The Duel

When their leader, who was also his adoptive father, is killed in a gang raid, a young martial artist takes the blame and goes into exile. Coming back a year later, he finds that his own gang wants him dead. He has to work out one by one who gave the order and what really happened that night. At the end of it an old friend is standing opposite him. Chang Cheh's Shaw Brothers production puts Ti Lung and David Chiang opposite each other again; at the time they were the biggest earning pair in Hong Kong cinema. The film is built on sword and knife fighting rather than kung fu, and it goes further with blood than was usual for its period. Friendship between men is the unchanging subject of Chang Cheh's cinema.