REVIEW:
Eagle vs. Silver Fox is standard issue independent genre fare with mostly unknown players, slightly above average martial arts, and not enough of superkicker Hwang Jang Lee.

Jang Lee plays Silver Fox, a Manchurian warlord who is trying to stop messages from being sent South. An opening fight between Jang Lee and a messenger is one of the best in the film and features at least one incredible piece of legwork by Jang Lee that will leave you rewinding to see it again. He then disappears for the majority of the film and the story focuses on the son of one of the messengers who survives an attack. I'm going to take a stab and guess that the actor is Mario Chan who is billed second after Jang Lee. Mario is rescued by an old monk who trains him in a rare and powerful form of kung fu, shortly before the monk dies. But, before showing his rescue, director Godfrey Ho chooses to jump ahead to a point where Mario is a "wanderer" who walks into a teahouse to engage in your typical swagger and nose-thumbing confrontation with a number of Silver Fox's thugs. After sending them packing, Mario is joined by Yu Ling, a woman who decides to follow him for reasons she initially keeps to herself. This is the first time I have actually been fooled into believing the female character dressed as a man is a man, that is, until her girlish dubbed voice chimed in.

As the pair journeys towards Silver Fox's mansion, they come across another monk who turns out to be a friend of Mario's former master. The three then team up to finish off Silver Fox's men and eventually the warlord himself.

The kung fu action is mostly solid and Mario Chan performs well enough. Although not used frequently, Hwang Jang Lee does get in some terrific kicks, including a midair triple kick to the chest that I can only recall Donnie Yen performing. As a character though, Jang Lee is a disappointing villain compared to his better roles, such as in Snake in the Eagle's Shadow (1978). The person chosen to dub his voice makes him sound like a weasel and he's killed off far too easily.

Godfrey Ho slips in a number of fun oddities in what would otherwise be a conventional film. At one point, Mario Chan literally glides towards his opponent which looks like he must have been on a rigged dolly. In another scene, he kicks an adversary up a staircase railing. If that sounds bad, the stuntman's slide back down onto the railing post looked groin-crushingly painful. Later, two of Silver Fox's strangest cronies sporting bald heads come at Mario with what looks like some sort of cartoonish gorilla style of kung fu. The last and most unusual scene features the monk who is able to knock down his opponents simply by swinging his staff in their direction. Plus, he's able to move about in the blink of an eye. This sort of nonsense keeps the film on a light note. The problem is that its sporadic so the choreography looks like a hodgepodge of random and unexplained tricks.

While I wouldn't say Eagle vs. Silver Fox is outright bad, it could have used sharper direction, something Godfrey Ho was never known for. Of course, the real selling feature is the presence of Hwang Jang Lee and he's just not used effectively for the most part. But, with a bit of enjoyable humor reminiscent of a Trinity Spaghetti Western and at least some Jang Lee action, this film is worth a look for the avid to serious fan.

At the Shaolin Temple, a group of messengers, led by Lee and Yuen, are given a new secret message to deliver to the resistance movement in the South. The film's main titles are superimposed over the squeezed image of the entourage of messengers as they embark on their dangerous mission (musically underscored by a royal processional theme). Just as the men are about to board a small boat, a group of the Silver Fox's knife-wielding thugs attack and stab each member of the entourage and throw them into the river. Lee, the lead messenger, takes multiple stabs while his son, Tso, watches in horror and is also stabbed and knocked into the water. Sitting on his throne, the Fox listens to his men boast of successfully stopping the messengers. The Fox is angered when he learns that they forgot to retrieve the message that Tso carried. The thugs assure the Fox that the message is on the bottom of the river. The Fox pays his men but is not satisfied until he chokes one of the thugs to death for betrayal.

The young Lee Tso lies upon the river's shore barely clinging to his life. He is discovered and dragged to a quaint cave dwelling by a hermit Monk named Tang. Tang miraculously revives the boy through prayer and pressure point therapy. Tang emits a painful, chronic cough and comments, "you'll recover... unlike me." Some time passes as Tso (now sporting a short cropped beard) strolls through the forest and into a village where he encounters some of the Fox's men in a teahouse. Violence erupts when a pickpocket bumps into one of the thugs and steals his money. Tso teaches the men a lesson during a light, comical fight scene. Tso takes the stolen purse off the pickpocket and gives it to the teahouse owner as compensation for the damage and destruction.

