Ever wonder where Jackie Chan managed to strike like a snake and move like a cat? Snake in the Eagle’s Shadow (1978) delivers that and more with all the intensity a 1970’s Jackie Chan/martial arts flick has to offer.

Director Woo-Ping Yuen’s inaugural film follows the story of Chan’s character, Chien Fu, a hapless janitor working at a kung fu school who is bullied and pushed around by teachers and peers alike. When Chien encounters an old beggar and offers him a place to stay his life is changed forever, as the beggar reveals himself as one of the last surviving masters of snake-style kung fu. Chien agrees to become the beggar’s student and learns to defend not only himself but the rest of his school from the Eagle Claw clan, a group set on destroying the snake-style technique.

Snake in the Eagle’s Shadow offers one of the rare glimpses of Chan before he became an international celebrity and, on top of that, it serves as the precursor to director Woo-Ping’s later work such as The Drunken Master, also starring Jackie Chan. It is a film which hits the highest marks of simplistic storytelling with complex choreography sprinkled throughout – a staple in the best of martial arts filmmaking. As a bit of film trivia, viewers may notice that there are several bits of audio sampled throughout the film, such as scores from The Spy Who Loved Me and A Fistful of Dollars. Listen closely and you might even notice a familiar explosion from everyone’s favorite, Star Wars: A New Hope.

Snake in the Eagle’s Shadow
1978
dir. Woo-Ping Yuen
98 min.

Part of ongoing series: Reel Weird Brattle: Starring Jackie Chan
Screens Saturday, 8/27 @ Brattle 11:30pm