The Jade Tiger (Bai Yu Laohu)

Chu Yuan’s penchant for labyrinthine plotting reaches its zenith in this dizzying adaptation of the Gu Long novel. On his wedding day, a Zhou warrior (Di Long) is catapulted by the threat of his father’s decapitation into the middle of a no-holds-barred war between his clan and the Tangs. The outrageous characters, exotic weapons, and proliferating layers of subterfuge are hyperbolic even by the standards of an excess-saturated subgenre. 1977, Hong Kong, color, 35mm, in Mandarin with English subtitles, 101 minutes.