Tuesday 17 January 2012

Drunken Master

Home
Smell the Movies
Smell the TV

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Year:1978
Country of origin:Hong Kong
Director:Woo-ping Yuen
Genre:Knockabouit martial arts madness
Starring:Jackie Chan, Siu Tien Yuen, Jang Lee Hwang
Rating:3/5
IMDB link:http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080179/
Tagline:No tagline
Favourite line:N/A - Subtitled

An early outing for Jackie Chan, here, somewhat ruined by the crushingly awful dubbing on the version I watched.

The plot:
Chan plays Freddie Wong, an obnoxious young prick-end who irritates everyone he meets to the point that they want to fight him.
Restaurant owners, women, crooks.
Everyone.
Tired of the antics of his son, Wong's father sends him to Beggar So, the Drunken Master, to teach him the error of his ways.
Wong is initially reluctant due to the Masters' reputation for working students so hard they wind up crippled, but soon comes around to the Master's teachings as he sees improvement. Finally, after much preparation, Wong is ready to fight off the villains who wish harm to his father and the family business.

It's tough for me to give this a fair review as the dubbing was so tiresome I began to lose interest. All that can be attested is that the fighting was quite excellent, some of the best I've seen in a Jackie Chan movie, with incredibly complex sequences choreographed to perfection, and only very limited use of wire-work.
Plot-wise, it's drivel of course and, as ever, some of the comedy doesn't translate particularly well, seeming remarkably juvenile but, if I were judging this on the fighting alone it would rate highly, but the talentless droogs doing the voice-over work killed this one stone dead here at Smell the Cult HQ.
Fighting: 5 out of 5.
Movie overall: 3 out of 5.

No comments:

Post a Comment