Drunken Master

There's any number of reason to like international film star Jackie Chan...his superior athletic ability, infectious sense of humor, personable charm, but I think the one element that endears him to me is his willingness to put himself in the position of serious physical harm in order to entertain the audience. Sure there are attempts to minimize the risks to some degree (meticulous planning and repetitive practicing), and given Chan's incredible physical prowess he's less likely to suffer harm than say I would trying to do half the things he does, but despite these factors, there is still the notion that with many of his stunts, particularly in his later films, he's always about a hair away from killing himself. Anyway, directed by Woo-ping Yuen, who would later choreograph action scenes for the Matix and Kill Bill films, Drunken Master (1978) aka Jui kuen stars Jackie Chan (listed in the credits as Jacky) and Siu Tien Yuen (the director's father).The film begins as an assassin named Thunderleg, Master of the Devil's Kick, searching out his most recent target in that of The Champion of the Four Door Fist (not all, but a lot of the characters have titles like this). He finds him, a battle ensues, and one is left standing. We then cut to a scene featuring students practicing martial arts in a school. It's here we meet one of the pupils named Wong Fei-Hung (Chan), whose father actually runs the school. Wong appears fairly adept (after showing up one of the teachers), but lacks the discipline and humility to achieve beyond his current skills, which becomes obvious to his father after a series of incidents involving a local bully, among others. This leads Wong's father to request another to assume training of Wong in that of an older man who's rumored to be incredibly difficult and completely sadistic. Wong decides to run away, but ends up meeting his new teacher (Siu Tien Yuen), a master of the 8 Drunken Gods fighting styles, after an altercation at a restaurant. Wong begins his training with his new master, but soon runs off, as it's too difficult. This sets up a chance meeting between Thunderleg and Wong were Wong gets the thrashing of a lifetime and ends up returning to the Drunken Master, realizing his own skills are pitiful. This leads into a lengthy set of training sequences eventually leading to the Master teaching Wong the secret fighting tactics of the 8 Drunken Gods. As Wong's training is completed, we find out a contract has been taken out on his father, one to be fulfilled by Thunderleg, so now Wong must put his training to the test in the fight of his life (or death).I think I should mention, as a number of reviewers have brought it up, something about the partial English dubbing within the film. The copy I received a little while ago has a little sticker on the back of the DVD case stating something in the way of `English substituted in some areas where original dialog track lost'. The effect is that when you're watching the film with the original Cantonese audio track, using English subtitles, there are scenes where the characters switch from Cantonese to really goofy sounding voices speaking English. This happens about three or four times, and it is a little annoying as it tended to draw me out of the film. I would have preferred that, if some of the original audio were lost, a re-recording in the same language as the original dialog...but whatever...now on to the film. The movie is crammed with excellent wall-to-wall fight scenes. There are momentary lapses devoted to working on the plot, but these quickly pass resulting in more fight sequences. I think my favorite sequence, besides the lengthy one at the end, featured Siu Tien Yuen in the restaurant, smacking assailants with a dishrag. Not only was it really funny, but almost hypnotic as he twirled that towel around before rat tailing someone in the face (in case you're not familiar, `rat tailing' means taking a wet towel, twisting it up, and snapping it at poor individual). Can anyone tell me what was up with that teacher Chan's character beats up on near the beginning? The guy had this mole on his face, one that had this set of really long hairs emanating from it, and the guy could often be seen playing with the hair, twirling it with his fingers...it was pretty disgusting. And what was the deal with that waiter from the restaurant? Was that the biggest set of buckteeth you've ever seen? I suppose these were some of what made up the comedic element of this film, but they weren't all that funny. What was funny was the scene where Chan's character is trying to learn the drunken fighting style of the lone woman god, doing so in a mocking fashion as he thought it was too effeminate. Another concept I found really funny was the whole notion of fighting styles based of being intoxicated, and the fact Wong's teacher was drunk throughout most of the film. The choreography in the fighting scenes is really spectacular as Chan not only displays that psuedo comic fighting style he's famous for, but also a lot of serious chop socky. Don't expect to see Chan doing any large scale, over the top stunts like leaping off building, as seen in his later films, but do expect lots of close up, smacky smacky action (he also takes the beating like no one I've ever seen).The picture on this DVD is very good (some cropping), presented in 2.35:1 widescreen, enhanced for 16 X 9 TVs. The monaural audio is decent, but certainly nothing to brag about. Special features include a commentary track including Hong Kong film expert Ric Meyers and Jeff Yang, a co-author of Chan's autobiography. Also included are trailers for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000) and Time and Tide (2000).Cookieman108

