三少爺的劍 Death Duel (1977)
Director: 楚原 Chor Yuen
The Third Master is considered to be the greatest sword master of the day. His displays of skill and strength bring armies of challengers to his door, seeking the title for themselves. Not to be defeated, the Third Master fights evil, saves damsels in distress, and duels rival swordsmen to the death.
Country: Hong Kong
Language: Mandarin Chinese
Runtime: 88 minutes
三少爺的劍 Sword Master (2016)
Director: 爾冬陞 Derek Yee
In this beautifully shot wuxia epic, a powerful swordsman is haunted by the destructive impact his deadly talents have on others. Weary of the bloodshed and violence from the martial arts world, he banishes himself to the humble life a vagrant, wandering the fringes of society. But his violent past refuses to let him go quietly. The master swordsman must regain the ability to wield his sword and fight those disrupting the peace he so desperately craves.
Country: China | Hong Kong
Language: Mandarin Chinese
Runtime: 108 minutes
In 1977, director Chor Yuen adapted Chinese novelist Gu Long’s Wuxia (which literally means martial heroes) novel The Third Master’s Sword into a film, Death Duel. It starred newcomer Derek Yee as the main character with two identities in the film, Hsieh Hsiao-feng and Useless Ah Chi. Almost 40 years later, Derek Yee is no longer an actor, and has in fact made a name for himself as a director. In 2016, he released Sword Master, a remake of Death Duel, the very film that pushed him to stardom. I can only say I wish he did Death Duel justice with his remake. I wish.
Both versions had their strengths and weaknesses, but overall, I would say Death Duel still fares better than Sword Master.
In both films, Yen Shih-san is a swordsman who is determined to be the best in the world, but no matter how skilled he is and how many people he kills to prove himself, he is stuck in the shadow of Hsieh, who is recognised as the best swordsman in the world. But when he goes to challenge Hsieh to a duel, he realises that Hsieh is already dead. Unknown to him, Hsieh is actually still alive, but is tired of killing all the challengers that want to defeat him and make a name for themselves. He fakes his death and changes his name to Ah Chi, hoping to find peace in a normal life. Unfortunately, he soon attracts attention of people seeking Hsieh, and is once again pulled back into the turmoil of the martial world.
This is where the two films start to diverge.
Death Duel focuses more on Hsieh struggling to live a peaceful life as Ah Chi and avoid conflict, whereas Sword Master focuses more on the rivalry between Hsieh and Yen. Also, in Sword Master Chiu-ti was Hsieh’s fiancé until he abandoned her on their wedding day.
The theme of name is very strong in Death Duel, the actual name of the person and the reputation they desire. Throughout the film, Hsieh is asked for his name, and in the beginning, he claims to be called “Useless Ah Chi”, until his true identity is found out by his enemies. His actual name Hsieh becomes a symbol of fame and recognition, while Ah Chi represents the normality he desires, going so far as to say “It’s not easy even to be a nobody.” Born as Hsieh, the Third Master, with unsurpassed skills but also regret for the deaths he caused with those skills, he chooses to become Ah Chi, the useless, normal person with a normal life. But the martial world, though full of passion and righteousness, is also ruthless and cold-blooded. His life as a normal person is never meant to last, and he is forced to become the Third Master again.
Just as Shakespeare writes, “What’s in a name? That which we call a rose / By any other name would smell as sweet.” A name is just a label, and does nothing to change the content. Third Master or Useless Ah Chi, he will always be the same person, and that is his tragedy.
Death Duel also manages to capture the nihilistic qualities of Gu Long’s novel, the loneliness and pain of being the best in the world. Hsieh would rather give up that fame just to avoid killing more people. Even until the end, Hsieh refuses to fight with Yen, because the reputation no longer matters to him, but Yen is too obsessed with being the best that he has to fight with Hsieh. While the fights in Death Duel may look simple when compared to modern films, its simplicity actually compliments the story. Fights don’t drag on for too long and usually end in just one or two strikes, which makes them seem more brutal and deadly.
Even the simple and somewhat fake-looking sets, when paired with stunning photography full of trees and leaves forming frames around the characters, end up creating a dreamlike quality for the film that enhances the tragic ending of the characters.
There is one main issue I have with Death Duel. Since Derek Yee was a newcomer at the time, in order to attract more viewers, the film included cameos from famous actors of that era, including Ti Lung, David Chiang, and Lo Lieh. However, this led to scenes that felt out of place and awkward. Without these characters, the film would still have worked out just as well. Despite this, being a fan of Wuxia films, seeing these characters appear in the film, even for just a moment, does put a smile on my face.
And then there is Sword Master. Having watched Death Duel before watching Sword Master, I had really high hopes for the latter, especially after seeing the trailer, which looked really good. Unfortunately, the film had a couple of flaws, the most fatal being the bad casting. Some of the actors don’t suit the roles they’re playing, and when they overact during emotional moments, which happens a lot in this film, it just ends up being awkward for audiences. Ultimately, the performances in this film were really disappointing and most characters end up as whiny and unlikeable.
With the help of CGI, Sword Master manages to create stunning landscapes as backdrops for the films, which, at times look better than those in Death Duel, but it doesn’t seem to be able to capture the overall poetic imagery of the 1977 film, nor does it improve on it. If anything, it just seems like an attempt to recreate the same atmosphere, but not quite succeeding.
One of the best looking sequences would be the battle below the Supreme Sword Manor, which includes hidden weapons, poison, and masked villains. That sequence may be the most exciting sequence in the film, something that looks like it came from the mind of Tsui Hark, who also produced the film. Unfortunately, that sequence isn’t really necessary for the film, it just acts as spectacle to make the film more visually entertaining. However, as mentioned earlier, I am a huge Wuxia fan, and this sequence is really quite spectacular, so I don’t really mind.
While Sword Master isn’t a great Wuxia film, it acts as a critique of modern society, where director Derek Yee uses Hsieh and Chiu-ti’s relationship to touch on the topic of marriage and our views of love. Hsieh abandons Chiu-ti on their wedding day because he discovers the marriage is just an alliance for the two families to team up together and he does not want to keep fighting and killing for his family. But he still loves Chiu-ti, so when she is to be married to another man, he appears again on her wedding day and asks her to run away with him. However, Chiu-ti has her own ambitions and is unwilling to live a normal life with Hsieh, so she secretly informs her family to come and bring them back. Learning that her values and his are completely opposite, Hsieh leaves alone once again.
Having different values does not mean that one is wrong and the other is right, but two people with different values are not destined for each other.
As such, Sword Master feels more like a personal reflection on life, family expectations and love.
三少爺的劍 Death Duel (1977) - ★★★★ (4 stars out of 5)
三少爺的劍 Sword Master (2016) - ★★★ (3 stars out of 5)
Death Duel (1977) trailer
Sword Master (2016) trailer
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