Shaolin
brotherhood means never having to say sorry for accidentally serving up a comrade
to the Manchurian oppressors (but it would still be a nice gesture). At first,
Fang Sai-yuk and Hung Si-kuan will fight each other, but they are destined to
fight shoulder-to-shoulder in Heroes Two,
Chang Cheh’s Shaw Brothers-produced-red-meat-martial-arts-fastball-over-the-plate, which screens as
part of the Quad’s upcoming retrospective, Vengeance is His: Chang Cheh’s Martial Lore, co-presented by the New York Asian Film Festival.
Dastardly
Gen. Che Kang has razed the Shaolin temple and massacred the Ming loyalists
inside, but Hung managed to slip out to fight another day. Unfortunately, Che’s
thugs convince the Shaolin trained Fang his brother is actually a violent
criminal, using all the battered henchmen he leaves in his wake as evidence.
Alas, Fang (a popular wuxia hero since the Qing era) has more enthusiasm than intuition,
so he realizes his mistake at the precise moment it is too late.
Wracked
with guilt, Fang connects with the last of the local Shaolin remnant. Learning
Che is holding Hung in his dungeon (which would have been our first guess
anyway), Fang tries a frontal assault, but barely survives the power of the
general’s iron-mojo-fist. Instead, he falls back on plan B: tunneling like
Bronson in The Great Escape.
Apparently,
Chang needed the help of science fiction novelist Ni Kuang to wrestle this
super complex screenplay into submission. Okay, so it is a pretty straight
forward string of fight sequences, but at least they sketch out a moderately
interesting assortment of supporting characters. Bruce Tong Yim-chaan gives the
film archetypal depth as Nien Shui-ching, the son out to avenge his father
murdered at the temple. Tong convincingly portrays him as a disciple with
above-average but not super-human Kung Fu chops. Fong Sam also gives the film
some verve as 3rd Sister, the widowed restaurant proprietress affiliated
with Shaolin and the Ming underground.
Of
course, this film is all about fighting, but happily Fu Sheng (in his breakout
role) and Chen Kuan-tai were definitely up to the physical demands. Throughout
the film, they are constantly fighting, running, or getting the snot kicked out
of them. They have the skills and the right presence for each hero (youthful exuberance
or enlightened brooding, respectively).
