Enter the Eagles
Review
Format: VCD
Stars: Shannon Lee, Benny "The Jet" Urquidez, Michael Wong

Michael Wong and his cronies want to steal a diamond, but some thieves catch word of it and try to get in on the action too. Wong's team has made a deal with Urquidez, and after they lose the diamond to a trator, the two teams unite to, you know.

I had heard of this movie having lots of action, not entirely martial arts but still lots of action. Yes, it does, lots of gun fights and stuff like that. That stuff is ok and all, but there are a few fight scenes that exceeded my expectations by a long shot. There's a dorky looking guy with bleached frat hair and he's actually really good and I enjoyed watching his kickboxing. Shannon Lee is exceptional, Michael Wong doesn't fight, and The Jet is still one of the scariest fighters I've ever laid eyes on, and here he's probably at his scariest.

To begin with, the young white guy (I'll call him Sonny cause he's Urquidez's son in the movie) beats up a few other white guys and holds one guy while he wraps his leg around another guy's neck from the side. Not much, later on Shannon Lee fights with her left hand tied to another guy's right hand, and he has a sickle. Here's a good place to show what Shannon can do, and she's very very impressive. Some acrobatics, high kicks, but I don't really enjoy these weird fights where people are tied somehow. Still, Lee is good. She keeps moving around and looks so professional, as I would expect from the daughter of Bruce Lee. I'll go as far as saying that she looks better on screen than all her family members, including Bruce, because now we are in a different era where martial arts are faster (hopefully it'll stay that way).



Lee fights Sonny in a sewer and it's a good looking fight, although short. Sonny looks really good, I'll say it again. He isn't jerky, choreographed and lame looking, but he looks natural and fights like a bad guy who knows how to kickbox should. Some punch combos from Lee, blocking, it's all very good looking.



But none of that is as good as the last fight, which comes in two parts. First, Lee fights both Urquidez and Sonny, and the two of them kick at Lee repeatedly as she dodges and parries using some cables that are holding together a blimp, where they were. It's not a dumb looking thing where the kicks look fake and planned, but these two put on a show and Lee does more acrobatics while rolling over the cables. That lasts for a little while, and then Lee and Urquidez fight. It starts with Urquidez getting really pissed off. As Lee is getting away, he comes up like a bat out of hell and moves like no white 40 year old can possibly move now (I assume he's 40, he's getting up there nowadays). They exchange fists and kicks, Urquidez does awesome moves, and it's not exadderated or anthing, no wires, no cuts that left me wondering where that kick came from, and best of all, Lee and Urquidez are real looking. Urquidez obviously has ability, and Shannon Lee has a powerful presense where she exchanges very well with him. This fight was very entertaining. Benny gets kicked in the groin repeatedly and falls on a beam between his legs afterword, poor guy. They end up inside this glassed-metal-skeleton hemisphere where they break the glass panes over and over, and it's a very good effect. Overall the last fight was indeed worth everything in the movie.



That's not to say the entire movie was lame. The story was interesting, and there were some placed stunts (that probably had wires, but no doubles), like when Lee jumped from a window way down onto a ladder and held on. I had to watch it over and over to see if there was a wire, and I think there was because she slowed down as she approached it. The thing about the stunts in this movie was that they were so realistic, but there were obviously computers involved. Shannon Lee climbing up a ladder on the side of a blimp way up in the air isn't possible on camera. But it's still good looking and, in my eyes, kicks the living shit out of any other American action movie and has a good story to back it up with powerful characters. Michael Wong is annoying, though, because he speaks English (very well), but sounds like Clinton (not that Clinton is bad, his accent is just annoying). And that's the other thing, almost all the dialogue in this movie is in English!! No having to read subtitles except when maybe 3 characters speak Cantonese. Great!

What I would have liked to see was more fights, more Urquidez (you don't see him much until that last fight), less Michael Wong, and of course more fights again. But this movie is complete in many ways. Blimp blowing up, helicopter crash, dropping onto a building, a little comedy, theft, espionage, lots of good stuff that would make this an instant hit if it starred Pierce Brosnan (and if the guy had any talent to speak of at the same time, that's required for a movie to be any good). So, if we can get more and more of these movies out of Hong Kong (this is filmed in Russia I think, but it's still an HK production) and retain good kickboxing with the more quality cinematic qualities of American movies, things could get really good and I would welcome a new genre of martial arts films. ... I'm dreaming, but still, this is entertaining.

8/10 - MORE FIGHTS!!

UPDATE 10/9 - Rating System Change

4/5

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