Misled into a secret meeting, the head chief of the Tien Yi Tong ends up with four darts in his chest. However, he manages to escape knowing that his number one chief, Hung Sing Tien (Chang Pei Shan) is responsible and returns to the Tien headquarters where hedies. Having played out during the movie’s opening credits sequence, this commotion spells out what’s to come for the rest of the story.
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Now that the main chief is dead, it’s up to the remaining Tien Yi Tong’s eight chiefs to elect a new leader. Needless to say, the 1st Chief Hung is more than keen to take over and now he’s working his way to kill off the other chiefs. This is where our hero King Eagle Jin Fei (Ti Lung) gets involved since a gravely wounded 6th Chief tells him about the murder plot as he dies. However, being a wandering swordsman who’s not interested in the power struggle and the business of the martial world jiang hu, Jin Fei carries on as if nothing has happened. But the 1st Chief still doesn’t believe him and wants him dead anyway, thinking that should at least shut him up. Of course this ultimately leads to a bloody showdown in which he could have avoided altogether.
Interestingly, out of the eight chiefs there are two attractive females who’re also sisters. However, their personalities are poles apart; the 7th Chief An Yuk Lin is a kind hearted and caring soul. An Bing Er, the 8th Chief, on the other hand, is ruthless and cruel. One of Shaw’s beauties, Baby Movie Queen Li Ching has the task of portraying these sisters and she’s very impressive indeed in her double role. This is an outstanding performance from her as she’s able to switch into the different moods and emotions required from her characters. As the fiery evil sister, she really shines and she looks fantastic in her red ensembles. Besides, we even get to see her fighting with herself.
As usual, Ti Lung fits in nicely as the King Eagle, a righteous loner hero who wanders around jiang hu without a care and he excels in this kind of character. This is also his solo outing in which he doesn’t have to share screen time with other male lead like David Chiang. It’s good to see him left loose, especially during those plentiful action sequences. There’s even a romantic subplot between him and Li Ching in which they look natural.
Tang Chia and Yung Cheung Yan are responsible for the fights which are of the short and quick variety but they’re expertly done and not overly bloody. There’s a bit of wire work at the end, but overall, the action is very much grounded. However, there’s a range of weapons being used, as villain Wan Hau Ba (Cheng Miao) has metal claws as fingers and the 5th Chief (Chen Sing) uses a pair of sharp metal plates which doubles as shields. Tang Chia also cameos as a hired killer who uses a clawed weapon.
Although it’s not regarded as Chang Cheh‘s epic, visually “King Eagle” looks good; it’s populated with well-developed lead characters plus a collection of interesting villains with inventive weapons. As usual, the action is inspired enough to hold the viewers’ attention, the romance and the sexual tension in between play out equally well. On top of that, watching two Li Chings on screen is a real treat.