It was a little funny to hear Jackie Chan's character speaking with sort of a southern USA accent. I wondered about the movie at first with the vulgar language and JC's character being disrespectful, especially to women but eventually he had to deal with his selfish immaturities and turned out to be a fairly typical fun and heartwarming Chan movie.

This is a certified Jackie Chan classic and I can confirm it works in US blu-ray players. I tried it in my Philips 4k player that bulks at region free discs & it played this film perfectly. I own a region free Blu-Ray player but always try it in the player that usually can't play them 1st just to see if it will work. And to any other Kung Fu fans out there noticing that a lot of the best release always seem to be for region B remember the playstation, xbox, & your PC Blu-Ray drive will play any region Blu-Ray. As a side note this is the best release of Druken Master ever but if your a Jackie Chan fan your probably aware of that. It comes with a nice booklet & special feature. The audio & video are perfect. Again another 4k transfer without a 4k release. Hopefully one day companies will realize that collectors are the ones still buying physical media & we want it in the best quality possible but until than this is a great disc.

This is arguably the BEST film of jackie Chan's career. while Jackies' death defying stunts came abit later to try to top the spectacular original kung fu of the early films like this one, the kung fu scenes are immaculately choreographed and photographed. the camera shots are of the typical energetic kung fu cinema style, with the high speed zoom-out-to action and so on. the characters are all wonderfully portrayed, each with its own colourful personality and background.Even the english dubbing in this film is excellently done-how many times have you seen a kung fu film with poor dubbing by voice actors who sound like theyre reading the script for the first time as the movie plays? This film offers the best in english dubbing, with true-to-character voices and translation, which makes the film all the more exciting to watch. the story is simple but amusing. chinese folk hero Wong Fei hung is a rebellious teenager causing mischeif about town. in the english version, his nicknamed "freddy"(lol). freddy's father has tried several times to discipline him, but to no avail. eventually he calls upon great uncle So Hai for help. So Hei is an aged little drunkard but he is notortious across the land for his formidable kung fu-"the secrets of the eight drunken gods." initially freddy finds So Hei's gruelling methods and drills too much and runs away. he meets Thunderleg, a local assassin who is renowned for his incredible kicking style of kung fu. bullied and utterly humiliated by him, freddy runs back to So Hei, angered and invigorated to learn his "secret style", drunken kung fu. after a bad deal over local real estate, Thunderleg is employed to kill freddy's father. freddy finds them just in time and promises to make amends with his father and protect him from the evil Thunderleg as So Hei watches from a distance, confident freddy will not need his help. But has freddy mastered the Secrets of the 8 Drunken Gods? hilarious humor and splendidly witty kung fu sequences bring you to a thrillingly spectacular show down ending in what is often reffered to as Jackie Chans' finest film ever!!

When writing for a people the words you use matters. The actions they take matters. It is not enough just to portray them, the mannerisms in this movie was much more westernized than Asian. It was inauthentic, which was a shame because the acting was good as well as it's concept. Disappointing.

Great fights as you would expect from Jackie. Lots of fun.

The storyline can be a little disjointed, but that doesn't take away from the tremendous fight scenes and stunts by the actors.

