A key film in which Ching Siu-Tung takes the New Wave attempts of updating the swordplay film (Tsui’s The Butterfly Murders, Tam’s The Sword) and give it a more fluent outlook. The result might be seen as Hong Kong’s cinema first modern period action film, it even come out same year as Lau Kar Leung effectively send the Shaw Brothers martial arts film to glorious retirement with Eight Diagram Pole Fighter.
For ages the best swordfighter in China and Japan meet every 10 years to a fight to death, it is time again but a lot of political intrigue, betrayals and a plot to steal China’s greatest fighters might get in the way of our sword masters (Norman Tsui and Damian Lau) to fulfill their fate and get to their title duel. Ching Siu-Tung throws at us plenty of disparate elements – lots of gore, an over the top paraplegic villain, some romance, overcomplicated political plotting, flying ninjas –, but keeps them unifying by the same clear elaborate visual approach.
Duel to the Death is as much a film brat work as some of the early Tsui Hark’s attempts at genre blending, but Ching Siu-Tung approach could not be more different. As often happens with great choreographers, he has too much respect for his material; he is less interested in modernizing like Tsui wanted, than just give the wu xia duel a chance at a renewal. That is what makes Duel to the Death often so absorbing and grounds its quirk more offbeat elements: it is an amazing generous film by someone that truly love this tradition and found something very alive and new inside it and is willing to share it with us.
Everything in Duel to the Death is set to make its title encounter happen. In some ways it is like Ching Siu-Tung desire for a contemporary swordplay film doubles into his two leads honor-filled idea that they need to just meet and get it over with it till the best swordfighter survive. When it finally happens it is a triumph that drives the film aesthetics promise home: a final release after plenty of build up into quick, brutal, punishing and graceful series of movements. Every element on screen coordinated perfectly by the filmmaker/choreographer: bodies crashing and getting destroyed in the name of film. Duel to the Death complete succeeds in its act of renewal, it is both awed by tradition and very much of its moment and a definitely cinematic pleasure.
A Chinese Feast 