This Movie Can Only Be Described With One Word.

Really Surprised!

Great story, amazing characters, superb action, enthralling cinematography. Yes, this is something I am glad I spent money on.

One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

I'll start by saying I'm in no way an expert on martial arts movies. One night I was awake at 3:30 a.m. and happened to catch this movie, that's all. It was part of a martial arts marathon, or something. I was magnetized the entire time, and by the end I realized I had seen a film that was a direct predecessor of "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon." I must agree with the other reviewer here, who states so eloquently that this movie knows exactly what it wants to do and does it perfectly. The cinematography is stunning. Almost every frame is beautiful. It's utterly preposterous, of course, but even that makes it a wonderful fantasy film that actually has much in common with Peter Jackson's "Lord of the Rings" films. By that I mean it's utter fantasy beautifully and meticulously realized.Put it this way, I'm watching it again right now - about 15 years after I first discovered it, and I'm enjoying it so much I came here to IMDb, just to put SOME kind of review out there in the world for this wonderful movie. Wherever this movie isn't well executed, it's crazy fun, and vice verse. It's impossible to tell where the beauty ends and the craziness begins, too. Just one of my favorite movies ever - and I've watched a lot of movies.

While the Shaw movie machine seemed to be trapped in the 1960's, director Siu-Tung Ching filmed what turned to be the start of the new wave of kung fu epics and the closing of the door of the old wave.Everything is thrown into this film, ninjas, a crazy old master in the Shaolin Drunkard tradition, flying kung fu, Japanese vs. Chinese, chambara, Shaolin monks, a super fighting woman, a puppet show, a talking cockatoo, severed limbs, Chang Cheh style blood flow, King Hu style anti-gravity kung fu. The only thing missing is the 18 Bronze Men. What distinguishes this from the other films from the time is the exceptional quality Siu-Tung Ching put into this film. The photography is really good and the script is much better then I expected. Somehow all the strange things that happen flow with the story instead of making you shake in disbelief.The film is stylistically influenced by Japanese chambara although I would suspect that Japanese martial artists would take issue with the samurai sword work on display. Ballet dancer Flora Cheung throws herself into the fighting really well. The ninja do some very crazy things. The music track is actually good!Highly recommended, this film should be as well known as some Shaw films from the same period.

I looked this movie up on IMDb and saw some dude's review of it. He is a total moron. He says he "didn't get why it was so fake". This movie is completely rad. I have seen many martial arts movies, and this one is TOTALLY SWEET. My brother's roommate found it for 5 dollars and they watched it, then told me about it. I watched it and was BLOWN AWAY by how RADICALLY AWESOME it was...some scenes were so ABSURDLY killer that actually kept my brain from functioning normally for several seconds; I'm serious, when I see something awesome it makes me "giddy" and I got giddy like TWO times during this movie, which believe me is really good. If you like these movies, watch this, then study it and find out why it works so well. It has awesome visuals and fighting, but also an enjoyable story that isn't overly complicated or simplified...it's also the first movie by the famed action director Ching Siu Tung.

DUEL TO THE DEATH is one of the many "flying swordsman" action-adventures to come out of Hong Kong. If you've seen CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON, then you pretty much know what to expect. If not, go into this film with an open mind and expect to get blown away.Hashimoto and Ching Wan are dueling swordsmen. Every year China and Japan hold a great tournament in which each country's best fighter clashes swords with each other. Ching Wan is from China, and he sets out to prove himself to his mentors. Hashimoto is from Japan, and he wants to win in order to make his master proud, who died while testing Hashimoto's abilities. However, something fishy is going on in China. Black-masked ninjas have stolen secret scrolls from Ching Wan's temple and Hashimoto's venomous general, Kenji, seems to have a secret agenda. The tournament is to take place at the home of the beautiful Sheng Nan and her father, but all is not right. Ching Wan's mentor is captured and ninjas try to kill him. Meanwhile, he begins to develop a strong romantic bond to Sheng, who was trained as a martial artist by her father and disguises herself as a man so she can fight. When Hashimoto realizes that Kenji wants to kill Ching Wan himself, he realizes he must go against his general in order to save Ching Wan. It turns out Japan wants the best martial artists of China captured in order to learn their secrets. Hashimoto catches on to this but he realizes that he must go against his country in order to stand up for what he believes is right.And, well, that's the plot in a nutshell. There's not much too it, and those expecting the lyrical romanticism of CROUCHING TIGER will be disappointed. However, DUEL TO THE DEATH makes up for it with some of the most thrilling, bloody fight scenes I've ever seen, including the best wire work next to Ang Lee's film. I guess the thing I love about Hong Kong cinema is that it plays by its own rules. It has its own mythology, its own way of storytelling. Here, the characters defy gravity, jumping from tree to tree like chimpanzees or flying through the air like hawks. The film doesn't play by the traditional Hollywood rules. For example, the ending is ambiguous and surprisingly bleak, as opposed to the usual "happy" ending tacked on to most American films. You would think that Hashimoto and Ching Wan would become friends at the end of it all, but instead Hashimoto does something that seems to negate everything that came before it.And yet, it's the underlying sensitivity of the two leads' performances that makes DUEL TO THE DEATH so compelling. In their respective roles, Norman Tsui and Damian Laui are great and very sympathetic. And the direction and music score are excellent.In fact, my only real complaint with the film is that the fight scenes aren't long enough. They could have been even MORE thrilling, but then again, their sparseness just makes us hunger for the next fight even more. All in all a great movie, and an essential for anybody wanting to explore the mysterious land of 70's and 80's Hong Kong cinema.