AllMovie

As one character warns another, "your enemy in the morning might not be at night." This is good advice for the protagonists of Chor Yuen's The Jade Tiger, an entertaining if completely convoluted and overwrought wuxia about two rival clans. The fight scenes, choreographed by Huang Pei-Chi and Tong Gaii, are inventively staged with swords and kookier weapons like exploding eyeballs. This makes up for the frustration the viewer may feel trying to figure out on which side each character is battling, such are the endless series of reversals that make up the main story. Like most Shaw Brothers productions this film makes good use of studio shooting to create a detailed fantasy world of martial China and ornate clan fortresses. Cinematographer Huang Chieh expertly utilizes the otherworldly Technicolor-like palette of the Shaw studio stock, using deep blues and verdant greens for the Tang headquarters and pink and orange hues for the realm of the Hate Free Hall. The action reaches an enjoyable fever pitch of cross-cutting duels when the Zhao army is invading the Tang base while Zhao Wuji is unmasked by his Tang friends. But The Jade Tiger is the type of martial arts film that would rather stage fifteen fight sequences when three would do, and the protracted way in which the action is resolved is exasperating.