Brothers went head to head for quite some while. I think it helped them make better movies competing against each other - talking of competing, the stunts here are quite something to behold. Really well done and some contact for sure - but also using stuff they learned at Peking Opera (it I am not mistaken entirely) ... so many things and forms to see here.

The movie is a gem for action lovers for sure ... suspend your disbelief and have fun with it - also there is more where that came from!

Picked out solely by its generic DVD title, 'Warriors Two', i was pleasantly surprised by this film. The first arc, aka the story, is pretty much forgettable. The rest of the movie, is pretty much fight scenes, and training scenes where the student gets the fu*k beaten out of him. Once the fight scenes start happening, this movie doesn't let up much, just constant people beating the sh*t out of each other, its pretty awesome. The fight styles and whatnot are bad-ass as expected, the acting good, the stunt-work is great, cinematography isn't that bad either. A awesome action film with a somewhat slow start, worth a watch for sure.

I can think of few other movies, Kung Fu or not, that stand up to repeated viewing in the way Warriors Two does. If you're a Kung Fu fan and haven't seen this, I can only say it's what you've been waiting for. I must warn you, a lot of other Kung Fu movies will seem mediocre afterwards. Apart from Sammo's genius, there is the mighty Leung Kar Yan ("Beardy") as the grey haired doctor - he cannot fail to amaze! I can think of a few movies that come close (Prodigal Son, The Victim..) but this is the cream.

Once this film gets going it features some of the best kung fu ever filmed. The action is tightly choreographed and the strikes look like they really hurt. It's all I can do to stop myself from spilling the beans on the finale, which sees Wing Chun style up against one of my other favourite styles, which I can't reveal because it would spoil the surprise. The film also has a great "what do we have to do to kill this guy?" type scene in it, which is predictably bloody and excruciatingly painful. For lovers of eccentric training routines there's no need to worry, the wooden men are out in force, and the weasel with the glasses and the crap voice makes his presence well and truly felt. If you're a kung fu fan and haven't run into this one yet: this is "the business", up there with Prodigal Son.

Warrior's Two is not a sequel to Walter Hill's urban action classic The Warriors. In fact, I think it's just the title, or literal translation of the title. Way before Donnie Yen made IP Man a household name, Warrior's Two is another excellent movie about the fighting style known as Wing Chun. This is a groundbreaking film for Sammo Hung that put his mix of kung fu and comedy and got his fight choreography some series respect The fights are jaw droppingly awesome and really complex, but tightly put together. In the restored version I have, everything looks crystal clear and sometimes I forget that I am watching a movie from the 70's. If you like martial arts movies, this is one you should see as everything done here was done really well.