To The Death is a short web video by Corridor Digital, sometimes just called Corridor. The full video can be seen here
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A curious young janitor is working in a large, mostly empty room, while on the opposite side two men are standing together, one dressed in a black suit, the other a teacher in a white gi. The man in the suit is adjusting and fine-tuning a Laser Sword, turning it from a flame-like outpouring of heat into a focused blade. After finishing he hands it to the teacher, who inspects it for a few seconds before nodding in approval.
As soon as the teacher does so, a student in a black gi who also holds a laser sword enters the room, walking past the janitor and up to the teacher. A bearded man in casual clothes also approaches, unseen until he nonchalantly tells the janitor that it's "Graduation day", and the student has to win a real fight in order to graduate. The janitor asks why it's considered a real fight and not just sparring, and she is unnerved when the man responds that the student will have to kill his opponent.
The fight begins, and despite some early offense by the student, even the janitor can tell that the student is nervous and the bearded man confirms that the teacher is controlling both the distance and timing of the fight, the two factors he says are the keys to winning a sword fight. Sure enough, the teacher forces the student back before seriously wounding the student, and then apparently kills him after a last ditch effort by the student to avoid defeat.
The janitor is horrified, but the bearded man draws her attention to a large device the man in the black suit has wheeled out. Before her eyes, the man in the suit uses the device to heal the student's various wounds and revive him. The student gets back to his feet and the duel continues...
This video contains examples of:
- An Arm and a Leg: In the fine tradition of Star Wars lightsaber duels, limbs get lost. The student loses a hand in the first match and while he manages to retrieve his sword from his own hand, he's too weak to continue fighting afterwards. The third match shown appears to end when the teacher wrestles for position and winds up directing both blades right through the student's forearms, cutting them both off.
- And the Adventure Continues: The video ends with the student finally winning, and the bearded man, who is revealed as the school's Master, asks the janitor if she is interested in becoming a student. She seems intrigued by the prospect.
- Audience Surrogate: The Janitor, there to observe the fight, and to listen as the unknown bearded man explains each step of the duel for the audience's benefit.
- Auto Doc: Since the graduation fight is to the death, the school uses a machine that can reattach limbs and heal fatal wounds.
- Book Ends: In the first duel the teacher successfully intimidates the nervous student by using some aggressive movement and tactics that put the student completely on the defensive. It caused the student to abandon any attempt to control the flow of the fight and set up an endgame where the teacher was able to dominate what was happening. In the final bout the student is now over both his nerves and his ego, and rather than fleeing when the teacher attempts to seize control by going aggressive with a big blow, the student carefully judges the distance, makes the teacher's blow just miss (with it even singeing the student's hair as he moves his head out of the way), and then strikes a winning counterblow that ends the fight.
- Came Back Strong: According to the Master, the reason why the school churns out the best sword fighters in the world is because their fights are to the death, with the healing machine being used so that students can recover and learn from otherwise fatal mistakes. It takes four "deaths" for the student to overcome the teacher.
- Color-Coded for Your Convenience: The uniforms for the student and the teacher are opposites. The teacher wears a mostly white gi, with some small black and gold stripes. The student's gi is black with a white stripe in the same area where the teacher has a black stripe. Their swords are also different colors, with the teacher having a yellow blade while the student has a classic blue-white one.
- Close-Call Haircut: The student finally wins by just barely dodging out of the way of the teacher's overhand strike to land a hit, cutting it close enough that the teacher's blade singes his hair.
- Combat Commentator: Both the school's master and, to a lesser degree, the janitor.
- Defeat Means Friendship: The teacher smiles with pride when the student defeats him, and after being revived he immediately embraces the student and they share some laughs.
- Duel to the Death: Well, yes and no. Nobody dies for good, although it's questionable if the fighters were killed and revived or just injured to the point of near death and brought back.
- Facial Dialogue: In the fourth duel shown, the student has apparently gotten cocky as there is no real penalty to losing a fight except for brief pain when wounded until the guy in the black suit heals him with the device. So the student decides to engage in some sword twirling and flynning for fun. The teacher gets an exasperated "Oh come on" look in response to all this. When the student starts throwing in some spinning, the teacher apparently decides he's had enough and easily cuts the student down.
- Flynning: Almost entirely averted, as the very premise of the video was to make a realistic lightsaber fight. The result is a very fast paced and defensive martial art with quick, minimal movements, so it lacks the big hack and slash cuts common in Hollywood movies or aiming for the opponent's sword. There are a few touches of flynning, but they mostly either result in getting punished, or, in the first fight, the teacher is successfully attempting to intimidate the student and exploit his nervousness.
- Good Thing You Can Heal: The healing device does this for the combatants. As the video drives home that any wound suffered by laser sword is a serious problem, it's a very good thing indeed.
- Heroic Second Wind: Subverted in the first bout. When the student retrieves his sword from his own cut off hand, you might expect him to have a miraculous second wind or at least put up a notable Last Stand. Instead he's almost instantly overcome by pain and the injuries he suffered earlier, and the teacher finishes him off without any further resistance.
- The Medic: The man in the black suit acts as an official witness to the duel and also operates the device that heals/revives the combatants.
- Meditation Powerup: Before the last fight, the student takes a few seconds to try to focus and calm any remaining nerves. Thanks to his calm mind he finally finds a way to defeat the teacher.
- Nameless Narrative: No names are used for the characters in the video, nor do any character names or titles appear in the credits.
- Oh, Crap!: Unlike the first two duels, in the third duel the student doesn't show any obvious signs of nerves... until the teacher casually redirects their blades right through the student's arms, resulting in a quick shot of the student gasping in horror at the stumps of his arms.
- Precision F-Strike: The janitor says the school is "fucked up" when the student supposedly dies from the first fight.
- The Reveal:
- Despite the words of the bearded man, nobody is actually going to die, at least not for good. It seems that the duel will go on until the student wins or quits.
- After finally winning the student immediately bows in respect to the bearded man, prompting the janitor to ask who exactly he is. He says that he's the master of the sword fighting school.
- Rule of Three: Averted. It takes more than three contests before the student wins. There are a total of five shown, and it's implied that there may have been others that the video didn't depict.
- Stealth Hi/Bye: The school's master just sort of appears next to the janitor, catching her by surprise.
- Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: After the fourth bout, the student decides to mess around for a bit, doing unnecessary spins and twirls. The teacher just stabs him in the back when he turns around.
- What the Hell, Hero?: The janitor is aghast at the "death" of the student in the first bout, and says that the school is "fucked up" for having death matches. The master then shows her that thanks to healing technology, the wounds actually aren't fatal and there is no intent for anyone to be killed for good.
