Can que shuang xiong (1980) User Reviews

And their perfectly normal chimp

[JohnSeal · 5/10 · 14 January 2006]

A man with disfigured arms (and a pet chimpanzee) wanders across the countryside, eventually intruding on a man with--well, I'm not quite sure what the second guy is suffering from. We're supposed to think he has no legs, but he clearly has them folded together--so perhaps he's actually paralyzed below the waist and something got lost in translation. At any rate, the two immediately engage in a battle, with the Thalidomide victim performing some impressive stunts with his feet and a knife whilst his wacky chimp companion somehow manages to bring the bout to a close by destroying a barn. Simple as that, our two crippled heroes now become crippled best buds. Shortly afterwards, they rescue a beautiful young blind woman on the run from local gangsters, and the stage is set for a throwdown against an evil warlord. This film was so successful it spawned a sequel, Crippled Masters, and it's easy to see why--the disability angle makes the film's underdogs all the easier to root for and the cast are engaging. Ocean Shores' pan and scan video print (titled Two Crippled Heroes) is watchable and in passable condition.

Does what it says on the tin

[Leofwine_draca · 4/10 · 18 April 2018]

TWO CRIPPLED HEROES is a low rent follow-up to CRIPPLED MASTERS, featuring the same team of the armless guy and the legless guy joining forces to battle the members of a ruthless criminal gang. There's a comedic chimpanzee which spends most of the screen time getting caned and a beautiful blinded girl whom our heroes have to protect. This is a very low budget kung fu film from Taiwan which has to be seen to be believed. It's not of the same cult stature as CRIPPLED MASTERS and is rather cheap and cheerful for the most part, although the acrobatics and antics of the main characters remain oddly engaging.

Exploitative old school kung fu.

[BA_Harrison · 4/10 · 21 January 2022]

Two crippled fighters, one with teeny-tiny arms and the other with withered legs (played by genuinely disabled Chao-Ming Kang and Sung-Chuan Shen), protect a beautiful, temporarily blind young woman after she discovers that the town's mayor is secretly in league with a tyrannical warlord.

I admire the stars of Two Crippled Heroes for not letting their disabilities prevent them from performing kung fu, but as much as I would love to champion Chao-Ming Kang and Sung-Chuan Shen for their fighting skills, the fact is that truly outstanding martial arts cinema is quite reliant on the use of at least one full-length arm (as in The One-armed Boxer) and both legs; with the kicking and punching severely limited, the wow factor simply isn't there and it's hard to believe that the protagonists could ever defeat opponents who have full use of all of their limbs. Sadly, this leaves the film as little more than a curiosity piece, one in which the novelty quickly wears off (especially if you've already seen the stars' previous movie The Crippled Masters).

Kang and Shen play very likeable characters who are happy to give their last penny to charitable causes, and it's not hard to admire their positivity and altruism; and while the film's message - accept people for who they are, not how they look - is undeniably heartwarming, this is a kung fu film first and foremost, and a kung fu film that fails to deliver in the action stakes can only be deemed a disappointment.

4/10.