Fan-favourite Shaw Brothers martial arts film The Avenging Eagle like a spaghetti Western

Starring Ti Lung and Alexander Fu Sheng, and with fight scenes using an array of weapons, The Avenging Eagle is a superior martial arts film

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Alexander Fu Sheng (left) and Ti Lung in a still from The Avenging Eagle. Film producer Frank Djeng dives into the film that became a fan favourite.

Published: 11:15am, 11 Aug 2024Updated: 12:10pm, 18 Aug 2024

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.

Nuanced performances by martial arts stars Ti Lung and Alexander Fu Sheng, a relatively sophisticated plot and some unusual weapons add up to a superior martial arts movie.

Directed by Sun Chung and written by screenwriting legend Ni Kuang, who based it on a novel by Taiwanese wuxia (sword-fighting) author Qing Hong, the clever story starts with two wanderers meeting on the road: Ti Lung’s character is being pursued by his former clan, and Fu Sheng’s character offers to help him fight them off. As the film progresses, a secret is carefully revealed.

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 Avenging Eagle was part of the Shaw Brothers assembly line – they just carried on trotting these films out, and some of them did well. It belongs to an esteemed group of 1970s classics which were a “late hurrah” for Shaw Brothers, including Lau Kar-leung’s The 36th Chamber of Shaolin and Chang Cheh’s Five Deadly Venoms films.