Already an established actor and action director, Sammo Hung Kam-Bo’s plethora of talents would be in full display when he helmed the director’s chair for his third directorial film (after Iron Fisted Monk and Enter the Fat Dragon) during the golden age of Golden Harvest. Warriors Two is the first of two excellent Sammo Hung films, with Prodigal Son being the second, involving Leung Jan, a herbalist, doctor and teacher/practitioner of the martial art Wing Chun (a true renaissance man) in Foshan. This cinematic treatise on Wing Chun is a pleasure to watch because of the reverence that Sammo has for this discipline.

Warriors Two starts with Leung Kar-Yan (forever known as Beardy) in one of his greatest stoic performances as Leung Jan and his best known pupil Chan Wah Shan aka Cashier Wah, who would go on to teach Yip Man (sifu of Bruce Lee), fighting each other in the outdoors to introduce the movie. Korean martial artist Casanova Wong plays the student in a rare robust role that showcases his athletic ability (though not always in the Wing Chun mode, but making up for with an awesome kicking ability). It is amazing that Leung Kar-Yan with no martial art background before he started acting can adapt so well in these precise roles. I have read that is why Sammo has worked with him many times because of his adaptability and the fact that since he is not “prejudiced” to a specific style of Kung Fu so he can imitate most forms very effectively.

Sammo Hung does well in his supporting role as Fat Chun a student of Leung Jan and is the effective comic relief in this movie (Dean Shek is quasi-comedic). He is also the catalyst for the crux of the film. After the credits role past, Sammo (rotund but actually looking in good shape) starts off as a rice dumpling salesperson that eats too much of his supplies and eventually gets tricked out of the rest. Because of this he becomes a manure mover where he cannot eat (I hope) the supplies.

Cashier Wah works for Boss Mo (Fung Hak-On who surprisingly looks like an anachronistic Next Generation Klingon; though there is a reason for that strange appearance) a wealthy merchant who has plans to become mayor. Wah overhears the devious plan for Mo to accomplish this and goes and tells a clerk named Chiu (Dean Shek) who is actually working for Mo. Chiu tells Wah to go to the Temple of Light to tell the mayor there, but that (of course) is a set-up. Wah escapes from this and is eventually is saved by Sammo. Wah’s mother is killed and this leads him to become a student of Leung with Chun’s trickery. And like every movie that showcases a martial art there are the training sequences and philosophy behind the fighting.

There are not too many faults with the film. It could have had more emotional content like Prodigal Son, but the sagacious action scenes do make up for a lot. It could have made better use of Phoenix (Cheung Man Ting) whose martial arts should not have been so bad being a niece of Leung; luckily this film is no where near as misogynistic as Sammo’s first film Iron Fisted Monk. Dean Shek’s character as Clerk Chiu was overused, not always funny and hurt the pacing of the final act. Also what happens to Leung Jan is not historically accurate (not much of a spoiler but you can ignore the rest of the parentheses if you like; he retired and moved to his ancestral village of Gu Lao) But these are just quibbles.

There is so much to like. The action scenes by Hak-On and Billy Chan Wui-Ngai are awesome. There are constant martial art fighting throughout the film including a good fight between Lau Kar-Wing and Lee Hoi-Sang and the excellent finale between Mo’s Ground (She) Praying Mantis which is supernatural but does not seem out of place and Wah’s hybrid Wing Chun. Cassanova Wong does this absolutely beautiful spinning kick across a table that is highlight in this film. There are many more good fight scenes that showcase Wing Chun with sticky hands, six-and-a-half point staff, Eight Chop Swords (Butterfly Swords), one-inch punch power, Wing Chun dummy, wooden men and many other aspects of this great martial art. One of Sammo’s best attributes as a director/actor is that he showcases people’s abilities without putting himself first and this really shows in this film. Leung Kar-Yan is perfectly cast. There are great small roles with Lam Ching-Ying, Eric Tsang, and (try to spot) Yuen Biao. Also, this movie has the best use of a metaphorical fruit (or is it a squash) and the staff that destroys it.

I have the Fortune Star/Fox R1 release that has a great picture but has some annoying sounds. There is no official mono (downmix of the 5.1) and many sound effects sound exaggerated especially the punches and kicks. There is also the case of a Cantonese version of Elvis’s “Don’t Be Cruel” that has supposedly replaced the original song in an early teahouse scene (I haven’t been able to confirm this since I haven’t heard the original Cantonese and have only read second-hand accounts like the loveandbullets site). Luckily since this was a later wave of Fortune Star releases the subtitles are not dubtitles though they seem to have Mandarin translations of names (Liang Tsan instead of Leung Jan and Yung Chun instead of Wing Chun). Even though this has no extras (The HKL R2 release has a lot of desirable extras) it is an inexpensive treat for a must have martial art film.