Snake in the Eagle’s Shadow [蛇形刁手] (1978)
AKA Eagle’s Shadow; Eagle Claw’s, Snake’s Fist, Cat’s Paw; Snaky Monkey
Starring Jackie Chan, Hwang Jang-Lee, Simon Yuen Siu-Tin, Dean Shek Tin, Fung Hak-On, Tino Wong Cheung, Peter Chan Lung, Hsu Hsia, Charlie Chan Yiu-Lam, Roy Horan
Directed by Yuen Woo-Ping
Expectations: Very high.
Snake in the Eagle’s Shadow is one of the most important and most influential kung fu films of all time, not only giving Jackie Chan his breakthrough hit, but also introducing the world to a style of kung fu film that had never really been seen before. Shaolin Wooden Men may have gotten us closer to a true Jackie Chan film, but Snake in the Eagle’s Shadow is the real deal. Free of Lo Wei’s authoritarian control, Jackie and Yuen Woo-Ping craft an incredibly enjoyable kung fu romp. I don’t think it’s a perfect film, but the positive aspects are overwhelmingly great, so they easily overshadow whatever problems I had with the film.
Snake in the Eagle’s Shadow is the story of the struggle between the evil Eagle’s Claw clan and their systematic murder of every practitioner of the Snake Fist style, but it’s also the story of a young man named Chien Fu (Jackie Chan). He’s a lowly kid that scrubs the floors of his martial arts school, without reward and without ambition to do much else. The current masters taunt him by purposefully stepping in chalk and tracking it all around the dojo, making him work needlessly. But when he befriends an old beggar (Simon Yuen), his life is forever changed as he learns Snake Fist style from the old man. Given the tools to make something of himself, Chien Fu — and Jackie Chan himself — rises to the occasion and shows us all what he’s truly capable of.