THE BELLS OF DEATH (1968)

A lesser-known early example of wuxia cinema from the legendary Shaw Brothers studios, The Bells of Death / Duo hun ling has been historically underseen and underrated. Now this new Limited Edition Blu-ray from Eureka Entertainment will give it a long-overdue chance to reach a fresh audience and be welcomed by aficionados of Hong Kong martial arts films.

Although wuxia is perhaps the oldest genre in existence, the so-called ‘New Wuxia Revival’ gained momentum in the mid-1960s which, ironically, coincided with its suppression in mainland China during the Cultural Revolution. King Hu’s Come Drink with Me (1966) was at the vanguard, but it was his follow-up Dragon Inn (1967) along with Chang Cheh’s One-Armed Swordsman (1967) that cemented wuxia’s newfound popularity, with both films breaking Hong Kong box office records in the same year. The following year came Feng Yueh’s dark tale of vengeance, The Bells of Death—an innovative and well-balanced blend of genres drawing from samurai chanbara films, Euro-westerns and, of course, the new-style wuxia.

Its lean and perfectly paced 88-minute runtime dispenses with superfluous exposition and wastes no time getting underway. Young Chang Wei Fu (Yi Chang) is out cutting wood when three horsemen ask for directions to the nearest village before using him for target practice, pinning him to the tree he was coppicing with arrows through his tunic. These three principal villains are efficiently established as they laugh like spaghetti western bandits while gleefully massacring Fu’s defenceless family. In a more fantasy-leaning wuxia they would be demons unleashed to some purpose, but here they are nothing more nor less than the embodiment of greed and masculine evil. Ying Tien (Sheng Tien) fells the father (Ho Li-Jen) with a single cleaving blow from his sword. Tao Ching-lung (Kau Lam) kills the mother (Yu Pai) with an arrow to the head from his distinctive Manchu bow. Yang Kang (Ku Feng) dispatches the younger brother with an axe blow. Although they seemed to find it all highly amusing, their motivations remain unclear until they draw Fu’s sister Chang Wei Yun (Hsin-yen Chao) from her hiding place…

By the time Fu arrives, they’re long gone and have taken Yun with them because young, pretty women can be sold for a good price. Fu sets fire to his homestead as a funerary pyre for his parents and younger brother before swearing vengeance and setting out after the three bandits. He takes nothing except his mother’s distinctive bracelet of seven silver bells. Clearly, he hasn’t thought about how he will exact his revenge or rescue his sister, but his anguish and raw determination drives him onward.

Luckily, he happens across an old man (Yang Chih-ching) being waylaid by a gang of thugs but, to his surprise, the victim turns out to be the victor, dispatching his attackers with ease and walking away before they all crumple to the ground in classic wuxia style. Realising that he will need similar skills, Fu follows the master swordsman for days until the old man relents and agrees to take him on as an apprentice… and cue the training montage? No. Though the plot is one big cliché, it’s delivered with refreshing panache and instead we jump forward five years and join Fu as he closes in on his quarry having tracked the three bandits down to a town run by crime boss Tao Kung Chuan (Yunzhong Li).

Fu doesn’t concern himself with subtlety nor stealth and announces his presence by stepping in to rescue the young Hsiang-hsiang (Ping Chin), who’s on the run from a bunch of men who claim she belongs to the brothel. Maybe she reminds him of his lost sister. He offers to buy her and uses the Force—or his chi, as it was known before Star Wars (1977)—to pull a handful of leaves from a tree that he then throws at his assailants with such swiftness that they adhere to their faces. It’s not clear whether the tree is toxic, the leaves were imbued with Fu’s chi energy, or simply impacted with such force, but they can’t be removed without painfully taking some skin off with them.

Despite Fu’s supernatural opening gambit, the ensuing fight scenes are comparatively grounded and, for the time, shockingly brutal. There’s the occasional gravity-defying leap and a scene where opponents push palm to palm until one is knocked through a roof and the other through a wall without significant injuries. For the most part, though, the fights are more like contemporary chanbara with bloody slashes, lightning-swift decapitations, and unceremoniously severed limbs. What marks them apart is their complexity and innovative staging, with dynamic hand-held camera taking the viewer into the midst of the action with some dizzying pans and shotgun zooms along with astonishingly adept focus-pulling.

The choreography is superb, although no stunt co-ordinator is credited. It’s thought that the fight scenes were a collaborative effort designed with input from director Feng Yueh, cinematographer Pao Hsueh-li, and lead actor Yi Chang who had trained in theatrical martial arts and acrobatics with the Peking Opera. Also, a young Sammo Hung can be spotted as an extra in several scenes and he would go on to be one of Hong Kong’s most influential fight choreographers so, perhaps he had a hand in the fight choreography.

