Twin Warriors

Year: 1993

Grade: B+

Country: Hong Kong

Director: Yuen

Review

directed by the master of 80s/90s kung fu cinema, yuen woo-ping, this film stars two certifiable international stars in jet li and michelle yeoh. it’s amazing how good yuen woo-ping really is. when you’re watching a film he’s worked on you can almost always tell. the first time i saw “buddhist fist” i remember thinking that the choreography was amazing and i found out later it was directed by yuen. as much as i like master of the flying guillotine or bruce lee films, the choreography just isn’t as inventive as it is when yuen as at the healm. he’s also a fine director. in this film he uses a wide angle lens to great comic effect, which (visually) reminded me of films like dead alive and raising arizona. i was a bit skeptical of jet li as a lead in a yuen film since he likes to use comedy to a great degree, but li is able to pull it off…not as well as jackie chan, but well enough. a lot of yuen’s stunts revolve around using props in all sorts of inventive ways. in this film he has one scene with two people fighting on a wooden tower. as they are throwing kicks and punches at each other they are knocking out logs that support the structure, it ends up like a large scale jenga game, but more exciting. there’s another scene in the film in which li is having an epitome while studying tai chi. it’s a great sequence because yuen is able to visually represent the ideas of tai chi in an original and funny way. yuen also has a great creativity when working with wires. i just don’t see kung-fu films use wires in the same range of ways that he does. his editing style is similar to most kung-fu films in that he’ll have a mid-long shot of an action sequence up to the point of impact and then cut to a closer shot showing the impact or reaction. it adds energy to the sequence and allows for greater control of stunts and strikes. the down side to this is that you have to pre-plan this otherwise you won’t have the necessary coverage. for a director like yuen, though, this isn’t much of a problem – he generally has the needed coverage. i’ve only seen four of yuen’s directorial efforts (snake in the eagle’s shadow, iron monkey and buddhist fist being the other three), but i think he’s great. it’s hard to say which of those films is his best or his most definitive, but this one’s certainly in the running in both categories.