Duel Of The Tough

1982 · KonCategoryIII

If you went by the opening credits of 1981’s Duel of the Tough , you wouldn’t think that Mike Wong was the star of the movie. But upon watching the movie you will clearly see that Mike Wong is in fact the star and a star with quite the head of hair on him. Is it Mike Wong’s real hair? Or is he wearing a wig? Thinking about that was part of the fun of watching Duel of the Tough … Tough Day at the Office: As the movie begins a Buddhist monk is traveling with some newly obtained scrolls he received from the monks at the Shaolin Temple… so it is more than a little curious when a group of toughs claiming to be disciples of Shaolin demand he turn over the scrolls. The impostors get the scrolls and the Buddhist monk finds himself running for his life and that’s when he happens upon a young Cantonese man name Wong (Mike Wong), who operates a ferry. Do Pay the Ferryman: The monk desperately runs into the water to catch up to the ferry as Wong was in the midst of transporting Chin (an obvious woman, who for the first chunk of the movie everyone believes is a man because she is wearing a hat) across the river. Wong helps the monk and when he hears the monk’s story, Wong makes it his business to recover the stolen scrolls for the monk, who at that point honestly believed he was double crossed by the Shaolin Temple, which is as unbelievable as anyone not realizing Chin (Carrie Lee Ying-Ying) was a woman, but Wong believes it too and plans on sneaking into the Shaolin Temple and ripping them off. Shaolin Temple Blues: Wong does as he planned getting his bell run in the process and sporting his white outfit with thin black stripes on the sleeves and pant legs. If there was ever a Mike Wong figure this is the outfit I’d want him to be wearing. One of the Shaolin monks catches Wong in the act and if one monk wasn’t enough, Wong soon finds himself at odds with an army of Shaolin monks until the Abbot shows up and clears up the whole mess, deducing it was former disgruntled monk Dai-Kang that orchestrated the stealing of the scriptures. The Abbot admires Wong’s desire to regain the scriptures and take out Dai-Kang, however the Abbot doesn’t feel Wong would stand a chance against Dai-Kang in a fight… since his own men failed at the task years ago. There’s no stopping Wong however who responds to the Abbot’s concerns with the line “Death is my destiny” and he gets going… When The Going Gets Tough: Bruce Cheung played the aforementioned main villain in the movie Dai-Kang. When Dai-Kang learns from his mole at the Shaolin Temple that the young Cantonese man, Wong, is on the way, he first kills the messenger (literally) then calls his inner circle together to delegate the task of taking out Wong to them since Wong is beneath him and not worth soiling his hands over. Dai-Kang’s inner circle, including his own daughter, guarantee that there’s no way Wong will accomplish his mission since he will have to pass through all their territories before he could even attempt the impossible and challenge Dai-Kang. Shakira Shakira : Chin, the women in disguise, finds herself in a fight at a restaurant and then crossing paths with Wong again, who is dealing with his first batch of Dai-Kang goons. The two make a good combination and Wong thinks they could become good friends. Chin isn’t interested at first but when they cross paths yet again, Chin finally relents and they become travel buddies. Wong can’t help but notice the way Chin’s hips sway when she climbs a hill… the hat might have fooled him, but the hips don’t lie! Chin has no choice to reveal her true identity now and we find out that Dai-Kang killed her entire family and that she is out for revenge… but then Chin disappears and this is when the movie goes off the rails. Expect the Unexpected: Wong looking for Chin, finds some “damsels in distress” who are in reality a trap set up by Dai-Kang’s daughter and her camp of beauties. To reward Wong for saving him, the ladies prepare a bath for Wong with the intention that this will be the last bath he ever takes courtesy of a booby trapped bath tub! Wong manages to outsmart the trap and eventually escapes, but not unscathed… This is about the point where Wong gets a wardrobe change that is an inverse of the outfit I described earlier. If Mike Wong ever had an action figure the black outfit with white stripes on the sleeves and pant legs would be the chase variant… Chin is back in the picture yet again and nurses the wounded Wong back to health. This is followed by a training montage and then once it looks like we are heading for the final showdown, Chin throws a monkey wrench in everything when she declares she doesn’t want to avenge her family anymore since she will surely die in the process. Chin, who didn’t even want to walk with Wong a few days ago, is now madly in love with him and wants to have his babies. Chin then proceeds to fuck all the power out of Wong’s body so now it appears that he won’t be able to fight Dai-Kang either… I did