Dressed to Fight (1979)

Dressed to Fight (1979)
aka: Legend of Broken Sword
Chinese Title: 折劍傳奇
Translation: Legend of Folding Sword

Starring: Roc Tien Peng, Doris Lung Chun-Ehr, Yang Chun-Chun, Elsa Yang, Ling Yun, Wen Chiang-Lung, Ku Cheng
Director: Ulysses Au
Action Directors: Wang Ching-Liang, Chan Chuen

Dressed to Fight seems to be a typical late 1970s Taiwanese wuxia film, in the vein of movies like Love and Sword. Incidentally, both of those films were based on the writings of famed author Ku Long, whose works were adapted to film by the Shaw Brothers at about the same time. Most famously, Ku Long’s writings were the basis for popular wuxia films like Killer Clans (1976); The Magic Blade (1976); The Sentimental Swordsman (1977); and The Swordsman and the Enchantress (1978). Hell, he even wrote the story for the early Jackie Chan film To Kill with Intrigue (1976). So Dressed to Fight falls into that category of film, albeit with a smaller budget and more average fight choreography than those Shaw films.

Roc Tien Peng plays Hu Te-Wa, a wandering swordsman, as is the norm for these types of film. His friend, played by The Young Moon Legend’s Ling Yun, tells him that he’s too carefree and willing to get into trouble without any emotional attachment to his actions or the lives of others. Hu’s cohort tells him that sooner or later, something will happen to change his outlook on life. FORESHADOWING.

Almost immediately thereafter, Hu is wandering through the forest when he sees a female hand sticking out of the ground, beckoning him over to her. He ignores the sinister hand as most normal people would and goes about his business. At the same time, another woman (Elsa Yang) is journeying through the forest and comes across that same ghoulish hand. Suddenly, she is attacked by a notorious fighter named Golden Bell Tang (Rikisha Kuri’s Wen Chiang-Lung), and saved at the last moment by Hu Te-Wa, who was still in the area. The woman thanks him and starts waving signs that she is willing to thank him with her body, but he asks for monetary compensation instead.

Shortly thereafter, Hu Te-Wa meets up with a swordswoman named Chang Si-Si (Legend of Peach Blossom’s Yang Chun-Chun) and a third woman (Doris Lung Chun-Her), who alternate tries to seduce and kill Hu. From there on out, numerous parties will attempt to murder Hu Te-Wa, although he doesn’t know who is sending them or why they’re doing it. As this goes on, Hu starts falling in love with Chang Si-Si. BUT…she herself is harboring a secret…a secret society that is. Chang Si-Si belongs to the White Cloud City, a shady organization of swordsmen who are not only unforgiving with their enemies, but are even worse with their own members. Are they behind the numerous attempts on Hu Te-Wa’s life? If so, why would they concern themselves with him?

Both questions get answered, albeit only at the very end of the film and in a single line of dialog. That practically turns the film in a shaggy dog joke, especially since the final revelation about Who and Why is then supplanted with How, which is never answered. Nonetheless, there are enough cute women, double crosses, triple crosses and a general feeling of mystery to keep fans busy until the climatic duels and final revelations. Unlike some Ku Long adaptations, the film isn’t so complicated that it’s impossible to know what’s going on at a given moment: an attentive viewer can piece things together in a single viewing (unlike Butterfly and Sword, which took three viewings for me to make sense of). You will ask yourself at some parts if you missed something, but then you’ll figure out that you didn’t.

The action is Wang Ching-Liang and Chan Chuen. The former had a short and undistinguished career as an action director, although he did stuntwork in a number of movies, including several Shaw Brothers productions. Chan Chuen was already a bigger name, having worked for both the Shaw Brothers and Golden Harvest during the first half of the 1970s. He worked alongside Sammo Hung on Angela Mao films like When Tae Kwon Do Strikes and The Tournament, and early John Woo kung fu movies like The Dragon Tamers and The Young Dragons.

Despite being a wuxia film, there is not a lot of actual swordplay and most of the action is hand-to-hand combat. However, the main actor here is Taiwanese mainstay Roc Tien Peng, which means that it is a little stiff and unimaginative. I’ve described Roc Tien as being like Jimmy Wang Yu, but without the charisma, and that applies here. Tien’s fighting is as bad as it was in his earlier films, but it’s nothing to knock the socks off a schoolgirl. The last two fights at White Cloud City are pretty good and feature the most sustained weapons combat. Despite her status as a fighting diva, Doris Lung Chun-Ehr doesn’t fight very much and is completely excluded from the last two skirmishes. Some of the earlier fights have a surplus of wire tricks and trampoline jumps, but for the most part, the action is fairly grounded. On the whole, the action is average, which is just fine for an average movie with an average story and average production values.