Life or Death is considered the masterpiece of Kamal al-Sheik, a director of thrillers who is known as the Hitchcock of the Egyptian screen. After a young girl buys medicine for her father, the pharmacist discovers he has accidentally given her poison. In a race against death, city agencies are mobilized to track the girl down before her father takes the medicine. Amidst the genuine suspense, Kamal tries here to suggest a positive symbiosis between citizen and state. Life or Death marks the first extensive use of location shooting in Egyptian cinema (a realism that only heightens the tension), with a rare look at the streets of Cairo in the 1950s.-Alia Arasoughly