Not too well received at the time, the 1978 film The Avenging Eagle went on to become a favourite of Hong Kong studio Shaw Brothers fans. Below, we discuss The Avenging Eagle with film producer Frank Djeng, who provided the commentary for the Arrow Video release of the film. 1978 was late in the martial arts cycle for a film like this – it is mainly a wuxia movie – and the trend had swung to kung fu.
The classic Five Deadly Venoms films were just starting at Shaw Brothers and feature similar costumes and weaponry. Were there any creative crossovers? The Avenging Eagle is certainly more in the style of the Venoms films than the style of Lau Kar-leung’s films, which were mainly kung fu with some weaponry. There is some hand-to-hand kung fu combat, but not a lot.
As for the costumes, it’s possible that Shaw was simply recycling them. It is not easy to use the three-section staff, and Ti Lung did a great job with it. It’s heavy, it’s long, it is difficult to control and it needs considerable skill to master.
Ti Lung is very impressive using it, and it’s pretty much the only weapon he uses here. The movie highlights the studio’s love of secret weapons, especially Fu Sheng’s concealed “sleeve swords”. I call those sleeve swords the “ice skating” weapon, as they really look like ice-skating blades! There was a lot of creativity on show in the film.
One of the beauties of it is that everybody uses a different weapon. Every fight in the film is different, and.