The Jade Fox
Director: Kao
Pao-shu
Year: 1979
Rating: 6.0
Dubbed
Aka - Ninja vs Jade Fox (there are no ninjas)
Good cast, a ton of martial arts action
and a plot in which the legendary scriptwriter Ni Kuang tries to keep throwing
surprises at the audience till the very end. It was directed by Kao Pao-shu,
one of the very few female directors at the time. She had been a well-known
character actress going back to the beginning of the 1950s and then hooked
up with the Shaw Brothers in many films. She began her directing career in
1971 with Shaw Brothers for the film Lady with a Sword but then left Shaw
to direct another ten films over the next decade. She plays the wicked villain
here as well and does a credible job. The plot is much more ambitious than
the means - there isn't much of a budget but there are a few nifty bits that
they do.
Kao Pao-shu and her brother played by Lo
Lieh have a plan to overthrow the Emperor - though she never has more than
30 or so men with her. But she does have a carriage that she travels in with
more gadgets and booby traps than a James Bond villain. She also has a vehicle
that looks like a Roman galley with a trap roof and men rowing it. On the
ground. The Jade Fox (Tien Peng) intercepts a messenger and after killing
him discovers a map that is needed to overthrow the regime. He does the natural
thing. He goes to the Happy Nest which is basically an enormous brothel and
surrounds himself with a handful of beautiful women. I mean why not. You
kill a man; you need to rest up. He also has his two blood brothers
there to hang out with - played by Eddie Ko and Nick Cheung.
His frolicking is interrupted by a female
who barges into the brothel and demands to see her husband, Nick Cheung.
This is the lovely Doris Lung who gets a ten-minute set-piece to take on
about 20 guys after she rips the tongue out of one. Doris gets a lot of action
in this one - too often in films she is sidelined as the cutie but here she
acquits herself very well. Turns out her husband has been captured by Kao
and the three of them plus a small boy go to save him.
The boy is played by Huang I Lung also called
Jackie Chan Jr and his acrobatic skills are pretty great. Surprised to see
that he didn't make many films before he disappeared off HKMDB. He seems
a natural for being on Sammo's or Jackie's stunt team. Not a great film or
close to it but I was happy seeing Doris Lung with a lot of action and Eddie
Ko, Lo Lieh and Tien Peng is a first-rate cast. The choreography isn't fancy
but there is plenty of it and it is not bad. Good enough as they say.
