The Eagle Shooting Heroes (1993)



	The Eagle Shooting Heroes		Return to Review Archive - E
	Year:	1993	Joey Wong and Leslie Cheung
	Director:	Jeff Lau Chun-Wai
	Producer:	Wong Kar-Wai
	Action:	Sammo Hung Kam-Bo
	Cast:	Brigitte Lin Ching-Hsia, Joey Wong Cho-Yin, Maggie Cheung Man-Yuk, Jacky Cheung Hok-Yau, Tony Leung Ka-Fai, Tony Leung Chiu-Wai, Leslie Cheung Kwok-Wing, Veronica Yip Yuk-Hing, Carina Lau Ka-Ling, Kenny Bee
	The Skinny:	Amazingly overdone wuxia comedy with a fantastic all-star cast. The comedy is funny, but there's so much that the film can get tiring. The subject might be a bit to esoteric for the casual viewer, too. For star-gazing, this movie is hard to beat.
	Review by Kozo:	This all-star wack-fest is a parody of Jin Yong’s Eagle Shooting Heroes and the second major release to be based on the adventures of Ouyang Feng and Huang Yaoshi (the other was producer Wong Kar-Wai’s Ashes of Time). In Wong Kar-Wai's film, Ouyang Feng was played by Leslie Cheung. In this film it's Tony Leung Chiu-Wai who plays Feng, and his performance is like that of a bad guy from a 30’s silent film. Huang Yaoshi is played by Leslie Cheung instead of Tony Leung Ka-Fai, who took the role in Ashes of Time. Jacky Cheung plays Hong Qi, the Beggar Prince, in both movies. Everyone else plays other people and to get into the names and stories would only take up pages. There are far too many subplots of the Three’s Company variety to even begin to talk about. Basically, a bunch of stars fight, fume, crossdress, mug, and overact with nothing but our senses of humor to rely on. They succeed, but only if we have that particular HK sense of humor, which means we enjoy repetition, musical numbers, squeaky voices, and lots of fast motion. The martial arts choreography by Sammo Hung is pretty good, but the comedy is trying. If you like this sort of thing, this is right up your alley. I have to admit that it did sort of get on my nerves. (Kozo 1996)
	Availability:	DVD (Hong Kong) Region 0 NTSC Mei Ah Laser Widescreen Cantonese and Mandarin Language Tracks English and Chinese Subtitles

		image courtesy of Mei Ah Laser Disc Co., Ltd.
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