The Jade Raksha (1968)

The shortest distance between two points may be a straight line but revenge is often circular

The Jade Raksha started out as a typical revenge wuxia and then dug a little deeper to give it a nice twist. Cheng Pei Pei once again played a confident swordswoman but this time she was more anti-hero than hero. Three fathers died and three children swore revenge in a vicious violent circle.

Leng Qiu Han has been rampaging against the Yan family in a desire to make them pay for murdering her family. The problem is, she doesn’t know which one did the vile deed. She crosses paths and swords with Xu Ying Hao. Xu tries to convince her to find evidence as to which Yan killed her family instead of taking the lives of innocent people. Leng has no intention of discontinuing her blood-letting. Xu can’t hang around because he has his own revenge to fulfill against the man who killed his father which in turn will spawn a new cycle of revenge.

I was relieved that there wasn’t a romance between Leng and Xu as Tang Ching was twice Cheng Pei Pei’s age in real life. The film did seem to be trying to make Xu younger than Tang Ching’s grizzled appearance. Leng could be difficult to like as she sliced her way to the top of the Yan family because Xu did have a point. At first, I wasn’t sure if she was avenging her family’s death or punishing the Yan’s crimes against animals and fashion. Many of them wore some atrocious looking animal furs. Interestingly, Xu’s sense of morality didn’t make his revenge any more righteous than hers. In the end, many revenge plot points were finally pulled together in a long exposition dump in the villain’s dungeon of doom.

There was fun wuxia action to be had---running on water, fighting on the top of bamboo trees, bamboo pole vaulting over a flaming bridge, and light body leaping onto roofs. The sword fighting was average for the time period, nothing terribly inspiring. The sets and scenery set the mood for the different scenes perfectly. The dungeon of doom had a specialized guillotine for head and arms which was demonstrated. There were enough traps and torture devices that it made the virtuous Xu question the philanthropic lead Yan’s innocence. I loved that the secret door leading to the dungeon had a sign reading “Always Be Kind”. Of course, the sign at the gate of the fortress read, “Home of Mercy.” False advertising at its best.

This was not my favorite Cheng Pei Pei role though she was fine in it. Leng's kill first, ask questions later attitude and penchant for jealousy made the character difficult to connect with. As I mentioned, Tang Ching seemed a little too long in the tooth for the hero but he did well as the swordsman who wanted to do the right thing but made some unfortunate choices. One of my favorites, Ku Feng, gave depth to the story as a blind father with a dark secret. Get in line, buddy, there were plenty of secrets to go around. And plenty of revenge. The film showed that the road to revenge is not always a straight line or as simple as it might seem.

16 Dec 2023

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