CRIPPLED MASTERS 2: TWO CRIPPLED HEROES

CRIPPLED MASTERS 2: TWO CRIPPLED HEROES

(A.k.a. CRIPPLED HEROES; CAN QUE SHUANG XIONG)

This Taiwanese oddity from 1980 begins in attention-grabbing fashion, finding Wun (Frankie Shum) - a man with no arms - waltzing into a small village one sunny afternoon with his trusty chimp. He surveys what he believes to be an empty dwelling, but when he attempts to enter it he's accosted by its owner: Tai Ching (Jackie Conn), who does not have the use of his legs.

They embark on a short war of words, Tai Ching believing Wun to be a thief. On the contrary, Wun insists he is just looking for somewhere to stay. Eventually the guys impress each other with displays of disability-defying martial arts that are admittedly pretty amazing.

Following an impromptu scrap which necessitates quick-fire editing, bad dubbing and amusingly overloud sound effects, Wun gets his chimp to apologise to Tai Ching (I'm not sure what for) and agrees to stay long enough to fix the guy's roof, which he broke in the fight.

The newfound respect is clearly mutual: Tai Ching offers Wun a meal and a bed for the night.

It sounds like a happy ending already. But, if only life were ever that simple. The problem here is a local Mayor who harbours furtive plans to take over the village with his gangster henchmen.

After listening in on a public speech by the Mayor, Wun becomes suspicious and decides to take a closer look at the political man's home. There, he discovers a pretty young woman who has incurred the wrath of the Mayor's henchmen after inadvertently hearing of their plot to fuck people over. In her bid to escape from being strangled by one of the resident meatheads, she ends up with lime thrown in her eyes and is temporarily blinded. Thankfully, Wun is there to aid her in avoiding death - and takes her back to the presumed safety of Tai Ching's home.

The hectic pace settles somewhat at this point as the two men take the bonny lass under their wing and, as they grow to appreciate her simple charms more and more, they both help each other in trying to keep her from learning of their disabilities.

She, meanwhile, is understandably perturbed by the facts that (a) she can't see, and (b) the Mayor's goons are baying for her blood. The latter doesn't seem to bother our smitten heroes too much ... until the bad guys make mincemeat of Wun's chimp, and our lads go crackers.

Credited as being directed by Shia Yue, this is a bizarre film that - despite some unforgiving dialogue regarding the use of words such as "cripple" - is never as exploitative as you may fear. It's hardly what prissy students would call 'politically correct' by today's standards, but is all the more fun for not being so.

The pace, aside from the forays into the burgeoning relationships between the two leads and their demure girl friend, is unrelenting, the simple story breaking regularly for set-piece action sequences which feature healthy amounts of staggering kung fu stunts and enjoyably overwrought fighting.

Comedy comes into play now and again, and is embarrassing at every turn. But the atrocious dubbing curiously complements it. And there can be no denying that Shum and Conn make for a likeable double act. There is a level of charisma here that not even crummy dubbing can suppress.

CRIPPLED MASTERS 2 arrives on DVD from Apprehensive Films in a rather crappy presentation which looks to be correctly framed in this Letterboxed 1.78:1 aspect ratio, but is otherwise poor in every respect.

The source is clearly an old VHS print, as occasional vertical lines reveal. Colours are faded and images have that overt softness found on ancient videotapes. Specks and grain add to the overall shoddiness.

Those hoping to catch the film in its original Mandarin language are out of luck. The audio here is an English dubbed mono track. Admittedly, it keeps the film amusing for the most part and helps render the more contentious moments even more salacious. Thankfully, despite some background hiss, dialogue and music remain clear throughout.

The disc opens with a very basic, static main menu page. This gives some early indication as to the shoddy main feature presentation: the image here is pixelated to Hell.

There is no scene-selection menu, but CRIPPLED MASTERS 2 can be navigated through using your remote handset via 18 chapters.

The only real extra on the disc is a short film entitled PAGODA HELL. A disclaimer at the start advises us that "all elements used ... are used in a strictly parodic manner". And then, as if to reinforce that non-serious stance, we get a mock title card under the banner of '20th Century Floss' ...

This is actually a 1-minute-and-50-seconds fight scene from the Bruce Li flick FISTFUL OF FINGERS, given a few extra silly sound effects to make the action seem even more ridiculous.

The disc also contains murky, virtually unwatchable trailers for COLONY OF THE DARK, GAMERA SUPER MONSTER (CINEMA INSOMNIA), HARDWARE WARS, HIDDEN ELEMENTS OF CARTOON DRAWING VOLUME 1 and SUPERARGO (CINEMA INSOMNIA).

CRIPPLED MASTERS 2 is one of those schlocky films that kind of suits this video-standard presentation. It's no classic, but it does deliver the goods in terms of crazy fight scenes (disabled people kicking the shit out of knife-wielding thugs - great) and mad dubbing. The story is as fruity as a sack of strawberries; the morals of the film are endearingly simple ... good versus evil.

It's crap of the most entertaining variety. Whereas the disc is just, well, crap.

Review by Stuart Willis


 
Released by Apprehensive Films
Region 1 - NTSC
Not Rated
Extras :
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