Movie Review: Militant Eagle (1978) directed by Chia Chih Li
At the end of a three-year war, a general bids a fond farewell to one of his best officers, who wants to return to civilian life. We jump to ten years later, after another war has just ended. By imperial (I think it’s the Tang Dynasty) decree, there’s a tax holiday to allow businesses to get back on their feet. But in the small city that’s the main setting, the corrupt Magistrate Cho and his police are extorting fees and fines from the small merchants and entrepreneurs. A street entertainer is chased off because he cannot afford the outrageous performance fee. A cook is bullied by the cowardly Sergeant and his constables, but his kung fu is good and he’s able to hold his own. A slightly more wealthy man who knows the cook advises him to more patience, since his daughter, also a notable martial artist, will soon be returning to the city to help out.
The cook’s family are brutally murdered (and it’s implied his wife was raped before death), and when the female martial artist returns home, she discovers that her parents have been assassinated by poison dart. It’s then revealed that the street performer and his motley orphans are in fact government agents–he’s the officer we saw in the first scene. The Imperial envoy will soon arrive to make an inspection, and if they can convince him of the magistrate’s evildoing, all should be well.
To the agent’s surprise, the envoy is the general from the first scene, now risen in the government. He’s received grievance letters not just from our protagonists, but from multiple other people we didn’t see. Magistrate Cho and his men are rounded up and found guilty, about to be sentenced to prison. But wait, we’re only twenty minutes in, it can’t be that easy. Sure enough, Magistrate Cho claims he’s not the ringleader, and is assassinated before he can say more.
The real villain turns out to be former rebel Fang Hsu Kung (Ying Bai), who’d faked his death to hide out and regroup. He decides now is the time to strike with his hidden army. Can our heroes figure out what’s going on, find the hidden base and defeat Fang’s deadly henchmen?
There’s some good martial arts battle scenes, especially in the last half hour, which is one long series of individual and team fights. A little emotional depth is seen when the poison dart assassin comes to realize that his loyalty to Fang is misplaced.
Other characters are less fleshed out, such as Fang’s bratty teenage daughter who is just wandering around for most of the film. The orphans the government agent/street performer is training are annoying comic relief children, and the need to make them relevant in the final battle turns one of the fights into slapstick, which really doesn’t work with the tone. (Except for the very end of that fight, which is straight out of a horror movie instead.)
And then at the very end, there’s a scene with a Buddhist nun who informs us that revenge is bad, actually.
Content note: Martial arts combat, some blood. Child death. Implied rape, suicide. Spousal abuse, which results in a lingering death. A man’s eyes are put out. Torture, including whipping and branding.
The movie’s a bit of a mess, honestly, and could have done with either fewer henchmen characters or more establishing dialogue. But there’s fun stuff mixed in, and it would be worthwhile for a viewing on a rainy afternoon.
