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Snake Crane Secret (1976)

Snake And Crane Secret
The Secret Of The Snake And Crane
Secret Of The Dragon
Secrets Of The Dragon


Cast:

Tao-liang Tan
Tien Lung Yu
Hui San Yang
Fang Fang
Li Tung is Han Kwai
Dean Shek is Shao Tin San


What the box says:

A book containing a family's secrets to the Snake Crane kung fu fighting style becomes the target of evil men, who would use the technique for dishonerable purposes.


Plot:

The narrator reveals that many frms of Kung Fu are based on various animals: tigers, eagle, preying mantis, monkey, snake, crane, etc...

Ham Que tells the abbot of a temple of how 20 years earlier that one of his students: Hung, convinced him that Tin stole the Snake-Crane secret. Let the fight ensue. Hung kills Tin but a monk is able to save Tin's sons. Ham has been searching to find Tin's sons for all these years and learns from the abbot that he raised the younger son, Earl Lang, and the older son, Tim Cum Lang, went off with the monk. Ham Que is still going to keep searching for Tin's sons.

Hung has become a high official of the king and wants the book from Earl Lang. He puts a hit order on Ham Que who is able to evade the assassin: Tim Cum Lang.

Elsewhere, the rebels also want to find Earl Lang for that book. Apparently, the book also has a hidden list of rebel names.

Soldiers catch up with Earl Lang who is forced to give up the book. Later, Hung examines the book and learns that Earl Lang gave the wrong book.

The rebel group, Sun and Moon group, are meetng when they're ambushed by Hung's soldiers. Finally, the Kung Fu is on. Ham Que wanders on and jumps into the fray. He takes one of the leader girls. Later, she asks him to join the rebel group to help dfdrive out the Ching rulers. He still has to find Tim's sons.

Shant Ting Sun, one of Hung's goons, tries to get the book from Earl Lang agin. Earl wants to meet with Hung who agrees.

The rebels are still lookign for Earl and finally catch up to him. They don't want to give up the book because it has a hidden list of their names. Ham Que is Earl's uncle. After Ham and Earl fight, Earl runs off.

Earl goes to his meeting at Hung's palance. Hands the book over, Earl wants to to serve Hung. Later, Hung can't find the the name list in the book. Shant tries to get the code from Earl who deomonstrates some of the Crane secrets. A ninja attacks Shant for the book which ends up in the mud.

Shant returns the book to Hung who discovers the list is visible now since it fell in the water and mud.

Hung sends Earl and Tim off on a mission. They get into a fight when the Sun and Moon group and Ham Que arrive. Ham reveals that Earl and Tim are brothers. Ham decides he's accomplished his mission and walks off. Tim has been spying on Hung for the rebels for years. Earl wants revenge on Hung first.

The brothers head off to fight Hung. Finally, they reveal to Hung that they're the sons on Tin. The Snake and crane style is on. However, they're not able to handle Hung. Ham Que jumps into the fight so the boys can get away.

The next day, the brothers are in a training montage without the power ballad that would supercharge them.

Hung is positive the rebel list will get him a promotion in the government. He readies to go off on a mission.

Earl and Tim jump Hung's caravan. Sun and Moon rebels attack the soldiers. However, they can't handle Hungs crew and have to escape.

After another round of training, the brothers decide one must die to take carte of Hung. The rebels jump Hung's group again. The brothers go for Hung again. Suddenly, Ham Que pops up? In the fight, Shant gets impaled. Hung finishes Tin, and Earl finishes Hung. One of the rebel girls convinces Earl to join the rebellion and keep fighting.


What I say:

The 1970s Kung Fu movie, and it's better than a rom-com or a drama of the triumph of the human heart. Low budget martial arts movies are most known for just being an excuse from fight to fight. One of the truly special types of movies especially since it's not one of the Brucesploitation movies in the late 1970s or those that have Jackie Chan plastered over the covers of the DVDs when he's only a supporting character that pops up for only 10 minutes or so like in Killer Meteors.

Ever notice how many martial art movies have a secret book of techniques? Well, that idea is in and out of this movie. Does Hung wanting the book or some sort of secret list of rebels? They can't keep the idea straight if even the list is hidden in the book or not. Actually, martial arts movies have some guy learning the martial arts to revenge their murdered fathers almost more often than gunfighters in Westerns want revenge on the evil cattle baron that killed their father 20 years earlier. Practically every one of them has plots that are used for 90% of the others.

Long lost family memebers are rediscovered more here than in soap operas. Ham Que is searching for his nephews for 20 years but the relation isn't mentioned for half the movie. For the first half, you'd get the impression that Ham was wanting to apologize for believing Hung's lie about their father stealing the Snake Crane book.

Japanese monster movies are probably best known for awful dubbing some Italian movies are running fairly close in second. Don't forget 70s Kung Fu. Almost have to appreciate any movie that has a character dubbed with a more Suthern accent than a NASCAR tailgate party.

Would it make more sense in its original version? Some scenes look like they were cut out. If not, there was some bad editting. Thankfully, I didn't have to break out the TDTS (Too Dark To See) abbreviation in my notes. With the sister rebel leaders, the 2 brothers, Ham Que, Hung, and the various goons, it was hard to keep track of all of them especially when most aren't named for most of the movie.

The training montage needs a power ballad to supercharge the heroes when they take on the villains. It worked in most of Sylvester Stallone movies in the 1980s like Rocky 3 and Rocky 4. Eye of the Tiger...Eye of the Tiger.... The power ballad would have had the heroes defeat Hung at least one fight sooner.



2 1/2 NINJAS

Quotable Dialogue

"Snake is usually peaceful."
"Brother, they're children."
"Don't you know these are government property?"
"This one's called 'Crane Head and Tail'."


Morals of the Story

Martial arts skills are increased by animals like the snake, crane, etc...
Chinese men should sound like Southern rednecks.
Women are naturally skilled at using nun-chucks.
Skeletons make excellent punching bags.
Ninjas live in China.
1 day can allow one to recover from massive beating.


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