Eagle Shooting Heroes
The two contemporaneous films on this list adapted from Louis Cha’s epic Condor Trilogy couldn’t be more different. Utilising his cast for a quick shoot during production downtime on his more serious-minded adaptation, Ashes of Time, Wong Kar-wai intended Eagle Shooting Heroes as a means of damage limitation when his protracted main project began spiralling over budget. Directed by Ashes producer Jeffrey Lau, it’s a seemingly amphetamine-fuelled wuxia parody of unparalleled insanity.
Any attempt to follow the film’s plot proves an exercise in frustration, yet so manically unhinged is its every sequence, it’s impossible not to get swept along by its effervescent pledge to stick two fingers up to every wuxia (and cinematic) convention. Besides, you won’t find many other opportunities to see Tony Leung pretending to be a duck. It’s a riotously camp extravaganza like little else, and if you make it as far as the scene in the cave with the gorilla, the dinosaur and the parrot, you’ll know that resistance is ultimately futile.