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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
High-quality transfer of lesser Angela Mao vehicle, December 31, 2002
This review is from: Moonlight Sword & Jade Lion (DVD)
1970s kung fu diva Angela Mao has a bigger part in MOONLIGHT SWORD AND JADE LION (1979) than in some of her other later films (e.g. SNAKE DEADLY ACT, THE LEGENDARY STRIKE) and cuts a striking figure as a swordswoman seeking the identities of the men who killed her parents when she was a baby. The fights tend to be too short and overly reliant on gimmicky stunts involving flying chopsticks and plates and the like, but Angela does get to do a lot of swordplay and acrobatics. However, the simple plot is made much more confusing than it needed to be thanks to all sorts of additional characters who skulk about plotting each other's murders for no discernible reasons. Kung fu star Wong Tao (CHALLENGE OF DEATH, DEATH DUEL OF KUNG FU) pops up early as a potential partner for Angela but then disappears for most of the movie. Another fighting femme, Lung Chun Erh (aka Doris Chen, star of THE MAGNIFICENT), appears briefly and has one fight with Angela over the Jade Lion of the title. While it's strictly a minor entry in the kung fu genre, the good news is that it comes to us in a high-quality tape and DVD edition (from Crash Cinema) boasting a letter-boxed transfer which enables fans to see all of the action. The sets and costumes are all attractively designed and help make it, at the very least, a good-looking kung fu film. The English-language soundtrack is another matter, however, suffering as it does from a truly atrocious dub job featuring a particularly annoying voice for Angela. The music score will certainly sound familiar to fans of Italian westerns, whose soundtracks were often ripped off by kung fu movie producers.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A serious Martial Arts Movie, March 22, 2001
This review is from: Moonlight Sword & Jade Lion (DVD)
Although the action sequences were quite short(except for the final duel), this is one of the more serious martial arts movie I have seen. Angela Mao and Wang Tao were spectacular. Mao was so serious that you rarely saw her smile. The plot was twisted and good, and it was hard to tell who the bad guys were. A story of deceipt and betrayal. There was a good reason behind all the fight scenes, rather than people looking for every excuse to fight like in some other kung-fu movies. Though you might think it is slow paced at times, this is a good movie to keep. The sound quality was not very good though.
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2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Bad movie, but a good substitution for a sleeping pill, February 17, 2007
This review is from: Moonlight Sword & Jade Lion (DVD)
This is one of those movies where they suck you in with big names like Angela Mao and Don Wong Tao. The characters just basically walk around the whole movie and in the scenes where they do actually fight, it is horrible choreography. It is not the worst fighting I have ever seen but there was just no thought put into it. The choreography is just your standard hit the guy once, and then hit him another time in a different area of his body, and that's it. All of the blows being traded just have one person striking and the other person moving their head left to right dodging. It is very clunky and there are no good fights, until the end. The final fight I thought was OK with decent stunt doubling acrobatics. Don't expect to be blown away or anything. The main problem in this movie is that the action director didn't have a clue on choreographing scenes and how to shoot them. The actors(and actresses)presence are the only thing that make the fights even close to watchable. Look for Angela Mao's metal spear that she uses, it looks to be made out of rubber.
I fell asleep the first 2 times I saw this and had to watch it during the daytime so I could make it all the way through. Every line of dialogue is almost meaningless. Everything is so done badly done I could never come close to listing all that is wrong. The great sets and costumes are really the only thing saving this movie from being a complete waste. 1.5/5
The only real positive here is that the Crash Cinema version is letterboxed with good picture quality.
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