This was the first movie role for karate and kickboxing Champion Joe Lewis, whom director Pintoff described as "a cross between the sensitivity of James Dean, the rage of a young Marlon Brando, and the flamboyance of Errol Flynn". Let's say this was a slight misjudgment for a young man without any acting experience. Lewis could have played a supporting role as a fighter, but here he has more dialog than Clint Eastwood in five movies. Joe's hair is growing longer or shorter, being colored brighter or darker, changing from scene to scene, so his coiffeur could probably tell in which order the scenes were shot. After "Jaguar Lives", Lewis was never asked to fulfil the contract for 4 movies he had signed.
"Jaguar Lives" is a bizarre combination of expensive Hollywood hubris and cheap action trash. On one hand, they got plenty of stars like Donald Pleasance,
Christopher Lee, Joseph Wiseman (Dr. No), Barbara Bach and even ancient Hollywood legend John Huston (in a wheelchair!). On the other hand, they used a script which is a random collection of scenes without any story or character development (Lewis fights one boss in Hong Kong, one boss in Rome, one boss in wherever, while an off-screen narrator - always the last means of help if nobody understands the story - explains they all work for the same criminal network).
The funniest scene is when Donald Pleasance as general boasts about his precious helicopter with machine guns and rockets, promptly stolen by Lewis - and you see him take off in a totally unarmed old chopper which barely flies. An episode of the TV series "Airwolf" must have had a higher budget than this epic.
"Jaguar Lives" at least has a couple of good fights, a brave star who does dangerous stunts (even the 'cling to the car roof' scene) himself, some funny moments (Donald Pleasance seems to enjoy the part of the general) and is watchable once, but it feels like a disaster of a movie from the moment when Woody Strode watches Joe's Tai Chi practice and tells him how awesome he is. The audience never shares the feeling.
