Snake in the Eagle's Shadow (1978)

 "I'll need new socks!"

Last week I watched and blogged The Mystery of Chess Boxing, a '70s Hong Kong kung fu film. It was, in a word, pants- just not very well made at all. This film, happily, is an example of the genre done well.

The plot is, broadly, similar, yet the direction is from another planet- stylish, crisp and, importantly, manages to clearly tell the story visually in a way the other film utterly fails to do.

Like The Mystery of Chess Boxing, this is a kung fu film full of lots of action but also a great deal of physical comedy, with the hero a bullied underdog- and, yes, both films have a touch of the old "bullying is character-building" nonsense- but the difference in quality is enormous. The kung fu, it's been pointed out to me, genuinely is in the various different styles this time. And here we have plenty of extended scenes of comical kung fu-themed slapstick, but this time done not ony with impressive skills but also real comic timing. Certain sequences in this film remind me of Buster Keaton or Harold Lloyd. The physical comedy is that good.

It helps, of course, that the film stars Jackie Chan, whom I've somehow contrived to avoid encountering before after blogging more than 700 films over the last ten years. He's awesome not only in terms of the acting and kung fu but also in terms of comic timing- you can see how this film launched him in a successful niche of kung fu films with a fair dollop of comedy. Yet the comic acting is strong throughout the whole cast, as is the kung fu.

I enjoyed this a lot. All as part of a balanced diet, of course, but I see more Jackie Chan and more Hong Kong kung fu in my none-too-distant future.