Cantonese: Kuet jin ji kam ji din
Mandarin: Jue zhan zi jin zhi dian
English: Duel On Top of The Forbidden City

Following the success of THE STORMRIDERS and A MAN CALLED HERO, Andrew Lau Wai-keung was the obvious choice to helm this big-budget Ming Dynasty fantasy/comedy, which is reminiscent of Stephen Chiau Sing-chi's popular period farces ROYAL TRAMP I & II and KING OF BEGGARS. Supercilious secret agent Dragon 9 (Nick Cheung Kar-fai) is placed in an unenviable position when Sword Saint Yip Ku-sing (Andy Lau Tak-wah), a master he greatly respects, challenges Snow, the God of Sword (Ekin Cheng Yee-kin), Dragon's longtime friend, to a duel atop The Forbidden City. The Emperor (Patrick Tam Yiu-man) gives Dragon some gold medals and charges him with choosing eight kung fu masters to view this historic event. Before the match can take place, however, both of these honorable combatants find their lives imperiled by outside forces, while an intricate conspiracy has been set in motion to unseat the emperor.

Loosely adapted from Ku Lung's celebrated, multi-volume swordplay novel LUK SIU FUNG (the title being the name of the hero who served as the basis for Nick Cheung's far seedier character) and partially shot in the actual Forbidden City, THE DUEL looks ravishing throughout, with careful attention paid to art direction, costumes, lighting, and photography (as usual, Lau served as his own DP). This has the effect of making Cheung's anachronistic behavior and insults all the more amusing when they are taking place in such a noble, seemingly realistic backdrop. Like most Chinese New Year pictures, there is an attempt to appeal to virtually every audience demographic, with flashy, CGI-heavy special effects, action (choreographed by Ching Siu-tung), romance, mystery, and low humor all in abundance. The storyline is somewhat convoluted (and needlessly dragged out by absurd contrivances that were certainly not part of the original source) and some of the verbal humor does not come across in English but the cast is appealing and the movie largely succeeds as the breezy holiday entertainment it was designed to be. Vicky Zhao Wei, Kristy Yang Gong-ru, Taiwanese sex kitten Tien Hsin (click here for still of Tien with Nick Cheung), Elvis Tsui Kam-kong, and Norman Tsui Siu-keung head up the sizeable supporting cast.

Tai Seng #92814 (U.S. Label) Sync Sound Cantonese (Dolby Digital 5.1), Dubbed Mandarin (Dolby Digital 2.0), and Dubbed English Language Tracks (Dolby Digital 2.0) Optional Subtitles In English 16 Chapters Illustrated In the Menu With (Tiny) Clips Letterboxed (1.83:1) Macrovision Encoded Coded for ALL Regions 105 Minutes Contains moderate violence and sexual humor

DVD menu courtesy Tai Seng.

THE DUEL is available at Poker Industries.