Review: Snake in the Eagle’s Shadow

The clans of Eagle Claw and Snake Fist fighting styles have been at war. Simon Yuen plays the last living Grandmaster of Snake Fist Kung-Fu, and disguises himself as a lowly old beggar to avoid detection by an Eagle Claw counterpart who is tracking him down. Jackie Chan plays janitor for a martial arts school who comes across the old man. Yuen teaches Chan his style of Kung-Fu, which will come in handy when the Eagle Claw fighter (and some outside mercenaries) finally track Yuen down.

 

I’m not a fan of Jackie Chan as a martial arts star, as you probably know by now. He’s an acrobat and a lover of silent comedy (Buster Keaton in particular). A comedic stuntman, if you will. That’s just not the kind of guy I want to see starring in a martial arts movie (though I have a lot of respect for Buster Keaton myself). However, I’ve gotta say that this 1978 early Jackie Chan offering from debut director Yuen Woo-Ping (yes, the guy behind the martial arts scenes in “The Matrix” and “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon”) is one of his better vehicles to date. In a weird way it plays like Jackie Chan’s own version of “36^th Chamber of Shaolin” (the landmark Shaw Brothers film starring Gordon Liu). It’s still not really my kind of martial arts film, but if you removed all of the attempts at humour (some which work better than others) it’d be an even stronger film, if having a familiar story.

 

The magistrate’s pudgy son is a hoot, and I did find it amusing when Chan had a fight with someone even smaller than him and being ordered to let the other kid win. It’s a good role for him, actually, playing a humble janitor and occasional punching bag. As for the action, you can tell the director is a fight choreographer because a lot of the fights come across as too choreographed-looking. They aren’t quite exhibition block-fests like some of the lesser Shaw Brothers films (where there doesn’t appear to be any impact), but definitely a little too dance-oriented for my liking. The staccato rhythm in between the occasional kicks and flips isn’t to my particular taste. As the title suggests, it’s also one of these corny martial arts movies where the moves are given dopey animal names. You never saw Bruce Lee attempt a ‘Reverse Snake’ or ‘Mantis Catches Cicada’, and ‘Snake at the Front’ is just all-round questionable. However, so far as these things go, it could’ve gotten a lot more annoying. In fact, credit where it’s due, the film isn’t remotely boring and some of the fights are actually quite enjoyable. It’s a very lively film, and the fight Chan has with a Russian fighter (posing as a priest) is by far the best in the film. It’s really cool and not very comical outside of some ill-advised cat-screeching sound FX. Chan’s final fight fully employing ‘Cat’s claw’ is dumb as hell, but kind of fun.

 

To be honest I was actually far more impressed with Simon Yuen, as the elderly Grandmaster of Snake Fist-style Kung Fu. In fact, getting all the best moments, it’s clear that this isn’t really a ‘Jackie Chan vehicle’, at least not in the form we know it to be today. In his 60s at the time, stunt doubles were undoubtedly used for Yuen, but his acrobatic final fight is excellent stuff and the highlight of the film. Meanwhile, if you think the score sounds awfully familiar at times, you’ll indeed hear “Oxygène Part II” by Jean Michel Jarre, later to turn up completely inappropriately in Peter Weir’s otherwise top-notch war film “Gallipoli”. It’s a weird, weird world we live in sometimes.

Sometimes dopey, but quite fun and certainly lively, this Kung Fu flick isn’t quite as slapsticky as most other Jackie Chan films. For me that’s a big selling point, others might be disappointed, but will surely still be entertained by it as it’s clearly one of his best films. The screenplay is by Loong Shiao, Ng See-Yuen, and Tsai Chi-Kuang.  

 

Rating: B-