Well it's not too often that I'm blown away by a Blu-ray release, but it usually comes when something you know and love so well is meticulously restored. And Eureka have done an utterly sublime job with this brand new restored edition of Drunken Master.I actually came to Drunken Master quite late on, preferring Jackie Chan's 80s output (Wheels on Meals, Armour of God, Police Story, etc) over his more traditional Kung Fu movies, but when I finally got round to Drunken Master, I was an instant fan of it's comedic style and phenomenal fight choreography. Since then, I've owned it in many formats from video, to the Hong Kong legends and Mei Ah DVD releases, but they've all suffered problems in their own ways. The film has been incorrectly cropped, suffered bad picture quality, an incomplete Cantonese soundtrack (reverting to English in spots) and notorious "dubtitles" for the original language track (meaning you're basically getting the English dub to screen, rather than an actual translation of the original language, which I find infuriating). So until now, it's always the best of a bad bunch for Drunken Master, but I'm glad to say that Eureka have made this a thing of the past.Presented in it's original theatrical ratio of 2.35:1 and having undergone a 4k restoration, Eureka's release looks phenomenal. The detail, clarity, and faithful colour presentation make it hard to believe you're watching a 39 year old film. And it's about as authentic as it gets, no recourse to horrible DNR or any other of those more illusory mastering techniques. The quality of the restoration alone would be enough to make this worth every penny, but what you also have here for the first time ever is not only the FULL Cantonese soundtrack in lossless LPCM mono, but also both lossless English and Mandarin dubs. The Mandarin dub is the same as the Mei Ah release (with a few missing sections reverting to English) but is a really nice inclusion. The full Cantonese soundtrack is brilliantly clear, and authentic, and packs a surprisingly big punch despite the simplicity of its design. And in a truly fantastic attention to detail, Eureka have even provided proper subtitled translations of both the Cantonese and Mandarin versions, with subtitles for the hard of hearing too.To top all that off, there's a whole host of extras, including an absolutely brilliant and insightful audio commentary by film experts and authors Ric Myers and Jeff Yang (co-author of "I am Jackie Chan - My life in action") as well as deleted scenes, an appreciation by Gareth Evans (The Raid), interviews, and a whole load more including a really nice specially commission booklet essay.Also, for any American and Canadian fans, I can confirm that I was able to play this on my region modded Blu-ray player when switched to "Region A" so this would appear to be region A and B compatible.So in short, this not only the greatest version of Drunken Master I've seen, it's also the finest release of any Jackie Chan film I've seen too. Whilst I appreciate Drunken Master is arguably one of the most important films in Chinese cinema history, and well deserving of it's "Masters of Cinema" tag, I secretly hope that Eureka are able to bring us more Jackie Chan in the future. If they are to this standard, then that's a very exciting prospect indeed.

Finally! After years and years of searching, I have finally found the original VHS version of Drunken Master which has been converted to DVD!If you are looking for the version you most likely would have seen on video tape many years ago, then this is that version. It has the original English dubbing from the VHS version, where the baddy is called "Thunderfoot".Some reviews here are talking about other versions, so if you are after the version with original dubbing, go for the one that is in my pic.Quality-wise, it isn't great, bearing in mind it is just a straight conversion from VHS to DVD and there are no extras.If you are not bothered about this specific version with this dubbing, then there are many other better quality versions of Drunken Master (with better dubbing) out there which you can buy.Only get this version if you are after this specific dubbing of the film.For this particular version, I gave it 4 stars as I have finally found the version I was looking for and it met my expectations.

