Duel of Fists

DUEL OF FISTS (1971) is a contemporary kung fu thriller shot in Bangkok during the city's Water Festival. (The early scenes are essentially a Bangkok travelogue.) David Chiang plays a Hong Kong man looking for his long-lost brother, armed only with a childhood photo of him (in which the youth already has his distinctive anchor tattoo!). The brother, played by Ti Lung, is a boxer facing his toughest opponent, Killer, who came by that name honestly. David attends the match and recognizes his brother and roots for him. Ti Lung is supposed to take a dive but he winds up beating Killer and winning the fight, spurring the local mob to send armies of thugs after him and David.

Ti Lung is a good fighter and acquits himself well, particularly in the boxing scenes. David, on the other hand, is very skinny here and dresses in an array of garish late 1960s eyesore fashions-puffy sleeves, ascots, flowered pants and a floppy hat. Yet we're supposed to believe he can outfight dozens of tough thugs armed with knives and clubs without getting a scratch. Ti Lung is more believable, except when we consider that his biggest fights with the thugs come right after his grueling, exhausting match with Killer, just when he'd be weakest. The fights are well-staged, but the superhuman feats in such a contemporary setting are a bit hard to swallow. The sequel, THE ANGRY GUEST (1972), which takes the brothers to Japan, is much better.

This was one of a group of early collaborations between stars David Chiang and Ti Lung and director Chang Cheh for Hong Kong's Shaw Bros. studio. Also that year (1971), the trio did the far superior DUEL OF THE IRON FIST, aka DUEL OF THE SHAOLIN FIST, about gang warfare in early 20th century China, and the near-epic THE NEW ONE-ARMED SWORDSMAN, a masterful swordplay adventure set in old China.

This is a typical "you killed my master and I'm gonna kill you" martial arts movie. I'm really just writing this to correct the site's mistake in not including the English title of the film, Dueling Dragon Fists. And they make it hard to do short reviews here so I'm just writing words now. If you do like old school martial arts flicks and enjoy the cheese of American dubbing than you might like this one. I particularly enjoyed the twist at the end. It was different than the usual ending fight that I usually expect from movies like this. Still, 10 lines are necessary for this to be approved so ignore the remaining words for no reason. Also, I hope that the actual review. If you've seen and liked one of these, you'll like this.

...until you've seen the distractingly dreadful clothes somebody thought David Chiang should wear in this movie. I remember this period, and clothes were never ever this gaud-awful yucky. I thought the white stetson hat was bad (sure, everyone in Hong Kong who was kewel wore 'em in the early 1970s, sure...) until I saw...the red stetson hat.

There really should be a museum exhibit somewhere (if only online and virtual) dedicated to the truly unbelievable stuff Chiang wore in some of these movies (how did he manage to keep a straight face wearing this stuff, anyway??? I imagine crowds of giggling people pointing at what he's wearing, just out of camera range...) There really isn't whole lot to this movie except bad clothes on David and violent fight scenes. Not much else goes on. I'm a big fan of the Ti Lung/David Chiang period martial arts movies, and unfortunately, this movie just doesn't have any of the charm of those despite being written and directed by the same people.