Kung-Fu Zero: Jaguar Lives

When you think of famous film debuts for kung-fu stars, what do you think? Big Boss' in-your-face action? Drunken Master's daring absurdity? A bad kung-fu movie that has a plot that builds and builds around a reveal that is both really obvious and oblique? If you guessed the latter, you are in the right mood for today's film. This movie was designed to introduce the next breakout kung-fu actor. Does that always work out? Well, just ask Gary Daniels, Daniel Bernhardt and Michael Dudikoff about that. To make matters worse, the film was written by a man with about four film credits, one of which was a film about Mickey Rourke keeping a woman tied up in his basement. It's director was mostly a television episode director who only did a few other films, including the cinematic classic Lunch Wagon Girls. Plus, they cast every random good actor they could find and gave them nothing to do. I should be worried, right? You should be too as I review...

Jaguar Lives

Our film begins extremely abruptly with our hero and his unseen partner. They are in the middle of a mission and trying to stop some misdeed. Right at the highest point of the suspense, someone shoots our hero and the narrative jumps to him recovering. Thanks for all the plot set-up guys, I'm riveted now. Oh and that giant statue of Jesus in Rio De Janeiro that people always use as an establishing shot- they blow it up. We are now in the middle of a desert watching Joe Lewis (aka The Jaguar) do yoga shirtless. It's like you read my mind, movie. He has recovered from the stress and the bullet wound, but doesn't want to go on a mission. This plot will be seen again in about ten years in Rambo III. Like all men, he has one weakness: 1970s era Barbara Bach. She convinces him to go on a globe-trotting mission to stop a drug cartel. Works every time!

*

The movie feels like it is supposed to have more going on, but failed to produce it. They set up this idea of the mysterious boss behind it all. The only problem is that the mystery is completely manufactured and goes nowhere. Our heroes journey sends him all over the place and interacting with many random plots that are chosen for them. As such, I will note them properly.

*

-He meets up with a crazed General (Donald Pleasance) who is working for the drug dealer. This is an excuse to set-up a couple fight scenes before he moves on.
-He meets up with a lady who runs a factory related to the drug cartel. This is an excuse to set-up a couple of fight scenes before he moves on.
-John Huston shows up somewhere in the middle of this in a pointless and thankless cameo.
-He runs into a crazy, rich guy (Christopher Lee) who catches him and forces him to run a ninja gauntlet...in his giant backyard. This is...aw, you get the point.

*

The movie builds and builds until we get the big reveal. They show the villain's face and it is...someone we have never seen before. Why? Because it is Jaguar's ex-partner! Dun dun...who cares? We get a long fight scene of the two of them shirtless on a castle banister. It is not quite as good as the fight from Deathstalker II, but much better than the one in Deathstalker III. You already know what happens, don't you? Jaguar lives and the bad guy dies. Whoopee. The End.

*

Yeah, this movie is dumb. It is a good look at the 1970s though, for better or for worse. It involves people flying all over the world for location shooting, has white guy kung-fu and features three former Bond villains. Even with all of that, the movie is incredibly uninspired. The kung-fu is not terrible and the action is alright- there is just nothing really to it. The whole film hinges on caring about Joe Lewis and rooting for him. Yeah, that does not happen. He has the chemistry and charisma of a wet paper bag. He can kick well, sure, but that's about it. Fortunately, Lewis, like Don "The Dragon" Wilson, had his kickboxing background to fall back on for a while- he needed it.

*

Up next, a film that will sound really familiar to Larry Cohen fans...except it predates his work by thirty-six years! Stay tuned...