Wu quan

The movie starts with two screwball kung fu masters sparring. They have bee equal in ability for years and fighting over who is best. Angela Mao comes forward with a proposition. They both teach her their styles and she will fight using one or the other to determine once and for all the best. That is all that is needed for plot. The rest will be martial arts comedy. This was the recipe for success in the coming transition of the genre.

Angela is frequently mistaken for a man in this movie. If you are unfamiliar with this genre this might seem absurd. It's like this, if the character is wearing male clothes then everyone sees only a man. Westerners will also be unable to tell the difference between male and female clothes. The reveal comes when the woman lets down her hair. Everyone is then amazed that she was a woman all along. This also might seem absurd because the men also have hair just as long. So now you know the rules. They make no sense but now you know!

A movie like this lives or dies by the fights. The acting will be overacting, mugging for the camera, and double takes, and nothing more. The character development is nonexistent. The plot already set up in the first scene.

My review and rating is based on the fights. There has to be a lot of fights. This movie might have more fights than any movie ever. Dr. Craig D. Reid in his book "The Ultimate Guide to Martial Arts Movies of the 1970s" calculated that 53.26% of the run time of this movie was fight action. A frequent problem with movies that have a lot of fighting is that the action can quickly start to all look alike. I did not see that as a problem in this movie. The quality of the fighting requires power, speed, and focus. A punch should look like it would really hurt. The moves must also be fast and smooth. There should be no hesitation, jerkiness, or uneven pacing with punches and blocks. Finally, the hits have to make contact or at least come close enough not to be obvious. All of this can be accomplished with practice but the time for practice was a luxury back then. Film was also expensive so if it wasn't good on the first take as long as it was good enough they moved on.

There are also details in fight choreography such as using the fight to advance the plot or reveal the character of the fighter. In 1976 these ideas were rarely used.

Rather than over complicate everything, here's all you need in a review for this movie. "Dance of Death" is a fun to watch martial arts comedy and as a fun to watch martial arts comedy I rate it as one of the best martial arts movies of 1976.

Martial arts choreography for this film is credited to "Chen Lung" - this is almost certainly Jackie Chan using a pseudonym. The release date of the film is 1980, but it was probably made in '78, when Chan worked with director Chen Chi Hwa on a couple films, including "Half a Loaf of Kung Fu" (early Chan starring vehicle) and "36 Crazy Fists" (which Chan choreographed without performing in. "Dance of Death" apparently uses the same crew and many of the same players, and looks and moves very much like the two Chan films. Those with a sense of different 'Fu styles should pay special attention to Mao's use of the middle-finger-knuckle fist (sometimes called phoenix fist or - wrongly - dragon fist in other films) - Chan actually introduced this into the 'Fu film idiom in a film credited to Low Wei (but probably directed by Chan himself), "Dragon Fist". Also pay attention to Mao's use of Snake-fist moves; her interpretation of this style is pure Chan - compare with his use of this style in "Snake in the Eagle's Shadow".

This said, the film would be little worth noting, due to a very weak script - the comedy is second rate, and the film feels incomplete - except for one essential element - Angela Mao.

Introduced to the 'Fu film world by Bruce Lee in "Enter the Dragon", Angel Mao's career gradually withered away due to an apparent lack of acting skills. She seemed capable of only two emotions, impatience and outrage. Thanks to this film, we can now see that her real curse was the type of role into which she was frequently cast. In "Dance of Death" Mao is allowed an opportunity to play comedy with a much wider range of emotional response, and frequent moments of humor. This may be the first performance I've seen from her in which she actually smiles. And she is quite charming when she does. In fact she handles comedy very well, and overall comes across as a performer one would like to see again and again. I should also mention that, although she wears male clothing throughout the film, she exudes a captivating femininity and sexuality - which actually becomes part of the plot and action of the film at the end. This film thus becomes a testament to the abilities of a performer who was otherwise underestimated throughout much of her career.

Fei Fei (Angela Mao) wants to kill a bad guy, but her Kungfu isn't good enough. She learns from 2 masters - who have a competition going on whose style is best - but still isn't good enough. A visit at a brothel inspires the 2 masters to create a new style called dancing girl, and after Fei Fei adds a few ideas of her own, she can challenge the bad guy again.

