Snake In The Eagles Shadow 2 (1979)

I'll tell you why so serious

Fantastic!

Unshakable, witty and deeply felt, the film will be paying emotional dividends for a long, long time.

A clunky actioner with a handful of cool moments.

I watched this film as a cheap English dub under the title SNAKE IN THE EAGLE'S SHADOW II, although the alternative title of SNAKY KNIGHT FIGHT AGAINST MANTIS is a lot more fun. It's your typical cheap period kung fu effort from the era, shot in Taiwan, featuring Carter Wong in brief support and a leading role for bottom-of-the-barrel go-to guy Don Wong as the erstwhile hero.Some versions of the print seem to tag on scenes from the Jackie Chan film in order to justify the sequel tag, although the version I saw didn't. In any case, this is a typical kung fu movie, full of average fight scenes, exaggerated character humour, and some knockabout comedy. Much of the humour comes from a silly old master type who the bad guys are convinced has a fake moustache, so they're forever trying to pull it off, which for some reason makes him into a great fighter.Wong's character seems to be one of the dimmest heroes in Hong Kong cinema, given that he's scammed out of all his money in the early scenes. Chen Sing turns up for a while too. As is usual with this type of film, the best part of SNAKE IN THE EAGLE'S SHADOW II is the climax, a lengthy one-on-one bout between hero and villain. The hero employs some cool cat and snake styles in his fighting and there are some fun, cheap special effects to entertain the viewer, with the 'snake slithering' effect a favourite.

Like the Western, the Eastern eventually developed familiar tropes. In the Western, there were characters like The Gunslinger, The Sheriff, The Cowboy, The Homesteader, etc., and they functioned within an eventually well-established world. The same thing happened with the Eastern. There were characters like The Teacher, The Master (not necessarily the same thing as the Teacher), The Student, The Beggar, etc., and they, too, had specific functions within their specific world (often referred to as The Martial Arts World in the movies themselves). THE SNAKE IN THE EAGLE'S SHADOW II is a fairly standard Eastern, with "Don Wong," Chen Sing and Lung Fei going through the motions pioneered (in part) by Jackie Chan in THE SNAKE IN THE EAGLE'S SHADOW. This kinda sorta sequel features one or two interesting bits: at one point, using the "Snake" style, "Snake Fist" Ah Fu (Wong Tao, aka "Don Wong") goes SLITHERING across the ground at his opponent like his namesake. I don't recall Jackie Chan (or anyone else) ever manifesting this particular skill before. It's a nice little touch, though.

I personally watched this movie before snake in the eagles shadow with Jackie Chan. I personally like Jackie Chan over any other martial artist. But I believe this movie is better than the original snake in the eagles shadow. This movie was quite entertaining to say the least. It had plenty of fight scenes and they were top quality. The characters actually fight good unlike many martial art movies that aren't a Jackie Chan or Gordon Liu movie. This movie actually made me interested in the Kung Fu genre and is why i'm a martial artist.The main girl was very beautiful and sexy. the sidekick was funny always stealing and tricking. In the boss scene unlike many martial art movies outside of Jackie Chan and Gordon Liu movies didn't downgrade the hero fighting skills to make the boss look tough. Difinitely worth a buy. This remains one of my favorite movies.( and i've watched a lot)

ej's kung-fu capsule review for films of the chop-socky old-school. - 1. basic plot type - school vs. school.2. plot construction - So-so. It's easy to follow, but doesn't amount to much.3. dramatic - No.4. funny - Occasionally; the old petty thief who's Wong Tao's side-kick and comic relief does a credible job of it.5. dialog - So-so.6. cast performance - Pretty good, for this type of ersatz genre film sequel.7. crew performance - Competent, but never more than this.8. amount of fighting - Plenty 9. quality of fighting - generally disappointing - way too gimmicky - for instance, the old thief is a coward, but if you pull his whiskers he suddenly becomes a berserk kung fu master (yeah, sure!). And while Wong Tao turns in one of his better acting performances, his fight performance is sub-par - very rigid and mechanistic.10. special any cast or crew notes - Not really; although it's a strange choice to show flashbacks to the original SiES film with Jackie Chan and pretend that Wong Tao is Chan's character all grown up, since Wong doesn't look in the least bit like Chan.11. big positive - The performance of the actor playing the old petty thief is very amusing.12. big negative - Clear that nobody here had a clue as to what made the first film successful.bottom-line - who should see this movie - 'fu film completists and Wong tao fans.