Eagle vs. Silver Fox (1980) User Reviews (7)

cute girl makes film

[winner55 · 7/10 · 17 January 2009]

There a few films, in various genres, that I watch just to see a girl, and this is one.

Unfortunately, I'm uncertain of her name, since the cast credits, as is true for most Lai Bros re-releases of Korean films, is almost entirely phony, a mish-mash of Korean, Chinese, and unnecessary Westernizations ("Mario Chan," indeed!). The one exception is the actor with real drawing power here, Hwang Jang Lee, providing a professional performance as the villain, and some real fighting skills.

But the girl really makes the picture. Although hardly an 'ideal beauty' in either Western or Oriental terms, she has marvelously beautiful eyes, a winning smile, and she's just as cute as one would want from an attractive, virtuous young woman on a mission to find her man and right a wrong. She can also act, I find her performance wholly believable, and she even fights pretty good, at least on occasion.

The film itself is a typical Lai/Ho hack job on a Korean hybrid of kung fu revenge flick and comedy. No great shakes; certainly not the worst of its kind, and even above average in the story. The fighting too is nothing exceptional, but it ain't bad.

But I will always remember the girl. In another universe we are meeting at a garden, going out to an ice-cream parlor, beginning an idyllic romance...and of course kicking some mean kung fu butt.

Yep, your martial-artist girl-next-door. A real joy.

Contender for worst-dubbed kung fu movie ever

[Leofwine_draca · 5/10 · 7 March 2017]

EAGLE VS SILVER FOX is another low rent martial arts movie from South Korea that Godfrey Ho got his hands on and released in Hong Kong with a made-up actor list (Mario Chan, anybody? I thought not). It's chiefly of interest to fans for being another film in the long career of the ever hard-working Hwang Jang Lee, playing the villain out of the piece called Silver Fox. I should note that although he shares a name with his character in the SECRET RIVALS films, this film has no connection to those.

It's a simple martial arts story of revenge and action, telling of a young fighter with ridiculously fake stubble who's the only survivor of a massacre carried out by Hwang Jang and his bald-headed henchmen. The hero trains under a monk who looks like Gandalf, befriends a girl disguised as a boy, and takes on the baddies. There's some slapstick comedy involving chickens being tossed into the mouths of goons and some night time scenes where you can't see what's going on. As usual, Hwang Jang is a real bad ass and it takes loads of people teaming up to beat him. The picture is oddly slanted at times making this a surreal viewing experience, and the dubbed voices are terrible, even by genre standards.

Pretty entertaining

[sarastro7 · 6/10 · 30 January 2005]

Eagle Vs. Silver Fox is apparently the third movie in the Silver Fox/Secret Rivals series. I saw the first one which wasn't too bad (I rated it a "7"), and now I've seen this one. It's not quite as good, but it has other things going for it.

The kung fu is passable but not excellent, and there's not that much of it in the movie. But surprisingly, the unusually long scenes of talking are actually pretty interesting, and the characters are intriguing, too (there's a nice girl in it, also, though she doesn't get to do much), even though the story is ridiculously flimsy: Protect the secret message! What the message actually is, well, the story doesn't say. But who cares anyway?

Well, actually, the secret message part is probably not that important. What happens is that the super kung fu master bad guy, Silver Fox (who owns the town, has an army of henchmen, and sits on a bona-fide golden throne in his big mansion - like kung fu villains so often do!), kills a delegation of people who's transporting a secret message to the south. But the guy who actually has the message is accidentally thrown into the river and flows away. Everyone else, incl. this guy's father, is killed. So the guy drifts ashore and is found half-dead by an old monk, who nurses him back to health and over a long period (months? years?) teaches him kung fu, incl. the secret Flying Fist style. And then he dies. The old monk, that is.

The young hero (who must, I guess, be the "Eagle" mentioned in the movie's title) then goes into town intent on revenge, and gets into a tavern fight (as they bloody always do!) with Silver Fox's henchmen. Here he picks up a young devotee who was impressed with his kung fu, and she turns out to be the daughter of some other guy the Silver Fox once killed. She is rumored to be a great kung fu fighter, but actually she's not very good. Anyway, the two of them hook up with the old monk's friend, another monk, who's a superb fighter (one of his weapons is a spoon - at one point, when he thinks he's lost it, he exclaims: "Without it, I might starve!"). They hang around the monk's house for some time, talking, and fighting off the occasional contingent of Silver Fox's henchmen.

