China, 19th century. Wong Fei-Hung is a young lad training at his father's martial arts school. Wong mocks an assistant teacher; then he tries to trick a girl into kissing him, sparking a fight with the girl's female guardian; and then he meets and beats up a bully who refused to pay for an item from a poor seller. When Wong returns to his father, it turns out that the female guardian is his aunt and that the bully's father is an influential man. As punishment, father orders Wong to be trained by teacher So for a year, who can only fight while drinking vine. Wong flees from home, but is found by So. Wong flees once again, but stumbles upon and is beaten by Thunderfoot, an assassin. This causes Wong to return to So and complete the training. When a rival hires Thunderfoot to assassinate Wong's father, Wong saves him and kills Thunderfoot by drinking vine.
"Drunken Master", together with "Snake in the Eagle's Shadow" which was released that same year and also directed by Yuen Woo-Ping, signalled the dawn of a new era, the era of a comedy kung fu film—and its new prophet, Jackie Chan, who hereby became a new movie star. Looking from today's perspective, it seems rather crude, with several lame, banal or silly attempts at humor (bodyguards beating up Wong's stomach, to make him throw up food for which he didn't pay at the restaurant), whereas its storyline is chaotic since it seems to be assembled out of four different stories, yet its martial arts and battle sequences are so meticulously choreographed and stylized they seem fresh even now. Chan already displays his virtuoso moves in the opening act, in which he finds a dozen different ways of constantly taking away the hat from the assistant teacher (dropping the hat, but when the assistant reaches for it, Chan's Wong picks it up first with his foot and then throws it back into his hand, and then twists the assistant's hand to again take the hat away), and also shines later on with "impossible" stunts. Another highlight is Wong's first fight with the dangerous assassin Thunderfoot: in one great moment, Wong catches Thunderfoot's shoe with both of his hands, but the villain just takes his foot off from the shoe and kicks Wong anyway, and then simply returns his foot back in the shoe, with incredible speed. Allegedly, the movie was an inspiration for some characters in manga "Dragonball", which is obvious in the bald man who attacks Wong with his head, "bull fight"-style, and the old teacher whose hands shake unless he has vine to drink. Chan gives it his maximum, but the rest of the crew doesn't, since no other aspect of the movie is up to his level, especially in a lack of a movie style or character development, yet the kung fu sequences are simply fun.
Grade:++
No comments:
Post a Comment