Impressed by Tso's Kung Fu skill, the pickpocket follows the young man and strikes up a conversation. They encounter an old man cooking rice in and the pickpocket demands some food. With a wooden spoon and a pot lid, the old man shows remarkable skill in deflecting the pickpocket's advances. Tso eventually recognizes the old man as Monk Chung, a friend of his master Tang. An abrupt flashback depicts how Tang taught Tso all of his Kung Fu secrets. A flashback training sequence shows how Tso accidentally killed Tang during his final Kung Fu test. Like a martyr, Tang dies happy with the knowledge that his secret "Flying Fish" style has been passed on to a worthy practitioner. Back to the present, the Fox and Tso begin separately training for their eventual confrontation (they obviously read the script!) as Monk Chung heads South. The pickpocket's not-so-shocking sexual identity is revealed after a run-in with another group of the Fox's thugs on a bridge. The pickpocket admits she is a female named Yuen Ling and that her father was killed in the same messenger entourage massacre as Tso's dad. With a common revenge motive, Tso and Ling engage in yet another encounter with the Fox's thugs. This time, Ling flaunts her advanced fighting skills.

The Fox is in a rage when two of his thugs return home dead, "killed by mere novices!" During the Fox's rant, a flying dagger with a note sinks into his chamber wall, offering Tso's challenge to fight! The Fox is anxious to kill Tso but two of his henchmen vow to kill Tso for him. As Tso prepares for the next day's battle, Ling reveals that they were pre-arranged for marriage by their parents. Tso agrees to honor the families' wishes but doesn't want Ling involved in the next day's duel with the Fox.

In an open field, the Fox's two bald henchmen drag a coffin as they approach Tso. The fighting gets heavy and Tso is has a tough time (some of this fight scene is shot with an interesting diagonally-distorting lens.) Back at the Fox's lair, a horse-driven cart trots in with a covered body. It is the stacked corpses of the two henchmen who lost to Tso! Tso arrives and confronts the Fox, face to face. As Tso and the Fox square off, Ling shows up and handles two swordsmen while Monk Chung effortlessly fends off a group of thugs and helps himself to the Fox's lavish buffet. Tso and the Fox start off with some simple hand techniques that soon escalate into wild somersaults and kicks. The Fox gets the upper hand with a devastating series of beautifully executed spin and flying kicks. Chung joins in and restrains the Fox while Tso delivers some fatal pressure point and throat strikes. Chung thanks Buddha as Tso and Ling embrace.

A standard, simple revenge yarn marred by awkward pacing, overly confusing non-linear editing, long-winded dialogue and lots of esoteric philosophizing. This super low budget production benefits from some colorful, exotic locations including mountains and breath-taking waterfall backdrops. But the presence of Hwang Jang Li, one of Kung Fu cinema's greatest high-kicking villains, and a few superior fight scenes make this very average production worth checking out. While he's not allocated a lot of screen time, Li displays his trademark precision kicks in some excellent fight and training sequences. Especially cool are the stand-out training sequences with Li smash-kicking coconuts and toppling trees with flying double side kicks! Li came to prominence as the villain in two pivotal Jackie Chan films- SNAKE IN THE EAGLE'S SHADOW and DRUNKEN MASTER. Some of Hwang's films on DVD include DRUNKEN MASTER, SNAKE IN THE EAGLE'S SHADOW, HIT MAN IN THE HAND OF BUDDHA, MARTIAL MONKS OF SHAOLIN, MASTERS OF TIGER CRANE, DRAGON' S CLAWS and 36 DEADLY STYLES (playing the Silver Fox again!). The young male lead looks a heck of a lot like Yuen Biao. Director Ho is known for a string of lower-rung Kung Fu potboilers and this probably ranks as one of his better gigs. Other Ho films are represented on DVD include- GRAND MASTER OF SHAOLIN KUNG FU (produced by Joseph Lai), MARTIAL MONKS OF SHAOLIN TEMPLE (with Hwang Jang Li) and SHAOLIN DRUNK MONKEY. Producer Joseph Lai heads the Hong -Kong based production/distribution company, IFD Films...