The Shadow Eaters

The Shadow Eaters
Season 4 Episode 7
File:Mascara Oni 7.jpg
General Information
Setting	USA
Aired on	15th November 2003
Credits
Written by	Michael Jelenic
Directed by	Brandon Vietti
Episode Guide
Previous Episode Fright Fight Night	Next Episode Half a Mask of Kung-Fu

Plot

Jackie, Uncle and Jade are traveling through a swamp to find the seventh Oni mask. However, Jade loses the Hana Fuda card telling the mask removal ingredient in the water. She tries retrieve it, only for a crocodile to eat it. They go inside the shack where the mask is located, and they find the inside is full of things Uncle considers to be dark magic. But Jade recognizes it as the set of Ms. Kimber, a celebrity from the Psychic Channel. Uncle refuses to believe in psychics, calling them phonies, only for Ms. Kimber in person to finish his sentence, knowing what he was going to say. Though she knows they've come for the mask, the stars, as she says, say that it is Hak Foo's destiny to take it. At that moment, Hak Foo bursts in and takes the mask. Uncle tries to concoct a mask removal potion, but he wishes he knew the ingredient. Ms. Kimber says he can get his answer for only $9.50 per minute; he refuses to pay her. In the ensuing swamp boat chase, the mask ends up on Hak Foo's face, and he begins to summon Shadowkhan, only to find out that his minions are tiny. Angered, he leaves, followed by all but one of his Shadowkhan.

Bringing the Mini-Khan back to the shop, Uncle becomes determined to find out what it can do. Everyone else calls it a night, and Tohru tries feeding their prisoner a cookie, only to find out that it's eating his shadow. Once the shadow has been fully swallowed, Tohru falls into a coma, while the Mini-Khan grows into a bigger, more ferocious beast. Jade is able to zap it with the puffer fish. Uncle later explains that shadows are part of a human's chi, and without them, one will forever stay in a coma. The only way to stop the Mini-Khan is to remove the mask from Hak Foo. He has Jackie and Jade go out into the city to stop more Mini-Khan before they take more shadows. They arm themselves in a Ghost-buster fashion (including the incomplete removal spell, a pair of Mini-Khan vacuums and Uncle's puffer fish for good measure), and they travel at night so that they will not cast shadows to be eaten.

At the Enforcers' hideout, Hak Foo tries training his Shadowkhan to headbutt a dummy of Jackie, only for them to bounce off. Tarakudo explains that all Shadowkhan are deadly; one just has to know their strengths. Hak Foo is skeptical of this, so Tarakudo brings Chow from the shower, prompting the Mini-Khan to eat his shadow. Realising what he could do to the city, Hak Foo deploys his minions to begin a shadow feast.

Jackie and Jade have a hectic job vacuuming up Mini-Khan before bystanders can get hurt. However, the sheer volume of the ninjas begins to overwhelm their ability to deal with them, and before too long, Hak Foo himself also shows up. Back at the shop, Uncle is desperately trying to research the missing removal spell ingredient, aided by his Japanese-to-Chinese dictionary. It does not go well. (One result of his research is "shoelace of giraffe.") While Jackie contends with Hak Foo and a full vacuum tank, Jade hunts for one Mini-Khan that has escaped her aim. Unfortunately, it has fled into the subway tunnels just as the early-morning commuters are disembarking from the train -- each of them casting a delicious fluorescent-lit shadow. By the time she finds it, it has burst from underground, at least five stories tall and grinning with very sharp fangs.

Just then, Jackie's phone rings. Concern for his apprentice has finally won out, and Uncle has called Ms. Kimber to learn the last ingredient -- fish. Jade has the presence of mind to put Uncle's puffer fish towards that job, and Jackie dons the spell, seizes Hak Foo's mask, and removes it. All at once, Hak Foo's power is broken, and the gargantuan Shadowkhan and all of its brethren burst, releasing fragments of shadow to all corners of the city. One goes back to Tohru, and he wakes up where the others had tucked him into bed -- only to discover that Ms. Kimber had also encouraged Uncle to pursue a future in oil painting, and his first subject was to be his comatose apprentice with a bowl of fruit on his chest.

Cast

Main Cast

• Jackie Chan
• Jade
• Uncle
• Tohru

Broadcast

• USA: The WB (Kids' WB) - Saturday 15th November 2003.

Gallery

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