DUEL OF FISTS is a contemporary Shaw Brothers thriller that once again teams the 'iron triangle' of director Chang Cheh with stars Ti Lung and David Chiang. The two actors play estranged brothers; Chiang comes to Thailand to discover his long lost brother only to find him making a living in the ring as a Thai boxer. The plot is complicated by the interventions of various corrupt characters who are willing to commit murder both in and outside of the ring in order to make themselves very rich.

This is very much a lesser Chang Cheh film but not without merit. The running time is a little overlong and padded out with a bit too much travelogue footage while the likes of Ching Li are wasted in the obligatory romantic sub-plots. Ti Lung convinces as the Thai boxer but doesn't have a great deal to do, although a super-skinny David Chiang lights up the screen with his powerful kicks and punches. The villains are well-ranged and include the typically snarling Chen Sing, Ku Feng as a rival Thai boxer, and various bit-parting future greats including Yuen Woo-ping, Phillip Ko, and Fung Hark-on. The story continues in a sequel called THE ANGRY GUEST, which is very much on par with this film.

Because I've grown enamored of Chang Cheh's period films featuring stars like Ti Lung and David Chiang, DUEL OF FISTS was high up on my list of movies to see. Until I actually saw it, I had no idea that it was set in a "contemporary" setting (like BLACK MAGIC and BLACK MAGIC II, both of which made both Ti Lung and Lo Lieh look very bad). Worst of all has to be David Chiang: as already pointed out here, the '70s-wear makes the slightly-built Chiang look positively dainty (and the flaming red ensemble and purse he sports at film's end must be seen to be appreciated). DUEL OF FISTS is slow, with a clichéd storyline that adds nothing new (or even remotely interesting) to the martial arts movie genre, and the Muay Thai bouts are instantly forgettable (like Western boxing, Muay Thai fights are nigh impossible to pull off believably and the numerous "slapping punches" we see here are about as convincing as something in a "professional wrestling" match).

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.