Legendary martial arts director Chang Cheh and popular Shaw Bros. martial arts fighters David Chiang and Ti Lung team up for an awesome yet violent, bloody, action-packed martial arts film – “The Duel”.
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DVD TITLE: The Duel (Da jue dou)
FILM RELEASE DATE: 1971
DURATION: 110 Minutes
DVD INFORMATION: 16:9, Mandarin and English Mono (Dolby Digital), English Subtitles
COMPANY: FUNimation Entertainment
RATED: UNRATED
RELEASE DATE: August 3, 2010
Directed by Cheh Chang
Written by Kang Chien Chiu
Produced by Runme Shaw
Music by Yung-Yu Chen
Cinematography by Mu-To Kung
Edited by Ting Hung Kuo
Art Direction by Johnson Tsao
Costume Design by Chi Li
Starring:
Lung Ti as Tang Jen Chieh
Ping Wang as Hu-Dieh (Butterfly)
Jeanette Yu Wei as A-Hsiu
David Chiang as Chiang Nan (Rambler)
Yuan Chuan as Kan Wen-pin
Chih-Ching Yang as Shen Tien-hung
Feng Ku as Tang Jen Lin
Kang-Yeh Cheng as Hsiao Mao
Hu Hsia as Ling Tzu
Bin He as Liu Shou-yi
Ching Ho Wang as Chao Hai-shan
Liu Hung as Hsu Li
Chung Wang as Kan’s man
Kuang Yu Wang as Liu Sung
Tan Jen-chieh’s life spins out of control when he’s forced into exile to clear his name following the murder of his adopted father and he’s hunted in the streets. His lover, Butterfly, turns to prostitution, and his father’s likely killer – a smooth operator known as the Rambler – is always lingering nearby. But before Tan and the Rambler can slit each other’s throats, they learn they’ve been double-crossed and go two against everyone in a rage of double-edged vengeance.
The Shaw Brothers, the company known for their many releases of Hong Kong films for many decades ran by producer Sir Run Run Shaw, knighted by the British government and founder of Shaw University in Hong Kong and even founded the HK-TVB TV network was a major power behind the company and his third brother Runme Shaw (who founded South Sea Film), the film company would become known as Shaw Brothers Studio and become the first studio to bring Hong Kong cinema with sound in 1934.
The Shaw Brothers have created over a thousand films and with several having been aired on US television and some being released on video, the 1971 film”The Duel” (Da jue dou) also known as “Duel of the Iron Fist” gets its US DVD release courtesy of FUNimation Entertainment and would star popular Shaw Bros. action stars David Chiang and Ti Lung and would team them up with legendary martial arts director Chang Cheh.
The film would revolve around two martial arts schools (which also function as an earlier version of The Triad). Tang Jen Chieh (played by Ti Lung) is the youngest of the brothers of his school and he is an excellent swordsman, one day he joins his school which are planing to ambush another school during a mourning period. In order to make sure the ambush goes perfectly, the school’s elder hires another excellent swordsman/martial arts weapon expert Chiang “Rambler” Nan (played by David Chiang).
Jen-Chieh’s school successfully slaughters everyone at their rival school but the owners were able to escape. As Jen-Chieh’s brothers and fellow students celebrate their successful ambush on their rivals, Jen-Chieh tells his fiance that the butterfly tattoo on his chest will be filled with a color to signify his love for her. All seems to go well at the celebration party until the owners of the rival school ambush them during their celebration dinner.
Needless to say, many things go wrong, more people are dead and Jen-Chieh’s godfather has been killed. Because of the deaths of the godfather and their ties with the local authorities, someone must take the wrap for the godfather’s death. Each brother are willing to sacrifice themselves and take the blame but instead, Jen Chieh decides to take the blame and cast himself off as an exile and leave his school and his fiance to honor his godfather.
