Deadly Duo has Ti Lung and David Chiang as Bao Ting Tien and Little Bat and they must fight the Five Elements Great Fighters, who are River Dragon (Bolo Yeung), Golden Demon, Fire Demon Lui (Yeung Chak-lam), Leopard (Wong Pau-gei) and Mole (Lau Kar-wing) to rescue Sung Prince Kang.

Directed by Chang Cheh - with Godfrey Ho as the first assistant director (!) and Lau Kar-leung (!) directing the action scenes - this is a movie based as much around the heroics of its leads as it is a series of astounding weapons, including the typical swords and spears, as well as cymbals and a weapon that literally spits fire.

Chang Cheh made six movies in 1971 (King Eagle, The New One-Armed Swordsman, Duel of the Iron Fist, The Anonymous Heroes, Duel of Fists and this movie) and man, how did he do it? He's throwing in underwater action here too! I mean, it's not like he slowed down in 1972, a year in which he made eight movies, including The Boxer from Shantung.

These Shaw Brothers epics just keep me alive. I may not always be able to follow every beat of the story but they're just so relentlessly entertaining that I can't stop watching.

THE DEADLY DUO is another splendid production made by director Chang Cheh with stars Ti Lung and David Chiang for the Shaw Brothers studio. Cheh, Lung and Chiang teamed up for over a dozen of these films and rather incredibly most of them turn out to be good if not fantastic, and THE DEADLY DUO carries on that tradition.

Things open in a jaw-dropping fashion with some brutal execution scenes and a mass fight between a group of rescuer heroes and the massed forces of evil. The heroes are Sung fighters here while the bad guys are Mongols typically wearing animal pelts. The story gets a little bogged down by telling major action scenes in flashback where I think they would have worked better played out in a linear fashion, but this is only a minor complaint. At around the halfway point of this short film, the main plot becomes clear: the heroes have to infiltrate a fortress to rescue a kidnapped Sung prince. The only man who can aid them is David Chiang, a fighter famed for his light frame.

What follows is a bloody and brutal fight in which mass brawling violence occupies most of the running time. Cheh gleefully directs the gory mayhem and the resultant film feels like a comic book at times, especially with the 'five element' henchmen including Tree Man, Mole Man, and the great Bolo Yeung playing the shaven-headed River Dragon! Lung and Chiang bounce off each other well as the heroes and the excellent supporting cast features Chen Sing, Ku Feng and Stanley Fung (best known for playing Rawhide in the LUCKY STARS films) as villains. It's a real treat for Shaw fans.

This is a good old-fashioned kung fu movie, featuring the always entertaining pairing of Shaw Brothers stars David Chiang and Ti Lung. While it may not show the polish and lightning-fast kung fu of later martial arts movies, this one has a simple but engaging storyline and enough action to keep the viewer watching.