Life Gamble [生死門] (1979)
AKA Life Combat
Starring Phillip Kwok Chun-Fung, Lo Meng, Alexander Fu Sheng, Johnny Wang Lung-Wei, Kara Hui, Li Yi-Min, Lin Chen-Chi, Shirley Yu Sha-Li, Ku Feng, Lau Wai-Ling, Dick Wei, Suen Shu-Pei, Bruce Tong Yim-Chaan, Chiang Sheng, Lam Fai-Wong, Lu Feng
Directed by Chang Cheh
Expectations: Looking forward to the first Chang Cheh of 1979.
According to my Letterboxd stats, Life Gamble is the 63rd Chang Cheh film I’ve seen. Nothing should surprise me by this point, but Life Gamble made me doubt the master. At one point I declared the film a complete misfire, so I’m surprised to say that I was ultimately won over by this strange and different Chang Cheh movie. Action is generally the first major component of a Chang Cheh film, surrounded and strengthened by wonderful drama and emotions. With Life Gamble, he withholds almost the entirety of the action until the second half. it’s presented as a dramatic work first, with a complex mixture of characters harboring a sea of intentions, desires, and double-crosses. The low-hanging fruit would be to call this Chang Cheh’s attempt at a Chor Yuen-style wuxia, but while there are broad similarities, Life Gamble never incorporates the mystery element so often found in Chor’s films. I see it more as a combo of King Hu’s “everyone converges on an inn and tensions mount” structure with the more colorful martial world seen in Chang’s Brave Archer films, or even his One-Armed Swordsman sequels.
The credits roll while the cast stands resolutely still against the classic, colored backgrounds of many Shaw Brothers opening sequences. The music, which is excellent throughout, booms around them with notes of tragedy, announcing a serious film. The story begins with a blacksmith, Qiu Zi-Yu (Phillip Kwok Chun-Fung), who is asked by Mo Jun-Feng (Lo Meng) to make a new set of daggers. Qiu refuses as he doesn’t make weapons, but Mo Jun-Feng knows a secret. Qiu is a famed weaponsmith of the martial world, in hiding since an injury caused him to question what his devastating creations have done to the world. But as we know from Death Duel & Full Moon Scimitar, you can’t simply leave the martial world, so before he can clang hammer to anvil Qiu is caught up in the life-and-death struggles surrounding a stolen piece of jade worth 500,000 silver taels!