A mystical weapon with a green blade, called the The "Green Frost Sword", is stolen. Two female swordfighters whom are leaders of a martial arts clan is assigned to track it down, and teams up with a dashing master swordsman also seeking the sword only to uncover a martial arts conspiracy in the process. And no, we're not talking about Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.
Rape of the Sword is a 1967 Shaw Brothers wuxia directed by Yueh Feng, starring long-time Shaw Brothers action chicks Li Ching and Li Li-hua, and is considered the closest Spiritual Adaptation of Wang Da-lu's 1941 novel, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, before the later 2000 film. Incidentally, the studio denies the film to be a straight adaptation, claiming to have never heard of the novel, which Wang Da-lu isn't present to confirm or deny due to living in mainland China, far away from Shaw Brothers studios in Hong Kong.
Contains Examples of:
- Action Girl: Geng Liu-Niang and Zhong Jiao-long can both kick plenty of ass by themselves.
- Action Prologue: The film opens with Han, the clan traitor, killing the lawful student in order to steal the Green Sword after a lengthy Sword Fight. Then cue opening titles.
- Big Bad Duumvirate: Han the traitor is working together with the actual Big Bad, Prince Lu Tian-xia, seeking the Green Frost Sword for their own reasons.
- Chiaroscuro: Liu-niang's conversation with Jiao-long in her bedroom late at night uses this effect.
- Combat Hand Fan: Lo Yi-hu uses a folding fan as his weapon, and can hold his own against the sword-wielding Liu-niang and Jiao-long.
- Damsel out of Distress: Prince Lu sending a platoon of soldiers to ambush Jiao-long and Liu-niang, whom are travelling in their own cavalier carriage. Both women gets surrounded in an instant, but being capable swordswomen, they instead steals swords from mooks threatening them and quickly kills their way out.
- Cool Sword: The "Green Frost Sword", coveted by all clans of the martial arts world.
- Five-Second Foreshadowing: During the night ambush, Liu-niang, alone in her room, suddenly notes how the surrounding forest have become absolutely quiet. There is a shot of a dead leaf dropping on the pavement outside her hut, and suddenly a number of mooks comes charging towards her.
- In a Single Bound: No wuxia would be complete without this trope. There is one scene which is pretty much Mundane Made Awesome however, when Jiao-long use her leaping powers to... pluck two out-of-reach apricots from a tree.
- Master Swordsman: The film is filled with these. Everyone uses swords in battle, regardless their allegiance, resulting in plenty of sword battles.
- Throwing Your Sword Always Works: Averted when two enemy mooks, realizing they're no match for Liu-niang after she cut down several of their colleagues, attempt to throw their swords at her. She use her robes to catch those swords instead.
- Wuxia
