Snake in the Eagle’s Shadow (1978)

Snake in the Eagle’s Shadow (1978)
Aka: Eagle’s Shadow; Eagle Claw's, Snake's Fist, Cat's Paw
Chinese Title: 蛇形刁手
Translation: Serpentine Tricky Hand

 

Starring: Jackie Chan, Hwang Jang-Lee, Simon Yuen Siu-Tin, Dean Shek Tin, Fung Hak-On, Tino Wong Cheung, Peter Chan Lung, Tyrone Hsu Hsia, Charlie Chan Yiu-Lam, Roy Horan, Fung Ging-Man, Chiang Kam, Chiu Chi-Ling
Director: Yuen Woo-Ping
Action Director: Yuen Woo-Ping, Tyrone Hsu Hsia, Brandy Yuen Jan-Yeung, Yuen Shun-Yi, Corey Yuen

 

By 1978, action director Yuen Woo-Ping’s career was on the up and up. Yuen had spent the past eight years establishing his creds as a fight choreographer, alternating between second-string Shaw Brothers films (The Shadow Boxer; Bruce Lee and I; The Killer; etc.) and numerous indie programmers (The Black Belt; Fist to Fist; The Awaken Punch; etc.). He had met Seasonal Films’ Ng See-Yuen early in their respective careers, serving as action director for Ng’s directorial debut, The Bloody Fists.

The previous year had really seen Yuen’s stock rise. As successful as The Secret Rivals was, Don Wong Tao quickly had a falling out Ng See-Yuen and jumped ship, taking fight choreographer Gam Ming (or Tommy Lee) with him. So when Ng See-Yuen made the inevitable sequel, he brought Yuen Woo-Ping on board as action director, with Tino Wong Cheung (a stuntman for the Shaw Brothers who had worked with Woo-Ping on several of his films) filling in for Don Wong Tao as the fist master. The Secret Rivals II was successful enough that Yuen Woo-Ping worked with superkickers Hwang Jang Lee and John Liu twice more that year. Yuen Woo-Ping also provided the action on the moderately successful Shaw Brothers film Deadly Angels, plus got his foot in the door at Golden Harvest as the choreographer of Broken Oath, the last film kung fu diva Angela Mao made for that studio.

Yuen Woo-Ping was now ready to take the reins as a director. Ng See-Yuen had already included some comedy in his earlier films, like Call Me Dragon and Kidnap in Rome. However, those were still relatively serious affairs. Nonetheless, Ng See-Yuen saw the need to up the comedy and lower the violence (in contrast to many of the Shaw Brothers films of that era) in order to reach certain markets that blocked the importation of violent films. Ng, in the role of producer, would make his next film, Snake in the Eagle’s Shadow, an outright comedy. Ng See-Yuen originally wanted to cast Cliff Lok in the lead role, but Yuen Woo-Ping insisted on Jackie Chan. Jackie had previously worked with Woo-Ping’s brother, Yuen Cheung-Yan, on The Eagle Shadow Fist and Police Woman, and both had a similar kung fu background.

At that time, director Lo Wei had been working with Jackie Chan for almost two years and still had not made him a star. Jackie had been cast as a Bruce Lee clone (New Fist of Fury), a standard kung fu do-gooder (Shaolin Wooden Men), as a wuxia hero (To Kill with Intrigue) and even as a villain (The Killer Meteors). All the while, Jackie was still pestering Lo Wei to let him make a kung fu comedy, but to no avail. Lo Wei was willing to loan Jackie out to Seasonal Films to make a few movies, glad to be rid of Jackie for a few weeks. The gamble turned out to be a smart one, as Snake in the Eagle’s Shadow ended up becoming Jackie Chan’s first real hit.

Jackie Chan plays Chien Fu, an orphan who works at the Wuhu School doing odd jobs. Whenever the master, Sifu Hung, is away on business, the two assistant instructors (Dean Shek and Peter Chan), use the poor bastard as a punching bag. One day, Chien Fu is out running errands when he comes across an old beggar (Simon Yuen Siu-Tin) getting picked on the students of a rival school. Chien Fu comes to his aid and the two quickly become friends.

