During the mid-to-late 1970s, it seemed like the entire world had caught kung fu fever in the wake of Bruce Lee’s tragic death. Film industries from around the globe tried to cash in on the kung fu craze, cranking out untold numbers of martial arts pictures. The Pakistani film industry — commonly known as Lollywood — was not immune from this trend. In 1977, Lollywood director Khalifa Saeed, along with his cast of sweaty dudes with bushy mustaches, made their contribution to cinema history in the form of a kung fu epic entitled Aakhri Muqabala.
Far more than just a novelty item, Aakhri Muqabala is simultaneously a brutal martial arts epic and a disorienting, psychedelic freak-out. This film gets my highest recommendation for kung fu fans, exploitation buffs, and jaded cult movie fans who (wrongly) think they’ve seen it all. In an ideal world, this film would get a 2-disc deluxe DVD release from the Mondo Macabro label or another enterprising DVD company and become an instant midnight movie classic.
The plot — or as much of it as I can divine without the benefit of subtitles — is quite simple. Hero #1 (who vaguely resembles the Bollywood actor Dharmendra) fights a cadre of bad guys with his superior kung fu skills. Eventually, however, the bad guys get the best of Hero #1, and break off one of his legs. Fortunately, Hero #2 (who looks like Sacha Baron Cohen) steps in to save the day. Hero #2 is given a photograph of each of the bad guys who crippled Hero #1. He tracks each one of them down, ripping up each bad guy’s photo once he locates him. Hero #2 engages in a kung fu fight with each bad guy, defeats each bad guy, and takes his revenge by breaking the bad guy’s leg (or worse) at the end of each fight.
The first third of the film is quite static and talky, and accordingly of little interest to non-Punjabi speakers, at least until someone releases a subtitled version of this film. However, it appears that a different, far more crazed director was responsible for the second two thirds of the film. At about the fifty minute mark, Aakhri Muqabala kicks into overdrive, providing the viewer with one hundred minutes of uninterrupted kung fu fights and raunchy musical numbers. At this point, the lack of subtitles becomes completely irrelevant, as there is little spoken dialogue other than grunting in the latter two-thirds of the film.
The film’s lengthy fight sequences are presented in a manner that is truly unique. Although the martial arts choreography is not especially crisp (many punches and kicks clearly do not connect with their targets), the action is rather brutal and bloody. Indeed, the fight scenes appear to be especially brutal because each one goes on and on for many minutes, far longer than the average fight in a kung fu film. The filmmakers further underscore the brutality of particularly vicious attacks by presenting them in slow motion, and by filming losing fighters flying many feet into the air as they are defeated by one of our heroes.
Further, the editing in the fight scenes is very rapid — by the standards of 1970s South Asian cinema, or even by the standards of Hong Kong cinema of that time — as many shots remain on screen for a mere three seconds or fewer. Moreover, the cinematographer employs many canted angles and distorted lenses during the fight scenes. For example, the cinematographer frequently shoots action taking place on top of a hill by setting up a camera at the bottom of the hill, which is one of many camera set-ups that I do not believe I have ever seen before in a kung fu film. Adding to the otherworldly feel of the fight scenes is the constant presence on the soundtrack of laser bleeps and blurts and other “outer space”-type sound effects.
The musical numbers are surprisingly lascivious for a South Asian film of this vintage. Most of the numbers feature extreme closeups of the bathing suit areas of (fully clothed) buxom young women as they shake, shimmy and gyrate. However, one of the musical numbers in particular stands out as one of the damndest things I have ever seen in my life. This number (which is presented as a female character’s dream sequence) features scads of female dancers repeatedly rubbing their boobs against each other, as Hero #2 watches in approval from a distance. How these kinky, voyeuristic goings-on ever got past the censors is beyond me. (Perhaps I was watching a pre-censor cut of the film.)
The filmmakers were clearly devoted students of kung fu cinema. The foley effects are perfect; each kick, punch, and hand swirl sounds like it could have been appropriated from a Bruce Li movie. The film also features classic kung fu movie elements such as training sequences, a kung fu master, a revenge motif, martial arts tournaments, and, in a touch evocative of Chang Cheh, the hero’s loss of a crucial limb. 
However, the film’s unique score is quite unlike the music heard in most kung fu movies. Primarily played on the organ, the score alternates between melodramatic organ stings that sound like they were lifted from a 1940s radio drama and funky organ riffs that are evocative of Booker T and the MGs. I would love to get my hands on a recording of the film’s musical cues.
I could not end this review without mentioning the film’s most surreal training sequence. In order to earn the coveted “Scorpio” belt (the filmmakers must have been Kenneth Anger fans), Hero #2 is forced to endure a series of trials on a snowy mountaintop. Our hero’s first trial is simply to stay warm, given that he does not have any shoes. Miraculously, he is able to warm up by doing some really horrible, wiggly push-ups. (These push-ups are almost as bad as the ones that the kid does at the beginning of the Bollywood ninja film Commando.) Somehow, our hero’s push-ups are so effective that he actually starts sweating from the heat!
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