Drunken Master (1978)
Stars
Jackie Chan
Director
Woo-Ping Yuen
Wong Fei-Hung (Jackie Chan) is the son of a local martial arts master/dojo owner, despite the incredible lengths that the teachers lavish upon him Wong is mischievous and constantly skips out on lessons. His trouble making finally pushes his father to far when a woman he makes advances on in the street turns out to be his cousin, and his aunt (her gardian) gives him a solid thrashing. In an attempt to teach his wayward son a lessons he signs him over to the Beggar So, the “drunken master”, who is known for having crippled and physically broken all of his previous disciples. So quickly forces Wong into a brutal training regime, and Wong quickly tries to escape and runs into an assassin, known as “Thunderleg” and is again given a beat down. Returning to So, Wong focuses on his training rapidly gaining skill at the secret Drunken fist style of Kung fu taught by So. News reaches Wong that Thunderleg has been employed to kill his father and leaves So’s hut to confront him and stop him before he can kill his father.
Martial Arts Styles Used
Drunken Style Kung Fu
Weapons Used
Staff
Fun martial art action, balanced against a clichéd story and sub par acting. Whilst this movie has great potential it is constantly let down by its badly written story, additional to this the overuse of 70’s “Kung fu” sounds and posing do ruin what could have been some truly memorable fight scenes. Overall a fun movie but really only a watch once and forget.
Author: Michael Casey, Oxford
