The Avenging Eagle

This was really strong. It's common to get to a martial arts movie and think "the story was a bit whatever, but the action was great," but I got quite invested in the story here. I think it was well-told and less predictable than expected, with a neat structure and two main characters who mostly wanted the same things (a form of revenge), and formed an uneasy alliance that was sometimes mysterious, and occasionally at risk of being challenged.

The action was all super satisfying, too. Typically great choreography, over-the-top death scenes, and some really inventive weapons that made things interesting, particularly in the final fight.

This might even be one of the better Shaw Brothers movies. Definitely an underrated one, in any event.

The Avenging Eagle is a nearly flawless Kung Fu flick that has tight direction, great looking sets, great storytelling, great characters, as well as fantastic fight choreography and acting. The film is top tier in pretty much every regard and the leading man Ti Lung won The Golden Horse award for his performance here. Ti Lung is a former member of a gang of assassin's called The 13 Cold Blooded Eagles which is made up of orphans that are trained from childhood to be cold blooded killers. Ti Lung eventually grew tired of the killing and left the group. He is joined by a wandering man with excellent Kung Fu skills (Fu Sheng) and together they find an alliance and team up against The 13 Cold Blooded Eagles. There is pretty much non stop fighting, but never at the expense of the story with just as much dialogue to develop the characters and story. This is one minor flaw of the film as it is a lot to take in on one sitting. But once you watch it again, you put together the nuances missed from the 1st viewing. Shaw Bros studios was on top of their game at this period with many, rich, high quality productions. The Avenging Eagle is no exception to this and director Sun Chung made an impressive Kung Fu classic that really holds up.

I grew up watching this movie, and I owned it twice, on VHS, DVD. When I started to buy the Shaw movies from itunes, I stayed way from this one. But I just watched it on Amazon Prime, because I wanted to be sure about this movie. This is a beautiful to look at, because of the quality, its a Shaw Brothers movie. The fight scenes are lacking though. Ti Lung was terrible with the 3 sectional staff, and the other eagles where exciting to look at, but they still had lame fight scenes. The same for Alexander Fu Sheng.

This is the one that boosted Sun Chung's directorial fame that was later followed by The Kung Fu Instructor, The Deadly Breaking Sword, and Human Lanterns, to name a few.

A mysterious wandering swordsman (Fu Sheng) on his journey to accomplish a personal mission meets a renegade assassin of the infamous Eagle Clan (Ti Lung) who is being hunted and marked for death by his clan brothers for insubordination. They befriend each other and before long discover that they are heading for the same fate: to confront the leader of the Eagle Clan, King Eagle (Ku Feng). Things do not come easy for them. Before confronting the King, they must fight their ways against 12 Eagle Clan assassins, each with their unique fighting weapons, who will stop at nothing to capture their fugitive.

It's always desirable to watch the charismatic Ti Lung in action and surprisingly also likable to watch the comical Fu Sheng act soberly in this particular entry. Watching them fight against the 12 assassins is the main attraction besides the incredible final fight with King Eagle, who seems invincible.

The other 12 eagles are only given the usual bad-guy stereotypes which give very little to improve the plot. Playing opposite the heroes are some familiar faces of the time: the ultimate Shaw Bros villain - Johnny Wang Lung Wei (as eagle no.1 the Vulture), Kao Shiung (as eagle no.2 the Owl), Hui Thien Che (as eagle no.6 the Blue Eagle) and Dick Wei (as eagle no.7 the Red Eagle). These assassins wield unique weapons of choice, ranging from something cool like double wrist blades and a chained dagger to something weird like a smoking pipe!

Tang Chia's fight choreography is tight, particularly in the final duel. But the slow-motion technique with jerky freeze frames employed in certain moments in it doesn't quite look good.

AVENGING EAGLE is one of Shaw Brothers wuxia flicks that definitely warrants repeat viewings. Highly recommended for old school kungfu film lovers.

Chi Ming-sing is a former disciple of a gang run by overlord Yoh Xi-hung. Yoh's disciples hunt Chi relentlessly as he travels on a soul-searching journey. He comes to the aid of a seemingly bumbling man who hardly takes even life-threatening scenes seriously. The man Chi saved starts following him on the road, explaining that he's looking for someone who committed a grievous, unforgivable wrong.

I am still getting into the Shaw Brothers. I watched this back to back with "Five Deadly Venoms", and i have to say that "Venoms" is the better film. I just liked the plot and characters better. But "Avenging Eagle" has a great use of color, and you have to love the way they make the beards look on these old men. Maybe those are real beards, but I highly doubt it... only in these films do they have that wispy, billowing quality.