Bullet Points: The Avenging Eagle (1978)
After reading so many social media accolades for 1978’s The Avenging Eagle (shout out to all the Shaw Brothers related Facebook groups), it made sense that The Avenging Eagle was one of the first Shaw titles I checked out from the beautifully curated Shaw Scope Volume Three boxset from Arrow Video!
- Rocky Start: The movie opens up with a road weary Chik Ming Sing (Ti Lung, Shaolin Temple). He and his horse have seen better days, so it is no surprise when Chik Ming Sing falls off his horse, rolls down a hill and passes out. Fortunately for Chik Ming Sing, Cheuk Yi Fan (Alexander Fu Sheng, Chinatown Kid) happens upon him and shares his water with Chik Ming Sing and even offers to go find him some food… how does Chik Ming Sing repay Cheuk Yi Fan?!? He starts a fight with him and steals his horse!
- Team Up: Cheuk Yi Fan can’t believe Chik Ming Sing would repay his kindness with malice and ends up tracking him down… and it seems the two are going to remain at odds, until three more men looking for Chik Ming Sing track him down! These aren’t any three men, these are three Eagles and members of the Iron Boot Clan, a Clan that Chik Ming Sing (as The Black Eagle) belongs to! Chik Ming Sing is told to return to the Iron Boot Clan or else… Chik Ming Sing chooses the “or else” option and it’s Eagle on Eagle action (with Cheuk Yi Fan chipping in and taking out one of Chik Ming Sing’s foes. Does anyone else smell a reluctant friendship forming?
- Flashback: Cheuk Yi Fan can’t help but wonder why those three Eagles were after Chik Ming Sing and that’s when we get Chik Ming Sing’s origin story… he ended up as a member of the Iron Boot Clan when he was only seven years old. The Godfather of the 13 Eagles, Yoh Xi Hung (Ku Feng, Dynamo), trained him and twelve others to be killers… and for years Chik Ming Sing did Yoh Xi Hung’s bidding. But something changed when Chik Ming Sing ended up seriously wounded and is separated from his fellow Eagles. Chik Ming Sing was rescued by Master Jiang and taken in by Jiang’s family… and for the first time in his life Chik Ming Sing knew what having an actual family was like… the start of the wedge between Chik Ming Sing and Yoh Xi Hung!
- But Wait There’s More: Later, after Cheuk Yi Fan and Chik Ming Sing take out more of the Eagles that are hunting Chik Ming Sing down, we get another flashback. This time it is the moment that made Chik Ming Sing knew his time with the 13 Eagles was over… the moment where Yoh Xi Hung ordered Chik Meng Sing to kill the pregnant daughter of one of his enemies! For that and all the atrocities that Chik Meng Sing committed as an Eagle.. Chik Ming Sing has vowed to kill Yoh Xi Hung!
- Spoiler Alert: At this point in the movie, we have learned all about Chik Ming Sing’s back story… but Cheuk Yi Fan is still pretty much a mystery. We know he and Chik Ming Sing make an effective tag team and that he has some awesome sleeve blades! As we get to the final battle, an interesting wrinkle presents itself… Cheuk Yi Fan was the husband of the pregnant woman that Yoh Xi Hung ordered Chik Ming Sing to kill… and now all three men are involved in the big final fight! This was set up perfectly as the ultimate outcome became a guessing game, which is extremely rare in the world of action entertainment.
I now know first hand why I have never seen a bad word about The Avenging Eagle! Fantastic fight scenes filled with a wide variety of weapons including the three section staff and the aforementioned sleeve blades… a compelling storyline with a major twist… the star power you can expect from a Shaw Brothers production. The Avenging Eagle is a martial arts masterpiece and one that I am glad I can finally say I experienced.