Drunken Master is a Hong Kong action film from 1978. The film was directed by Yuen Woo-Ping (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon) and stars the legendary stunt master Jackie Chan. The film is a Kung Fu classic and is a film that I have never actually seen up, until now that is.With the Corona Virus lock down in full effect, I found myself with the desire to watch some old school Jackie Chan films. I was on the lookout for the classics Police Story, Project A and Wheels On Meals. I noticed that Eureka have cleaned up and released a lot of these films. Unfortunately for my bank account, I picked up a large amount of movies in one swoop. This included Drunken Master, a film I have always been curious about but for whatever reason, a film that I had never really went out my way to see.Drunken Master is a fairly simple story and one that no doubt has been told many times. Jackie Chan plays (presumably the legendary) Wong Fei-Hung. He's an overly cocky but talented individual. His over the top attitude lands him in trouble and as a punishment, his father sends him off to learn under the dreaded Beggar So. The plot is fairly bare bones and is nothing particularly ground breaking. It's all held together by the great charisma from the actors on screen. They all do their parts with great conviction.In typical Jackie Chan fashion, the film is quite tongue in cheek and has a lot of high speed action. The use of slapstick humour etc is generally well done. I got a good number of laughs out of the film and I think they did a great job scattering the jokes around without making it overly silly. This of course is all balanced out with the action sequences, which there are no lack of. Some scenes are very fast and hard hitting, whilst others come across as very well choreographed routines. These routines I quite enjoyed. You could see the actors were clearly keeping a specific rhythm and was very different (to my eyes at least).The print presented by Eureka looks very nice. It has lots of colour and plenty of crisp detail. I have seen clips of this film over the years and not a single one came remotely close to looking this good. For a film that is over forty years old now, it has aged beautifully and that is not just from the beautiful cinematography etc but the effort to preserve the quality of the film.I almost feel embarrassed that it took me this long to see this film but I am glad I finally did. It's a great up beat movie with lots of laughs. It's a very easy watch with plenty of extras to keep any fan going. If martial arts movies is your thing, do yourself a favour and pick this one up.

The picture quality of this "Masters of Cinema" blu-ray edition is fantastic when compared to previous releases. The audio is a big disappointment for me, though for reasons that will only be valid for a part of the viewership. So let me explain:This release is listed as having English, Cantonese and Mandarin audio. The english dub is expectedly terrible, as with all movies of that era, but that's OK. I don't speak Cantonese, but my Mandarin is quite good. In other words, I bought this release to watch it in Mandarin. Imagine my surprise when the setup menu informed me that "the Mandarin soundtrack was originally created for a shorter version of the film. Additional footage is presented in english". OK, so I told myself, some chunk of the movie will be in english, it'll hopefully still be ok for the most part. Then watching it, I found this to be a terrible mess where in tons of scenes throughout the movie the audio will switch to the terrible english dubbing for a minute, or maybe even for one sentence, then go back to mandarin. A complete mess, totally takes you out of the viewing experience every few minutes.This is not mentioned in the product description here with even a single word, and trat already angered me quite a bit. But the worst of it all is that I do possess an old "Mei Ah" DVD release of the same movie. And while that DVD release is a shorter cut than this "Masters of Cinema" edition, it does contain scenes that switch to the english dub on the new blu-ray, only that these scenes _do_ have an original Mandarin dubbing on the old DVD. The opening scene for example, which is completely in english in the new release, exists fully intact and in Mandarin on the "Mei Ah" DVD.So in short, a better job could have been done to make this a "definitive" release, and its shortcomings should at least be made aware to the customers willing to pay for it.

Yuen-Woo Ping's Drunken Master has a reputation as one of the breakout films for Jackie Chan and one that, with its predecessor Snake in the Eagle's Shadow ushered in the then-fresh action comedy style for Kung Fu films. Both Chan and Ping have gone on to make substantially more polished and entertaining films in their career so DM's classic status IMO is more in terms of its historical context in the genre. That said, it's always fun to see a young Jackie display his martial arts skills and buffoonery. I watched the film using the Cantonese audio (which the lip-movements match with) and the gimmick pidgin English Hong-Kong bootleg style subtitles (while they have been intentionally created for this release, the English subtitles on 88Films' blu-ray for Killer Constable continue the tradition of hilarious grammatical faux pas).The large stack of extras includes a Jackie Chan interview, which seems to be taken from some Japanese convention he was attending for the restored screenings of SITES and DM. While he doesn't have anything specific to say about this film, there are some nice stories about his fame and career. I got quickly bored with the Gareth Evans appreciation piece.There's a decent lengthy Tony Rayns appreciation and producer interview. The booklet has a nice contextual essay by Michael Brooke, and stills of original poster art.