Duel To The Death

Ninja Dead Men

Duel To The Death
aka Xian si jue
Hong Kong 1983
Directed by Siu-Tung Ching
Eureka Masters Of Cinema
Blu Ray Zone B

A quick shout out to an interesting movie from the early 1980s which has been put out recently (at time of first draft writing) by the Eureka Masters Of Cinema label. I wanted to have a look at another of those crazy Hong Kong wire-work martial arts films and Duel To The Death fit the bill.

The film starts off with an attempt, by a bunch of ninjas, to sneak into a Shaolin Martial Arts temple and make elaborate waxpaper copies (I think, not quite sure what I was looking at) of various instructional martial arts scrolls before being ousted by the monks there. They are referred to as magicians although this seems to be a slander perhaps rather than a literal translation. After all, not content to having the power to cloud men’s minds, they are gravity defying, sometimes teleporting ninjas who explode when captured or wounded. That being said, though, pretty much everyone in the film seems to have some kind of gravity defying power in them. One of the main protagonists, for example, is introduced going into action by remaining seated on the floor and then, keeping that pose as he flies a long distance backward and out of the building to join the battle.

Um, yeah... I’d be lying if I said that was the craziest thing in the film (as I shall further elabourate on soon) but there seems to be no logic dictating the ‘no basis in science whatsoever’ martial arts skills which were being done pretty much for the first time here (or at least it’s one of the earliest samples to take the wirework choreography to new and somewhat dizzying heights).

The plot of the film is that, every ten years, a challenger from a martial arts house in Japan comes to China to challenge a champion and whoever wins and kills the other has the glory of their country claiming the greater martial arts skills. But this is no film of easily black and white stereotypes... the Chinese and Japanese main protagonists may be wildly different in temperament, to some extent (the director often uses rich, striking colours for the Japanese character and more tranquil, peaceful colours for the Chinese guy) but they are both honourable men with merely a different attitude and understanding of the reasons behind their fight.

However, there’s more going on here, asides from a romantic interest for the Chinese hero. There is a lady who has a brilliant introduction as she avenges the death of a husband by having an old lady stand with her sword out... fresh over the corpse of her husband who has been murdered for putting on a Punch and Judy style puppet show which slurs the Japanese... and kills the two antagonists with one of them impaled on the outstretched sword of the old woman, who is seen to have at least a semblance of an honourable revenge on her husbands killers. The female martial artist who stood up for her is the daughter of the man running the Chinese house where the duel is to take place. What she doesn’t realise, along with both the Chinese and Japanese duellists, is that it’s all a set up by her father and the Japanese Shogun so the Japanese ninjas can kidnap all the martial arts masters who come to watch the duel... and much fighting and wire work shenanigans ensue as the daughter and the two duellist team up against the ninjas to stop the power play.

This involves some pretty stunning looking fights with lots of craziness such as an army of ninjas flying through the air on big kites... which is pretty mind blowing until you see them flying high in the air under their own power to transport palanquins carrying thier trapped victims later. There’s also a huge, giant ninja who lumbers up to one of the characters before he transforms into six regular sized ninjas. Perhaps the most eye catching moment is when one of the betraying villain’s head is parted from his shoulders and it is impaled through the ears on a branch of a tree... this does nothing to deter said head from carrying on his conversation with his noble foe before, you guessed it, his head explodes.

The film ends with the titular Duel To The Death at the insistence of the Japanese guy, who has learned nothing from his time dealing with the traitors of his own leaders... which leads to a spectacular fight where it’s implied by a timely freeze frame, after the Japanese guy has plunged a sword through his own foot to stop him from falling over, that both me are about to drop dead from the wounds inflicted upon them. Yeah, it’s nice I think that the film seems to champion the idea, from the Chinese side, of the pointlessness of fighting and eventually depicting a futile attempt where both practitioners die from their predetermined clash. A nice little message there for the viewer while simultaneously glorifying their actions in as spectacular a manner as possible, of course... the writers and director managing to have their cake and eat it in as visually pleasing and kinetic way possible.

It’s also a nice film to look at, with the director using the verticals and diagonals of both man made and natural environments to help position the main players in compartmentalised sections of the screen and even, in one sequence, using large groups of people standing in lines at different angles in the composition to act in the same manner and delineate sections of the main frame. Another shot of both the fighting heroes standing at the edge of sand and sea is underpinned by a nice shot looking up at them from just a little way in front of them from their feet, with the sea washing over the top of the camera and creating a splash of water over the view (without, impressively, getting the lens wet... so an extra sheet of glass somewhere there, I suspect).

And, yeah, the music is quite nice too, I think.

Overall, I quite liked Duel To The Death and Eureka have done a splendid job with the transfers and various extras of interviews with some of the key film makers. I’d happily recommend it to martial arts movie enthusiasts but I have to say that I personally prefer the films of this style I’ve seen from the 1960s and 1970s than some of the 1980s ones I’ve seen. Still, good stuff and I’m appreciative of Eureka giving people the opportunity to see it.