Duel to the Death

Duel to the Death is a 1983 Hong Kong wuxia film starring Norman Chui and Damian Lau. It is the directorial debut of Ching Siu-tung.

Duel to the Death
Theatrical poster
Traditional Chinese生死決
Simplified Chinese生死決
Hanyu PinyinShēng Sǐ Jué
JyutpingSang1 Sei2 Kyut3
Directed byChing Siu-tung
Written byChing Siu-tung
David Lai
Manfred Wong
Produced byRaymond Chow
StarringNorman Chui
Damian Lau
Flora Cheong-Leen
CinematographyDanny Lee
Lau Hung-chuen
Edited byPeter Cheung
Music byMichael Lai
Production
company
Paragon Films Ltd.
Distributed byGolden Harvest
Release date
  • 13 January 1983 (1983-01-13)
Running time
86 minutes
CountryHong Kong
LanguageCantonese

Plot

In the 16th century, during the Ming dynasty era, every ten years the greatest swordsman from Japan faces the greatest swordsman from China in a duel to the death for their nation's honor. As a duel approaches, Chinese champion Ching Wan (Damian Lau) and Japanese champion Hashimoto[lower-alpha 1] (Norman Chui) uncover a plot to rig the fight.

Ching Wan, known as "Lord of the Sword", is a peaceful and contemplative martial artist who has trained with Shaolin monks as well as a mischievous hermit. By contrast, Hashimoto is a pitiless yet honorable samurai. One night after drinking with his compatriots Hashimoto is engaged by a masked assassin, after a brief but intense clash Hashimoto wins but realizes he inadvertently killed his sensei; his master using his death to cement the Samurai's resolve as a final lesson before the duel.

Throughout the days leading up to the duel, ninja led by a Japanese official under orders by the Shogun of Japan collude with the Chinese wardens to kidnap famous fighters and sabotage the duel for Hashimoto so that Japan may study and improve upon their martial arts; as well as that the head of a famous Chinese sword school can credit his students as champions of China upon Hashimoto's death. The honorable samurai, however, does not go along with the plan, Hashimoto instead wants a fair duel. Ching Wan as well rebuffs his Chinese compatriots, telling them that they are only pawns in the Shogun's plan.

Together, Ching Wan and Hashimoto fight the various conspirators and manage to free the captives. Afterwards, Ching Wan sees no point in going forward with the duel, having grown weary of the bloodshed the duel had fueled, but Hashimoto believes it his duty to complete what he had journeyed out to do, and kills Ching Wan's master to force his hand. The two warriors engage in a gravity-defying sword fight around a rocky coastline.

In one final charge, both swordsmen mortally wound one another, Hashimoto cutting off his opponent's left hand fingers and right arm, while Ching Wan spears the samurai through the gut; both warriors getting gravely injured in the process. They then gauge each other with a glare before quietly staring out into the ocean from opposite directions, with Hashimoto stabbing his own foot with his sword to stand up and Bo Ching-wan holding his missing arm. As each men wait to see who will fall over dead first, the story ends with no clear winner.

Cast

Reception

In 2014, Time Out polled several film critics, directors, actors and stunt actors to list their top action films;[2] Duel to the Death was listed at 92nd place on this list.[3] In the publication's subsequent list, published in 2020, the film was listed in the 100th position.[4]

Notes
  1. The English subtitles on the 2021 Blu-ray release by Eureka Entertainment refer to the Japanese characters by different names than those used in previous international releases of the film. Norman Chui's character is referred to as "Miyamoto Ichiro" instead of the previous name "Hashimoto", while Eddy Ko's character is called "Kaneda", not "Kenji". According to Frank Djeng's audio commentary, this is because the translated names used on previous editions were mistranslated, and the replacement names are more accurate.[1]

References
  1. Djeng, Frank (September 2021). Duel to the Death (Blu-ray (audio commentary)). Eureka Entertainment. Event occurs at end credits.
  2. "The 100 best action movies". Time Out. 3 November 2014. Archived from the original on 6 November 2014. Retrieved 7 November 2014.
  3. "The 100 best action movies: 100-91". Time Out. 3 November 2014. Archived from the original on 7 November 2014. Retrieved 7 November 2014.
  4. Rothkopf, Joshua (14 August 2020). "The 101 best action movies of all time". Time Out. Archived from the original on 21 October 2020.
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