Jade Dagger Ninja (most likely not the original title) is a decent wuxia tale, but gets bogged down in a multitude of characters and plot holes. Roc Tien once again takes the lead role of a righteous swordsman, this time on the hunt for the man that murdered his wife many years ago. Roc has played this role a multitude of times, so there is no stretch here. The wuxia elements are done fairly well, with lots of people and weapons flying every which way. Once again though (similar to another Roc Tien movie, The Silver Spear), this feels like a severely edited version of a much more intricate story. There are scenes that look to have important characters that have no other place in the story, like the two travelers that are murdered along the road to open the movie. I'm left again wondering what scenes were cut out and how they could have made the movie better if they didn't feel the need to edit everything into a 90 minute chunk. The one refreshing character in the story is the sexually-starved assassin played by the amazingly beautiful Chin Meng. She adds a fair amount of humor to the proceedings and is sorely missed when not on screen. Chung Wa is an seemingly-emotionless killer until he is reunited with his former lover and immediately turns into a weeping sad-sack. His is another character that appears to be woefully underdeveloped. The final scene with what seems to be a hulk-inspired Kam Kong roaring and tearing people limb from limb is a little too late to rescue the movie that is already on life-support.

4/10