Death Duel

Movie is in Mandarin with English subtitles (remember to turn it on in your settings). Good sword fight choreography. Story is about kung-fu masters who all want to rank the highest, except the highest ranking master known as the Third Master (aka Divine Sword) doesn't want the highest ranking and decides to disappear from the world of fighters by faking his death because he's tired of having to kill everyone who challenges him. He has everything he wants, wealth, protection, an isolated mansion, reputation, etc., but he's willing to give them all up. In his disappearance effort, he gives up fighting and roams the streets as a homeless man. Soon, he's outside a brothel and a kind mute man who is a servant at the brothel offers to help by providing the master with food and temporary shelter. The master earns his money at the brothel to pay back the mute and moves on. Soon, he meets another poor man and is taken in by his family only to find that the man's sister works at the brothel, and a romantic relationship begins. The bad guys wanting the sister as a companion for their party ends up at the poor man's home, and the poor man's mother is killed in their scuffle. The master had no choice but to reveal his kung-fu skills. With kung-fu masters everywhere in search of him, it's difficult for the Third Master to hide. Everyone wants the wealth and reputation that the Third Master currently holds, so everyone wants what he doesn't want; it's an irony. While everyone searches for the Third Master, all other masters all kill each other, including the people who help the Third Master. It seems everyone around him gets killed even though that is exactly the reason he avoids everyone. He realizes that once someone has fame, it's no longer the person's choice to return to regular life. When a person has everything, he doesn't appreciate the worth until he has nothing again. When they kill the love of his life, that triggered him to return to his position to kill all those who challenge him.

Great wuxia with a lot going for it and Derek Yee really brings it!

Man this movie is hot. I loved the scenery, choreography, story and the sword play. This movie is in my top 20 favorites right now. Derrick Yee did a great job. Any true collector (like myself) should have this in their collection. The story is consistent with many wuxia movies: The undisputed Greatest swordsman want's to retire and goes into hiding but other swordsman want to find him and fight him to make a name for themselves.Tragedy forces the greatest swordsman out of retirement. The only gripe is I paid too much for the movie lol. Live and learn.

The typical formula used for the old kung fu movies, where everyone dies happily ever after at the end but fun and brought back memories

For the 70's era, this is REALLY good. I like the story. The movie Sword Master (2016) is based on this movie. Which is really cool. After watching this movie, you should watch Sword Master. Both are VERY good!

I've watched the remake Swordmaster before this but this one is by far more realistic. The love be story is written better in the newer version although its a drama/action preference. Seeing many shaw cameos just leaves a thought...CLASSIC!

Great movie

the best director in classic kong fu movie

Derek Yee plays Ah Chi, a poor young stranger who finds work in a brothel as a go-for. On first appearances he seems like a bit of a wet lettuce around women and all the working girls start calling him Hopeless Ah Chi. But then one day a man comes in, gets drunk and starts slapping one of the girls about and that's when Ah Chi shows what he is good at... Like being stabbed in the arms... But that's not the limit of his talents though, because he's also really good at beating the living daylights out of baddies and killing people.Soon Ah Chi's rep gets about, much to his annoyance and reluctantly he is forced to fight duel after duel when it transpires that Hopeless Ah Chi is in fact......Well, obviously I'm not gonna tell you his true identity because that would ruin it.But like I said, word gets around, and it's not long before a rich female gangster (Chen Ping), who's pet hobby is to watch swordsmen kill one another for her amusement, is sending droves of killers after him.This is a great little underrated wuxia, all about reputation and the dangers of being a top swordsman in China.There are probably too many interesting characters and martial arts superstars from the Shaw stable for any of them to be truly effective in the film, due to under use, but don't let that put you off seeing this because it's still really good.There's tons of actors making cameos but some of the big ones include: Ti Lung, Ku Feng, Norman Chu, Johnny Wang Lung Wei and David Chiang (Derek Yee's real life brother); who shows up at the end as a psycho that is kept in a cage by his evil sister (she's the one that has swordsman duel one another for her amusement), a loon that went insane through training too hard, who's eventually let loose and proceeds to cause untold carnage.In fact the ending is brilliant fun. With Hopeless Ah Chi, bringing his full weapons cache to the party and taking on all duellists, one after another. Meaning if he snaps a sword off in someone, he just walks over and gets a different one - like a top chef with a block of different knives.If this was a western with gun fights instead of sword fights, starring people like Gary Cooper, Jack Palance, Lee Marvin, Burt Lancaster etc etc it would be an absolute recognised classic. As it is Death Duel's Chinese, so probably few people other than kung fu fans will ever bother to seek this out and watch it.Which in my opinion is a shame..The UK Momentum Pictures release is excellent picture quality, with only a subtitled English option.4.25/5

Difficile de vivre une vie simple et retiré lorsque l'on est le plus grand epeeiste de son époque. Un film super, à voir absolument !