Snake in the Eagle's Shadow Snake in the Eagle's Shadow (Air Date: Week Of 4/24/96)
You got your eons-old feud. You got your revenge factor. You got your young guy who gets beat up frequently until he meets the old master, who teaches him a forbidden technique. You got your amazingly inappropriate - and yet totally fitting - soundtrack.
What we have here is "Snake in Eagle's Shadow," a classic 70s-style kung fu movie. What's different about it is, it stars a young Jackie Chan. This is not the 41-year-old grizzled veteran of dozens of Hong Kong kung fu and action movies; this is a 19-year-old kid who was being touted as the next Bruce Lee.
Yes, you get to see flashes of the Jackie Chan we all know and love. The self-deprecating humor, the downright goofy stunts, and the fantastic fight scenes.
Ah, yes, the fight scenes. You definitely get your money's worth in fight scenes, all 15 of them in a 95-minute movie. That's one every 6 minutes and 20 seconds, for those of you keeping score at home.
All of it put together makes a wonderfully campy trip down memory lane, back to the days of bell-bottom pants and platform shoes, and when even Jackie Chan could wear a Davy Jones haircut.
"Snake in Eagle's Shadow" just radiates that kind of retro energy, even down to the restored print, with its pop-and-hiss soundtrack and hit-and-miss subtitling. It's worth it just to see Jackie Chan before he became the world's biggest movie star.
Copyright 1996 Alex Lau