To Kill a Jaguar (Jue Bu Di Tou, 1977)

Hua Shan

Hong Kong

90 min, color, Mandarin (English subtitles)

Review © 2004 Branislav L. Slantchev

Having started my foray into Hua Shan's work with the pretty decent Soul of the Sword, I decided to give the director another try. The next film I pulled was To Kill a Jaguar, an apparently unknown flick that is not even registered with the IMDB (as of today). This is all the more surprising given the star-studded cast --- Nora Miao, Tsung Hua, Ling Yun, and Liu Yung --- and the simple fact that this is one damn good film. Maybe the performances were strained, and perhaps some of the fights could have been better, heck maybe the blind guy did not have to strangle that kid, all these quibbles are minor and really do not detract much from the enjoyment of this outing.

Nora is a scared peasant girl	Nora is a dumbfounded peasant girl
Nora is a naked and surprised girl	Tsung Hua as the knight in shining white shirt

Nora Miao is Bobo, a simple village girl abandoned by her lover Luo Lie (Liu Yung) and seeking her father in the dirty underbelly (is there ever a clean underbelly?) of Shanghai. She stumbles into a gang war where she immediately meets with her childhood friend Silly Boy better known as Jaguar (Tsung Hua) in the streets of the city. I don't know about anyone else, but Tsung Hua will always remain The Bastard for me. I don't ever recall him playing a good guy since that film! Well anyway, he seems really nice, taking Bobo under his wing, putting her up in a safe motel where she is instantly beset by two thugs who steal her clothes and leer at her while she is nude and glowering, saving her from said thugs, and then bedding her. All in a good day's work.

Jaguar / Silly Boy	Mr. Kim with trophy wife and a Cuban
Fan Mei Sheng urges Ling Yun to murder	Violence against minors

Now this Jaguar dude is Mr. Kim's bodyguard and Kim has problems or at least a problem named Magpie. The ornithological reference will remain obscure but this Magpie is apparently appropriately thieving. To get rid of the menace, Mr. Kim has Jaguar trash a casino, abduct a girl, and threaten her with rape. This fails miserably when it turns out that this girl has been having sex from the tender age of fifteen. Unfortunately, Jaguar falls into Mr. Kim's trap that he was supposed to set for Mr. Sam (Fan Mei Sheng) while simultaneously providing target practice for the cool man with the silver gun Ko Tang (Ling Yun). All is forgotten, however, when Jaguar goes back to Bobo and gives her a car that his boss had earmarked for someone else following Jaguar's deaths. Yeah, it's one long series of failed plans.

Nora enjoys her sugar daddy Silly Boy	Ling Yun at a job interview
Gratuitous shot of Nora Miao	Former fiancee expresses profound dislike

Anyway, turns out Ko Tang is a friend of Luo Lie, the childhood friend of both Bobo and Silly Boy/Jaguar who is rotting in prison although it is not clear whether the prison is in Germany or it somehow involves some German. To cut the story short by about 20 minutes, Jaguar takes over the gang from Mr. Kim by setting and springing successfully yet another double cross. It then turns out that Mr. Kim is Bobo's long-lost dad and Jaguar really is a bastard for having used Bobo to wreak his vengeance. What vengeance you ask? Well, it now turns out that Mr. Kim's wife Sum Chun-Tsui used to be Jaguar's fiancee. Talk about stupid boss: why would you steal an underling's girl and then keep the guy employed?

Gratuitous shot of Nora Miao	Jaguar, upgraded and slick

Naturally, this does not go down well with Bobo who tries to humiliate and kill, not necessarily in that order, Jaguar. However, he only locks her up in the basement, which unequivocally demonstrates that he truly cares for her. Then, all of a sudden, Luo Lie shows up and kicks ass. From this point on, it's one ass kicked after another until I lost count. The only bright moment was when the blind guy strangled the newspaper delivery boy. Oh wait, this was a dark moment!

Liu Yung and Tsung Hua, friends?	Liu Yung and Tsung Hua, friends?

Well, it all comes down to an epic confrontation between the two erstwhile friends. Jaguar hates Luo Lie for having Bobo and abandoning her. Luo hates Jaguar for killing his other best friend and has an unhealthy ambition to rub the dirty underbelly of Shanghai. Bobo is torn between hatred and affection as she watches her two friends pummel each other with all appendages. In the end, Jaguar is defeated and in the resulting chaos, Bobo gets an ax embedded in her spine, which ruins her posture. Luo lets the Jaguar walk out with the body knowing that even though he is physically alive, he has died with Bobo.

Jaguar not dying in Bobo's arms	Bobo really dying in Jaguar's arms

A nicely done drama without surprising twists but with plenty of emotion, To Kill a Jaguar continues the upward trend in Hua Shan's ratings in my book. Nora Miao is very attractive and can carry with conviction every role from a simple peasant girl to a seductive hostess, going through several stages of heartbreak in the process. The cinematography is also quite inspired on several occasions and the fights are competently done even though they are only marginally important to the story.

The Celestial Pictures DVD is what one would expect at this point. It has a nice widescreen transfer, anamorphic and in the correct 2.35:1 aspect ratio. Only the Mandarin soundtrack is included (Dolby Digital 2.0), and the optional English subtitles leave something to be desired in idiomatic usage. The extras consist of the usual photo gallery, talent files, and several trailers. A solid release of a pretty neat film.

July 1, 2004