It turns out that the beggar, Pai Chang-Tien, is a master of the Snake Fist School. He’s on the run from the Eagle Claw School, led by Shang Kuan-Yin (Hwang Jang Lee). The Eagle Claw school has been systematically slaughtering the proponents of the Snake Fist style. At this point, there are only two practioners left: Pai and the son of Master Chao (Fung Hak-On, whose character is killed in the opening scene). When Pai Chan-Tien takes leave of Chien Fu to look for Chao’s son, he is ambushed by Shang’s assassins (Tyrone Hsu Hsia and Roy Horan, dressed as a priest!) and injured. Chien Fu finds Pai Chan-Tien and nurses him back to health. As a token of his gratitude, Pai agrees to teach the Snake style to Chien Fu, granted he never reveal his skills to the world. But this is a kung fu movie, so good luck on that.

Snake in the Eagle’s Shadow established what fans refer to as the “Seasonal Formula” of plotting. There are actually two variations to the formula. In this one, the main character is a luckless bumpkin who learns kung fu (sometimes one style, sometimes two) in order to defeat a nigh-unbeatable villain. In this film, for instance, Chien Fu initially learns the Snake Fist, but later invents his own Cat’s Claw style after watching his pet cat kill a cobra. The second variation of the formula, as established by The Drunken Master, features a main protagonist who already knows kung fu, but is usually an arrogant jerk who’s forced by tragedy to humble himself and learn a new style to defeat the villain.

Despite the dozens of kung fu comedies that followed in the wake of the success of Jackie Chan’s collaborations with Seasonal Films, Snake in the Eagle’s Shadow remains the best take on the formula it established. Part of it has to do with Jackie Chan’s natural charisma: his Chien Fu is a bit of a simpleton, but he’s a likable fellow with a warm heart. A lot of actors who followed in Jackie’s footsteps played up the simpleton part, while forgetting to be likable. Moreover, the chemistry between Chan and co-star Simon Yuen is quite endearing. Later films would play up the antagonism between student and teacher for laughs, but the friendship between the two characters helps sustain the film during the occasional lull.

One of the potential pitfalls to this approach to the Seasonal Formula is that if the character starts the film not knowing martial arts, then the script might go too heavy on the gags and too light on the action. In other words, you the viewer might have to suffer through 80 minutes of questionable comedy until the action kicks in during the final reel. There are obviously ways around this, like how The Mystery of Chess Boxing (1979) focuses just as much on the villain’s quest for martial supremacy as it does on the hero’s training. In the case of Snake in the Eagle’s Shadow, Yuen Woo-Ping and his team work around this by making the comic sequences, like when Simon Yuen plays a game of “Keep Away” with Jackie using a dish, just as complexly choreographed as the more serious scuffles.

Snake in the Eagle’s Shadow and its predecessors are known for their extensive training sequences. Few choreographers—perhaps only Lau Kar-Leung—can stage a training scene that’s simultaneously both realistic and fantastic as Yuen Woo-Ping and his entourage. According to example set by The 36^th Chamber of Shaolin, the training portion of this film is “complete,” in that it showcases routines for general body conditioning, conditioning specific to the style being learned, and training in the style itself. Among other activities, Chan’s character performs push-ups over sharpened (and burning) bamboo stakes, training exercises involving eggs placed on bamboo poles, and forms work, both empty handed and with a staff. Some of these sequences would be riffed on years later in the 2004 comedy Protégé de la Rose Noire, choreographed by Yuen Woo-Ping’s protégé, Donnie Yen.

The fights don’t really get serious until the last half hour of the movie. Charlie Chan, another Secret Rivals alumni, shows up as the righteous Master Hung and challenges real-life hung gar master Chiu Chi-Ling (the tailor from Kung Fu Hustle), followed by Tino Wong, who plays a Mantis stylist. Jackie gets in a few fights before we reach the climax, which features one of the funniest death scenes of all time. The final fight between Jackie Chan and Legendary Superkicker Hwang Jang Lee is a bit truncated by 1978 standards, probably owing to the fact that Hwang accidentally kicked out one of Jackie’s front teeth during filming. But watch for some great moments of flexibility from Chan, a triple-standing front kick from Hwang, and the kung fu equivalent of a Slavic squat dance.

Snake in the Eagle’s Shadow also benefits from an interesting soundtrack of tunes pilfered from different sources. The title sequence is set to the song “Magic Fly” by French electronic band Space. During some of the training sequences, Jean-Michel Jarre’s “Oxygene Part 2” is played. And, like all good kung fu movies, we have riffs from no fewer than three James Bond movies—You Only Live Twice; The Spy Who Loved Me; and The Man with the Golden Gun--popping up in different scenes. It makes for a trippy mixture, but contributes along with heartfelt performances, genuinely funny comedy and excellent kung fu to make a real classic.