As the climax comes around, the evil Silver Fox beats the young hero to a bloody pulp, but when the girl and the monk help hold back Silver Fox's arms, the hero finally manages to use the Flying Fist on him, and they triumph.

It's a plus that the movie doesn't try to be funny, although, as the first user comment mentions, Silver Fox's English-dubbed voice is *horrible*! If Hwang Jang Lee ever gets his hands on the squeaky-voiced mofo who dubbed him, you better believe there's gonna be much wringing of necks!

On the other hand, the movie doesn't take itself overly serious, either, which in this case was the right way to go. All in all, pretty entertaining.

6 out of 10.

Good action, Badly Dubbed

[AlbertV79 · 8 March 2001]

I bought this film because I am a huge fan of King Bootmaster Hwang Jang Lee. I loved the action scenes in the film (Hwang choreographed them himself, using his character name "Silver Fox"). But it was the dubbing of his voice that made this laughable. Remember Ren & Stimpy? He sounded like Ren only 10 times worse. His best line was "You Stupid Eediots". I only watched this film for the fights and if you plan to see it, just watch it for the fights. If you want to laugh, listen to the dubbed voice of HJL.

Only watch for Hwang Jang Lee

[phillip-58 · 5/10 · 6 August 2007]

Despite one of the other comments this has nothing to do with the Secret Rivals series, except that Godfrey Ho (who is the director, not the one named above) wanted to exploit the name Silver Fox. Hwang Jang Lee is the best thing in this film but only appears infrequently. I presume Mario Chan is the 'hero' though he is not exactly well known. Still he fights quite well along with the man who turns out to be a girl (Georgia Yuen ?). The plot is simply ludicrous and the editing as bad as Godfrey Ho films usually are. But for hard core kungfu addicts (like me) the fights do provide some entertainment and Hwang does several amazing kicks.

Horrible dubbing and annoying voices

[Rafacus · 5/10 · 10 May 2009]

There's usually a pre-requisite to being dubbed the "Silver Fox" in Kung Fu theater. Not only must you be evil… or naughty, but you must master your Kung Fu to the point where one opponent isn't enough to take you on. Then if one man is dumb enough to go at you solo, you toy with him endlessly before dangling his life before your eyes and then taking it. Hwang Jang Lee's version of the villain is no different albeit younger than your standard Silver Fox.

The Silver Fox is stealing "secret messages" from the Shaolin monks in order to revive his fallen Manchu empire. In doing this he happens to kill two important men whose survivors have sworn revenge against him. One of these survivors is saved by a dying monk who teaches him a deadly version of the Eagle Claw technique. When the two strangers meet, they realize that not only do they share the destiny of revenging the Silver Fox but also that they are betrothed and forever bound by destiny.

Horrible dubbing and annoying voices plague Eagle vs Silver Fox, but this is not to say that the Kung Fu and the story wasn't good. I started off wondering if this was going to end up on my crap list but then the kung fu slowed down and the story started to present itself. The main actor and actress have a beautiful chemistry and their acting is actually pretty damn good. Add in the comedy of the Silver Fox's cockiness and you have quite a movie in this one. However I cannot put the weight of the acting and story over the crappy sets and horrible, horrible picture and dubbing so I would say watch it only if you are a die-hard. New folks to Kung Fu Theater may want to wade through some stronger titles before taking this one on.

Greatest villain ever! and the dubbed voice is awesome

[paskettio · 9 December 2004]

I dunno what the dude who commented before me was on but man ... this movie is great . the fight scenes are sweet! Silver Fox owns every scene he's in.

The hackysack face kick in the first fight was off the hook! Oh and his dubbed voice ... thats the best part of the movie! Dude sounds just like Skeletor from the old He-Man cartoon. The conversation he has with his goons when they fail to retrieve the secret message from the son of lee ... just priceless! Thats where he busts out the "What!!!? ...You idiot!!!"

I laughed for about 20 minutes straight at that scene.

Seriously ...you can probably find this movie in the cheap bin at wal-mart or something ...if you see it pick it up . SOOOO good!