The Jade Raksha

The movie starts with spooky music and decapitations. After the credits the folks at the tea house discuss the title character. Cheng Pei Pei expresses her displeasure by tossing peanuts at the yokels. Tang Ching, however, displays his inner power by catching a peanut with chopsticks. He sits down with our girl and they discuss the plot. Cheng Pei Pei's breakout martial arts movie was "Come Drink With Me". Her character unfortunately fizzled out after being poisoned and Yueh Hua took over the lead. She had a few other movies but here is where she really did the martial arts lead female character from start to finish. At about twelve minutes in she does a fight sequence that for 1968 I consider the best state of the art. What made a fight sequence good back then? First of all it is really her, not a stunt double. Second it is a long shot showing most or all of her body. Third and most important - she does at least 20 moves without a cut. That was as good as it got before actors who were martial arts experts and digital effects. Now for the worst. The wirework was over ambitious and looked terrible because of it. The bamboo pole vault was the worst of the worst. Still I rate it a notch above average for the year and genre.