This is a really funny movie. Jackie Chan mentions in his autobiography he worked as a stunt coordinator on this movie, and it shows. Admittedly the variety of styles is taken beyond the border of silliness, but as a comedy, "Dance of Death" is fast, elegant and tireless. A great leading role for Angela Mao, although one wonders why she had to dress like a man for the part.

....especially for the fact that we're apparently meant to assume that every character in the movie assumes that Angela Mao's character is a man; she's constantly referred to as such in the dialogue, but there is absolutely nothing "manly" in the way the gorgeous Angela looks and sounds. More lighthearted than some of her other films, and even resembling a slapstick comedy at times, "Dance of Death" is made up by about 10% plot and 90% fighting. And the fighting itself is mostly of the type that I have a problem with in these "old-school" kung fu movies: it looks too much like a carefully planned, elaborate stage performance / demonstration of various styles, and it lacks intensity. Of course movie fighting HAS to be carefully planned, but the trick is not to LOOK like it. (**)

This is a movie for Angela Mao fans. Most others will be disappointed, but for the Mao fan it is unmissable.

Angela plays a (male) beggar who's involved with a kung fu school. When her school is attacked by an evil rival school, she is chased into the countryside where she immediately discovers two elderly kung fu masters (the landscape must be crawling with them). These two are fighting each other for fun, trying to find out who's best. For the last 20 years, they have been meeting every five years to test their skills against each other, but it's always a draw. Angela suggests that they teach their styles to her, and then she can use it on some bad guys, and whoever's styles are most effective, will be triumphant. The old guys cannot resist this, and start teaching her.

As a result, the movie is totally full of both training and fighting against enemies. Enemies are everywhere, it seems, and revenge is mentioned often; it is apparently just about the only thing kung fu is used for. I think this is another part of the movie's intentional genre satire.

Dance of Death is primarily a comedy; all elements of the story and acting are devoted to comedy. Most of the comedy is so silly as to be awful, but little bits of it are all right, largely thanks to Angela Mao's charisma and cheerful acting. She hams it up as a man, effectively exaggerating everything for comedic value. I don't think she's supposed to be a woman dressed as a man; I think she's actually *playing* a man, with her obvious female wiles (and the dancing bit) simply being part of the movie's intentional comedy.

The movie, although it has its funny points, would be something of a loss if it wasn't for Angela Mao herself. She is many classes above the rest, and a joy to behold. She has marvelously beautiful moves, and is herself marvelously beautiful - at the top of her career here, I would say. Because the movie and much of the fighting is comical, there is indeed a certain intensity lacking. A previous reviewer mentioned how the fights often look like "carefully planned, elaborate stage performance", as they often do in the not-quite-first-rate kung fu movies, and this is true. It tends to get rather dull to see a lot of formal acrobatics where the combatants rarely if ever touch each other, and the whole sequence often feels highly artificial. However, I will say that Angela Mao makes the fights in this movie look better than that. Her every move is obviously expert and admirably graceful, and for a kung fu fan it is absolutely delicious eye-candy. Much of the movie commands your very close attention because you don't want to miss any of the cool fighting. That's a good thing for a martial arts movie to do.

The main bad guy of the movie, that Angela and others labor to beat, practices something called "upside-down horse boxing", which is simultaneously immensely cool and immensely silly; in short, pretty outrageous. And speaking of silly, the movie parodies strange kung fu styles by inventing a "dancing girl" or "concubine" style, after which the movie is named, but which in fact only plays a minor role in the story. It is an intensely comical element, and of course Angela Mao makes it look very cute.

My Rarescope DVD was cheap and well worth the price. Still, despite being a recent release, the poor-looking (and poor-reading!) subtitles are hard-coded from some old cinema reel, which is a disappointment. The DVD also has an English dubbing track, with dialog that is different from the still present hard-coded subtitles. I often despair at why the heck we never (never!) get proper, professional subs for movies like these. Without knowing what they're *really* saying, we're never really given a full and whole version of the movie. :-(

Jackie Chan's name is on the DVD cover, which is something of a misnomer. He was "stunt coordinator" on the movie, but whether that also means action choreographer, I don't know - I doubt it. It's true that some of Angela's acting and fighting style look very Chan-ish, but I don't think Jackie's influence was all that pervasive here.

Without Angela Mao, the movie would not be worthwhile, rating at most a 3 or 4 or so. But with her, it is very worthwhile for fans of her, and receives from me a 6 out of 10 rating. It's even possible I may later emend the rating to a 7.