Snake and Crane Arts of Shaolin (1978) ½
cast: Jackie Chan, Nora Miao, Gam Ching-lan, and Kam Kong

I first viewed "Snake and Crane Arts of Shaolin" around 1996, following Chan's recent archive import of films to the United States that began with "Rumble in the Bronx." I scoffed at "Snake and Crane..." after having viewed films like "Rumble..." and "Supercop." This Jackie Chan I neither knew nor wanted to know.

Basically, my own ignorance of Chan's life in cinema weighed heavily on the film (which I rented from a cheap mom and pop joint) and my novice critique of kung fu cinema all but condemned "Snake and Crane Arts of Shaolin" to hell.

Truthfully, seven years later "Snake and Crane Arts of Shaolin" is still problematic, but the last thing it deserves is to be dismissed along with producer Lo Wei's stable of garbage cinema (which Chan was often called upon to star in because of his contract with the infamous director).

By 1977, Lo Wei was really getting sick of Chan and his inability to become the next big thing in Hong Kong, post Bruce Lee. Lo handed over the reins to director Chen Chi Hwa for a few films that Lo only stayed on as producer in order to get Chan out of his hair for awhile.

"Snake and Crane Arts of Shaolin," the better of the two collaborations Chan did with Chen at this time (the other being Chan's smug "Half a Loaf of Kung Fu"), sees eight masters of individual talent, authors to a book that hold the secrets to their "Snake and Crane Arts."

All eight masters along with the book mysteriously vanish without a trace and a young martial arts master of an unknown style going by the name of Su Yin Fung (Chan) seems to be the only one who knows what happened to them as well as making no secret to the fact that he is in possession of the book.

Soon all of South China is after Su to get their hands on the book as well as those who want to know what happened to the masters that disappeared.

Jackie Chan called "Snake and Crane Arts of Shaolin" his "dream project" in his autobiography, because Chen allowed him to loosen up and direct the choreography the way he saw fit. The film really marked the first of Chan's patent style of prop-based martial arts, which there is plenty of, and which most fans will appreciate.

On the other hand, the major downfall of "Snake and Crane Arts of Shaolin" is that the picture comes to a screeching halt every time the action stops. Long and boring passages of dialogue clog the production, but on the bright side of things now that Sony Columbia Tri-Star distributes the film on DVD, you can be bored watching these scenes with their original Mandarin soundtrack resurrected.

Basically, "Snake and Crane Arts of Shaolin" is on par with some of Chan's other near misses on the ladder to stardom a la "Snake in the Eagle's Shadow" and "The Fearless Hyena."