Snake in the Eagle's Shadow

Watch Snake in the Eagle's Shadow (蛇形刁手, 1978) online — the Hong Kong action-comedy that launched Jackie Chan as a leading man. Director Yuen Woo-ping built a story around a bullied orphan in Qing Dynasty China who stumbles into becoming the last student of a near-extinct kung fu school, while a ruthless Eagle Claw clan hunts down his elderly master.

Before this film, Hong Kong martial arts cinema expected its heroes stoic and its fights reverent. Yuen and Chan threw that out. Chan's character is clumsy, excitable, and genuinely funny — he picks up the Snake Fist style by watching a cat fight off a cobra, which is also where the film's best sequence comes from. Veteran actor Simon Yuen as the disguised master gives the comedy its real weight. The producers were skeptical during production; Asian audiences disagreed when it became a box-office hit and proved Chan could carry a film on charm alone. Stream Snake in the Eagle's Shadow online on iFILM.