Shuang la

TWO FISTS AGAINST THE LAW is your typical kind of kung fu movie, made with a low budget and featuring a few recognisable faces amongst the cast list. As is the norm for these films, a jokey, non-serious plot line gradually gives way into become more thriller-orientated, with various 'good' characters teaming up to tackle an opium smuggling criminal mastermind.

Such films are made or broken by the quality of the action sequences, and I found them to be rather routine here. That said, they're not particularly bad, and there's plenty of the acrobatic type stuff if you like that sort of thing, it's just that the choreography doesn't stand out as it would, say, in a Shaw Brothers film. Repeated use of the zoom lens doesn't help much. For a lot of the running time, the screen is occupied by a trio of goofy comedians who mug their way through the proceedings. You know the type: one has a bright red nose, another has a mole on his nose with a massive hair coming out of it, and the third has buck teeth.

A youthful-looking Melvin Wong (ABOVE THE LAW) is on hand as one of the heroes but doesn't really stand out much. Inevitably, the guy who does stand out is the one playing the villain, and of course it's Hwang Jang Lee for the umpteenth time. Hwang Jang Lee gets to show off his power kicking in the extended climax which is inevitably the best part of the movie, and the good news is that he also employs the use of a flying guillotine to injure his opponents. So you get a great ending tacked on to a distinctly average movie, as is so often the case in the martial arts genre from this era.

Chubby sees a guy fight and he appears to be invulnerable because of his virgin kung fu. He gives him all he has to become his student. Cut to a tea house and thugs enter to beat up a guy for his debts. Cut again to an escort company receives a cart to deliver and the two idiots are afraid it will be their deaths. They leave with the cart led by their leader. They immediately lose the shipment without a fight. Back to the guy learning virgin kung fu. Fatty learns he has been swindled. The swindler and the debtor fight and recite poetry to a draw. The escort leader accuses the debtor of robbing his shipment. The swindler breaks him out of prison and they have a plan to get the goods. Somehow this involves opening up a pawnshop and beating people up. This escalates to the level of Hwang Jang- Lee.

This movie is only suitable for hard core fans. I can't imagine anyone else tolerating the first 30 minutes of this. Then again, once Hwang Jang-Lee enters the story, the audience broadens. Hwang Jang-Lee had reached peak career and for him that meant being the bad guy and he was really only needed for a few fights, particularly the final fight. Never has that been more obvious than in this movie.

This movie also answers the question, "If Hwang Jang-Lee was the best kicker then when was his best kick?" The answer is the triple kick in slow motion at about the 47 minute mark in this movie.

Then there's Melvin Wong. If you are a fan of martial arts movies you will recognize him from appearances with Sammo Hung and Jackie Chan. Otherwise his most famous role was Mousey from "A Kindred Spirit" series. He is certainly the smartest man ever to appear in a martial arts movie. He has a doctor of pharmacy and a law degree.

At the time of my review this is rated at 4.0 and that is nonsense. That must have come from folks who aren't used to the first 30 minutes. This movie has the best of the best kicker, and is notch above average for the year and genre otherwise.

Yet again another Seasonal Film Corporation's underrated classic. The plot involves around two heroes trying to stop the opium distribution running by the man named Tai (played by Hwang Jang Lee).

I won't deny the fact that the film is the average low budget crime film, but plenty of acrobatics, stunts and once again Hwang Jang Lee's kick makes it up for this film. This also might be Alan Hsu's one of the best early work as a main leading role which is not quite so common to see him in the main hero roles, if anything the most memorable roles from him to me personally was a White headed villain in 7 Grandmasters. But he's really excellent in this film, with plenty of amazing flips and stunts to perform on the screen.

Hwang Jang Lee once again showcases a plenty of kicking action as a whole, but I found it to be a bit disappointing that there's not enough from him. Nevertheless it's yet again a decent film from the Seasonal Film Corporation once again and personally even with it's average kung fu flick nature, it's worth checking out for the crazy fight scenes.