As Jen-Chieh has lived in exile for a year, he wonders why his brothers have not come back for him and why he has lived a harsh life. As he goes about his normal day dreaming of his fiance and returning back home, something goes wrong as people are trying to kill him. As he fights, defends and kills his attackers, he takes the train and tries to escape. But when he senses that people are after him on the train, he jumps off and finds himself in another predicament of people trying to kill him. To make things worse, he knows these people as students of his school.
Jen-Chieh learns the truth that one of his elder brothers was responsible for his godfather’s death and now his brother wants him dead. Jen-Chieh is confused and is now determined to go back home and find out what went wrong but also to return to his fiance and hope she is doing fine.
But when he makes his long awaited return back home, what Jen-Chieh learns about his brothers, his fiance and what has happened during his one year exile will shock him.
VIDEO:
“The Duel” is presented in 16:9 widescreen and for the most part, Celestial Pictures has done a wonderful job thus far in their remastering of the Shaw Bros. films and “The Duel” is no exception. “The Duel” is one of the earlier Shaw Bros. films released from FUNimation Entertainment and picture quality does show the films age just a bit. But for the most part, for a film that is 38-years-old, this is probably the best presentation of “The Duel” that Shaw Bros. fans will see yet of the film.
AUDIO:
“The Duel” is presented in Mandarin and English mono. Mandarin is the way to go for this film as the English dub is not only cheesy but the old original English dub sounds tinny and recorded badly. In fact, you lose a lot of the crowd ambiance and the background music if you watch the English dub.
Subtitles are in English.
SPECIAL FEATURES:
“The Duel” comes with no special features but the FUNimation Entertainment trailers.
EXTRAS:
“The Duel” comes with a slip cover case.
“The Duel” is an action-packed, bloody fight-fes courtesy of Chang Cheh and features two awesome Shaw Bros. martial arts stars David Chiang and Ti Lung, all together for this film.
This film is quite interesting because not only does it feature martial arts but it also features an earlier version of when these martial arts schools started to become more corrupted, political and eventually an earlier film showcasing the triad. Many of the fights combine martial arts with the fighters armed with swords, knives axes and also machine guns. In some way, despite the era of when the film takes place, “The Duel” is somewhat reminiscent of the 1985 Shaw Bros. film “Hong Kong Godfather” which revolves around the triad, revenge, martial arts and a lot of slashing and blood.
But where “Hong Kong Godfather” takes place in the ’80s and looks like a film from that era, “The Duel” is a martial arts film and one can expect a lot of action and even a duel between the characters played by Chiang and Lung.
Interesting part about this film is its use of sound and music. Some sounds seem to be misplaced at times but the most striking is the use of the main theme song which is literally a copy but slightly modified version of Richard Strauss’s “Sprach Zarathustra” (which is used for the opening of the Stanley Kubrick 1968 film “2001: A Space Odyssey”) and hearing the song over and over makes you wonder if director Chang Cheh or composer Yung-Yu Chen was a big fan of Strauss or the film which debuted in theaters a few years earlier.
I really did enjoy “The Duel” and although it is a visual bloody fight fest of a film, I did enjoy the younger brother seeking revenge and just seeing how life has changed for the worse at his school, his older brother and most of all, what happened to his fiance. Fans of David Chiang and Ti Lung films should be happy by their action-packed performance and most of all seeing these two kick ass.
There is a lot of humor and a lot of action and it’s definitely one of the more violent and bloody martial arts films from the Shaw Bros. that has been released on DVD from FUNimation Entertainment (with “Hong Kong Godfather” being the most violent). For those expecting more martial arts, this film does include it but focuses primarily on the use of swords and knives versus hand-to-hand combat.
As for the DVD, the video presentation is well done due to the remastering by Celestial Pictures but the old English dub is terrible (personally, I could never stand dubs for martial arts films and it’s quality is not the best) and as mentioned earlier, Mandarin is the way to go for this film. And like the other previous releases, there are no special features.
Overall, another solid inclusion to FUNimation Entertainments Hong Kong Connection and a Shaw Bros. film on DVD worth picking up!
