classicsoncall Review of Drunken Master

Drunken Master (1978)

"Let me tell you, my drunk gods don't mess around!"

[5/10 · 25 April 2019]

Coming direct to you from the Three Stooges School of Inebriated Martial Arts is this film - "Drunken Master", which I understand is the picture that catapulted Jackie Chan to the heights of kung fu and movie stardom. Granted, the film has some exceptional martial arts choreography, but at the same time, that might be one of the movie's downsides, as it's so deliberate and precise that it makes the fighting look fake. No question as to Jackie's athleticism, as the acrobatics and stamina required to pull off so many of the stunts is nothing short of exceptional. Story wise, it's a lot of the same with these Seventies era kung fu flicks, though I'm no expert in these matters, and merely take one in every now and then to gain some perspective on the genre. I got a kick out of some of the character names like Rat, the Iron-Headed Bullet and the King of Bamboo, along with some of the martial art moves taught by Beggar So (Siu Tin Yuen) to Wong Fei-Hung (Chan). My favorite was 'fat old woman on toilet'; try erasing that mental picture from your head. Mostly, the silliness of it all took me out of the picture which accounts for my low score, but if you're a Jackie Chan fan, you probably owe it to yourself to check this one out. Best to keep in mind Beggar So's advice to Wong Fei-Hung though - "It looks real enough, yet it isn't".