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Cast:
Damian
Lau
Chui
Siu Keung
Flora
Cheung
Eddy
Ko
Paul
Chang Chung
Kwan
Yung Moon
Casanova
Wong
Action:
Ching
Siu Tung
David
Lai
Manfred
Wong
Producer:
Raymond
Chow
Director:
Ching
Siu Tung
Score:
 
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DUEL
TO THE DEATH
AKA:
The Duel
Year:
1983 Reviewer: Rob
Daniel
'Duel
To The Death' is
required viewing for any Tsui Hark auteurist.
Think Tsui was the creative force behind the 'A
Chinese Ghost Story'
or
'Swordsman'
series? 'Duel To
The Death' is ostentatious proof director Ching Siu Tung is
not someone merely told where to put the camera.
Ching
had been part of the Hong Kong filmmaking world from infancy,
his father being Shaw Brothers director Ching Gong, and the
young Ching would be schooled at the Peking Opera School (and
would later assume action direction duties on 'Peking
Opera Blues').
Having been a bit part actor, in 'Come
Drink With Me' amongst others, Ching began action
direction in 1974 with 'The Shaolin Boxer'.
After
nine years of working on other filmmakers' projects Ching
clearly wanted to helm his own film, and 'Duel To The Death
can justifiably be called "a Ching Siu Tung film";
he co-wrote, directed and choreographed the action.
And delivered one of the most inventive and assured wuxia
pien movies of the eighties, whose relative obscurity in
the West may be down to its release in the same year as 'Zu:
Warriors From The Magic Mountain'.
The
story is the stuff of a thousand kung fu movies; with each new
decade Japan and China pit their finest swordsmen in a duel to
see whose martial art is finer.
Bo Ching Wan (Damian Lau) of the Shaolin Temple opts to
represent China against the Japanese blade Hashimoto (Chui Siu
Keung). While Bo
and Hashimoto desire a fair fight, background political
machinations threaten the purity of the contest.
Hashimoto's aide, Kenji (Eddy Ko) is under orders to
slay Bo and kidnap the martial arts masters attending the duel
for further study in Japan.
And whom amongst the Chinese, including the owner of
the duel's venue (Paul Chang Chung) and his daughter Sheng Nan
(Flora Cheung, who movie career was all too brief), can Bo
trust? And who
are those deadly Ninja warriors, who literally appear from
nowhere and vanish in puffs of smoke, in the service of?
A
work of supreme pulp art, 'Duel To The Death' hits the ground
running with a ninja attack on the Shaolin Temple and rarely
slackens the pace. Seemingly
shot day-for-night, this opening assault is a dazzling blend
of choreography and camerawork from a director hungry to
demonstrate his talent. Employing
two cinematographers, Ching's undercranked cameras weave
amongst battling warriors who drop into and fly out of frame
with nonchalant grace. Ching
populates his backgrounds with life and bustle (making him a
natural creative partner with the similarly minded Tsui Hark),
and this opening clash is notable for the wirework spectacle
occurring behind the primary action.
Ching
does not empty his arsenal with this initial volley;
deliriously ingenious set pieces punctuate and propel the
intrigue. Actual
kung fu is mostly absent bar an early skirmish between Kenji
and Bo's teacher, but the Shaw influence is there in the
artful, traditional swordplay, with a crossing of swords
between Bo, a bewildered Sheng Nan and her father a high point
of full-blooded balletic swordplay.
In another nod to Shaw, thick blood runs in the
frequent skirmishes, with legs, fingers and heads being lopped
off, and a ninja cleft in twain to reveal another ninja
jumping through his bisected brother, who then explodes when
impaled!
Outrageous
visuals are what make 'Duel To The Death so memorable.
While more grounded in reality than 'Zu' Ching
repeatedly flirts with the supernatural, particularly when
employing the ninja. Relegated
to the dustbin of camp eighties trash (though briefly
resurrected in 'The Last Samurai'), Ching's film is a hymn to
the ninja myth, the "silent people" whose combat
abilities are honed to an otherworldly degree.
Ninja vanish and reappear, tunnel through the ground
(as Jacky Cheung would later do in 'A Chinese Ghost Story Part
II') and most incredibly one giant ninja bursts into six
regular warriors, one of whom is female and flashes Bo's
teacher, who must close his eyes to the disrobed woman and
thus is captured!
Fights
in the desert and forests recall King Hu's 'A
Touch Of Zen', but, intentional or not, 'Duel To The
Death's wilder imaginings resemble Alejandro Jodorowsky's
phantasmagorical 'El Topo'
and 'The Holy
Mountain'.
While
lagging midway through the brief 83 minute running time, the
story is efficiently told, with enough musing on the futility
of duelling to give Bo and Hashimoto, and their situation,
some substance. A
nice aside during a festival has the duel mocked by a Punch
& Judy style puppeteer and there is the Zen suggestion
that slavish devotion to the fighting style and glory of a
school is an easy road to madness.
The climactic duel, while heavy on swordplay and
wirework, is subdued in realization that any victory will be
hollow after the preceding violence.
Typically
for many Hong Kong productions the Japanese are portrayed as
obtuse, kamikaze, imperialist bullyboys, accompanied by a
strident militaristic score.
Presumably for commercial reasons, all the Japanese
characters speak in Cantonese save for a lone "Hai"
from Hashimoto.
But
deficiencies are nullified by the stylish confidence of 'Duel
To The Death'. Ching's
eye for composition is striking and the production designers
had free reign with the costuming and sets.
And in a nice touch, when unsheathed the heroes' swords
sing a high-pitched wail that echoes the sonic booms given out
by six shooters in Sergio Leone's spaghetti Westerns.
Check out this neglected gem now.
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