I like to think that To Kill a Jaguar is a part of the unoffical Goddather trilogy from Shaw Bros studio with Godfather of Canton and Hong Kong Godfather but unlike the funny Canton one and the balls to the wall Hong Kong one this movie is a real stinker when it come to character motivation and plot. This movie supposed to be a crime drama driven movie with kung-fu fight to spice up the story and when the action kick in it really entertaining but after all the back to back backstabbing of the unlikable main cast and the equally unlikable main character development when he goes from a gray character that people can root for to a really disgusting bad one and out of nowhere near the end a tragic one it only make my eyes rolling. I can still appreciate the story and the character arc if the main character is more fleshed out so with 90 minutes runtime this kind of complex character is bound to fail
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phanthinga9 March 2019
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Leofwine_draca2 April 2020TO KILL A JAGUAR is a very unusual gangster flick from the Shaw Brothers studio. It's one of those films that constantly pulls the rug out from underneath the viewer, offering a tough bodyguard character who appears to be the film's hero until the midway point when all becomes apparent. The film's real hero, Tony Liu, doesn't even show up until the last twenty minutes. The whole thing offers a welter of death and depravity, with the female cast members - former Bruce Lee stalwart Nora Miao among them - particularly badly treated.
It's not a martial arts film per se, but there's a wealth of decent and violent battles that remind one of the likes of Chang Cheh's gangster flicks such as VENGEANCE, and the choreography is exceptional as you'd expect from Shaw. Plus studio heavyweights such as Johnny Wang Lung Wei show up for important supporting roles. What's not to love?