World of Drunken Master

Rating:
Summary: A flawed retelling of the Drunken Master kung fu tale
Review: This is another version of the popular "Drunken Master" tale of Beggar Su, an old drunkard who perfected "Drunken kung fu," so memorably portrayed by Simon Yuen in Yuen Wo Ping's DRUNKEN MASTER (1978), one of the two films that propelled Jackie Chan to his early stardom. The DVD case for WORLD OF DRUNKEN MASTER (1979) is somewhat misleading in that it promotes Simon Yuen, old "Drunken Master" himself, as the star. However, Simon appears only in a prologue sequence doing kung fu moves on a beach as the narrator tells us the story of the friendship of Fang Ta Rei and Beggar Su. Then, as the story begins, a completely different actor plays Beggar Su in a framing sequence that leads to a lengthy flashback detailing how the two men met. In the flashback, yet another actor, Lee Yi Min, plays Beggar Su while Jack Long plays Fang Ta Rei in both flashback and the framing sequence. Chan Wai Lau, an underrated supporting player in kung fu films, plays Chang 7th, the instructor who trains the two young men in "the 18 Falls of the Drunken Immortals." As a result, they're able to fight off attacks by Tiger Yeh (Lung Fei), a local landlord who, after losing a fight with Chang 7th, closes the winery where all the main characters work and then leads his men in an attack on the place. This response is quite baffling since it makes absolutely no sense for a businessman to destroy his own property and disrupt the manufacture of a product he profited from. (But it makes for a lively fight scene.)

The film is not terribly well written or edited. Fight scenes are often broken up to cut to other action, a tack usually avoided in these films so that fans can enjoy a rousing fight in one place from start to finish. However, the film does offer four extremely good kung fu players, including Jack Long (7 GRANDMASTERS), Lee Yi Min (NINJA CHECKMATE), Lung Fei (ONE-ARMED BOXER), and Chan Wai Lau (WU TANG SACRED FIST). The fight and training choreography is at least well shot and staged (by Yuen Cheung-Yan, who later did similar chores for the two CHARLIE'S ANGELS films) and presented in the proper widescreen dimensions on this DVD which comes in the Mandarin language with English subtitles.

The first hour of the film is, for the most part, pretty exciting, but after the big fight with Tiger Yeh the action cuts back to Fang and Su reminiscing, 30 years later, and then the film continues pouring on fight scenes with new characters whose presence has no real dramatic purpose other than to extend the running time (to roughly 90 minutes). One of the new fighters is Mark Long (also seen in 7 GRANDMASTERS and NINJA CHECKMATE), who seems somewhat wasted here (he'd have been better served playing Tiger Yeh).

Rating:
Summary: A flawed retelling of the Drunken Master kung fu tale
Review: This is another version of the popular "Drunken Master" tale of Beggar Su, an old drunkard who perfected "Drunken kung fu," so memorably portrayed by Simon Yuen in Yuen Wo Ping's DRUNKEN MASTER (1978), one of the two films that propelled Jackie Chan to his early stardom. The DVD case for WORLD OF DRUNKEN MASTER (1979) is somewhat misleading in that it promotes Simon Yuen, old "Drunken Master" himself, as the star. However, Simon appears only in a prologue sequence doing kung fu moves on a beach as the narrator tells us the story of the friendship of Fang Ta Rei and Beggar Su. Then, as the story begins, a completely different actor plays Beggar Su in a framing sequence that leads to a lengthy flashback detailing how the two men met. In the flashback, yet another actor, Lee Yi Min, plays Beggar Su while Jack Long plays Fang Ta Rei in both flashback and the framing sequence. Chan Wai Lau, an underrated supporting player in kung fu films, plays Chang 7th, the instructor who trains the two young men in "the 18 Falls of the Drunken Immortals." As a result, they're able to fight off attacks by Tiger Yeh (Lung Fei), a local landlord who, after losing a fight with Chang 7th, closes the winery where all the main characters work and then leads his men in an attack on the place. This response is quite baffling since it makes absolutely no sense for a businessman to destroy his own property and disrupt the manufacture of a product he profited from. (But it makes for a lively fight scene.)

The film is not terribly well written or edited. Fight scenes are often broken up to cut to other action, a tack usually avoided in these films so that fans can enjoy a rousing fight in one place from start to finish. However, the film does offer four extremely good kung fu players, including Jack Long (7 GRANDMASTERS), Lee Yi Min (NINJA CHECKMATE), Lung Fei (ONE-ARMED BOXER), and Chan Wai Lau (WU TANG SACRED FIST). The fight and training choreography is at least well shot and staged (by Yuen Cheung-Yan, who later did similar chores for the two CHARLIE'S ANGELS films) and presented in the proper widescreen dimensions on this DVD which comes in the Mandarin language with English subtitles.

The first hour of the film is, for the most part, pretty exciting, but after the big fight with Tiger Yeh the action cuts back to Fang and Su reminiscing, 30 years later, and then the film continues pouring on fight scenes with new characters whose presence has no real dramatic purpose other than to extend the running time (to roughly 90 minutes). One of the new fighters is Mark Long (also seen in 7 GRANDMASTERS and NINJA CHECKMATE), who seems somewhat wasted here (he'd have been better served playing Tiger Yeh).