Because of the virtuoso camera work, my guess would be that Pao Hsueh-li had final say. This is supported by the staging of the set pieces where Fu fights each of the three villains responsible for murdering his family. One stand-out sequence takes place at night in a bamboo forest and the positioning and motion of the actors must work so closely with the camera and lighting. The upright bars of the bamboo are a graphic element that adds extra rhythm. Every time a bamboo is felled, we’re reminded of the devastating damage an axe or sword blade could do to life and limb. Another scene has the adversaries fighting not only by candlelight but while balancing the candles on their sword blades between lunges and slashes!

Although Ping Chin’s rather passive role is the only one that allows for much emotion to be conveyed, the main cast all do what they have to with what they’re given, and the physical acting is top-notch. The script was Kang-Chien Chiu’s debut, though he would go on to write many more, and is thought to have been inspired by Henry Hathaway’s classic western Nevada Smith (1966) and heavily influenced by Akira Kurosawa’s Yojimbo (1961) along with the Zatoichi film series. He also innovated by weaving in elements of psychological horror, effectively emphasised by the film’s soundscape, supervised by Yung-Hua Wang. Fu wears his mother’s bangle throughout, and their jangle becomes a constant. The sound of their approach announces impending doom for some, becoming louder in battle and silent in that moment of stillness following a kill when the bells of death become deathly silent.

HONG KONG | 1968 | 88 MINUTES | 2.35:1 | COLOUR | MANDARIN

Limited Edition Blu-ray Special Features:

• Limited Edition [2000 copies],
• Limited Edition O-Card slipcase featuring new artwork by Grégory Sacré (Gokaiju) [2000 copies],
• Optional English subtitles, newly revised for this release… which manage to capture nuances of phrasing while unobtrusively matching the dialogue rhythm.
• Original Mandarin mono audio which is crisp and dynamic, bringing the inventive foley and score to the fore.
• Optional English dub which seems to revel in glossing over any relevant cultural references and really tries to make everyone talk like they’re in a (bad) Spaghetti Western. The mix is also muddy compared to the Mandarin and perhaps hasn’t been restored with such care.
• NEW audio commentary by East Asian cinema expert Frank Djeng (NY Asian Film Festival). Information regarding Bells of Death is scant, so the wealth of knowledge he shares is valuable. He starts out with basic background information, such as the shooting schedule from January to May 1968, with a June release just days after the final cut. He usefully points out particular locations, including landscapes that have since been swallowed by city development or where they still host hill-hiking festivals. Being a professional translator who has provided subtitles for many Chinese films, he also shares insight into language nuances and translation anomalies, such as the names of cast and crew in their native dialects and their export pseudonyms, as well as revealing that the original title translates directly as ‘The Soul-Reaping Bells’. He places the film in context against the historical backdrop of East Asian cinema in the mid-20th-century and analyses the technical craft, pointing out moments of innovation, as well as sharing plenty of background information about key cast and crew.
• NEW audio commentary by action cinema experts Mike Leeder and Arne Venema. This duo always seem to be having a blast, and this is no exception as they both try to out-talk each other and get a word in. Their enthusiasm is infectious and their combined knowledge, much of it acquired first-hand working within the Hong Kong film industry, is impressive. They break down some key scenes by discussing technical aspects such as camera angles, use of foley, and stunt work. They cannot seem to contain themselves at times and get carried away listing the credits of actors who appear for moments in the background—which is fascinating and paints a picture of how vibrant and prolific the Hong Kong film industry was in its heyday. For the most part, they content themselves with discussing what we are actually seeing on screen and share astute interpretations of the symbolism being used to directly convey aspects of the narrative or to reveal the emotional states of the lead roles.
• ‘For Whom the Bell Tolls.’ NEW 19-minute interview with Wayne Wong, editor of Martial Arts Studies. A well-balanced discussion of the historical and contextual environment surrounding the production. He provides a detailed filmography of director, Yueh Feng, with particular attention to The Bells of Death.  He also discusses the influential blending of genre tropes and the themes explored, pointing out subtleties that may be overlooked on initial viewing.
• A Limited Edition collector’s booklet featuring new writing on The Bells of Death by East Asian cinema expert Camille Zaurin [2000 copies]. A handsome little booklet at 20 pages and provides a detailed filmography of Yueh Feng, unavoidable covering the same ground as much of the on-disc bonus content. There isn’t much in the way of analysis as Zaurin methodically states well-researched facts to contextualise this often-overlooked and underrated director while tracing his influences on those who followed.

Cast & Crew

director: Feng Yueh.
writer: Kang-Chien Chiu.
starring: Yi Chang, Ping Chin, Sheng Tien, Kau Lam, Ku Feng, Yunzhong Li, Hsin-yen Chao & Yang Chih-ching.