The first Hong Kong actor I ever heard of was Bruce Lee. After that, it was Jackie Chan. I remember in the mid-90’s when RUMBLE IN THE BRONX opened in America and became the number 1 movie at the box office on its opening weekend. Jackie Chan had been trying out for U.S. stardom since the early 80’s with BATTLE CREEK BRAWL, THE CANNONBALL RUN movies and THE PROTECTOR. Now, all of a sudden he was a hot property. Some of Chan’s older movies, like OPERATION CONDOR (1991), SUPERCOP (1992) and DRUNKEN MASTER (1994) were being dusted off the shelves and re-released in America. The entire world was witnessing just what an amazing talent Jackie Chan truly was.
But long before he became a star in America, Jackie Chan was already one of the biggest stars in Asia. In DRUNKEN MASTER from 1978, Chan plays the martial arts hero Wong Fei-hung. Although Wong Fei-hung was a Chinese martial artist, physician & folk hero in real life, in DRUNKEN MASTER he’s played as a mischievous & arrogant young man who thinks he knows way more than he actually does. He’s such a pain in the butt that his dad, Master Wong, sends for his Uncle So to train him. Uncle So has a reputation as a master teacher who has been known to physically cripple his students in order to teach them the discipline it takes to learn his drunken kung fu. One day, after constantly rebelling against his uncle’s teaching, Wong escapes and runs into the mysterious assassin, Thunderleg. Not realizing who he’s dealing with, the disrespectful young man gets his ass kicked and is thoroughly humiliated. It’s so bad that he goes back to his uncle’s house and submits to his teaching. He finally realizes just how much he has to learn. Wouldn’t you know it, it’s also about this time that Thunderleg is commissioned to kill Master Wong. It seems a greedy guy named Mr. Lee wants access to land under Master Wong’s control for the sole purpose of removing its natural resources without regard for how it affects the other people in the area. When Master Wong says no, he unknowingly signs his death sentence. Will young Wong Fei-hung be able to learn the secrets of drunken kung fu in time to save his dad from the man who had soundly defeated him a short time ago? You’ll just have to watch and find out!
Jackie Chan is amazing as Wong Fei-hung. I’ve read about the rigorous training and harsh conditions that Chan himself endured in the Peking opera school that he attended as a child and teenager. The positive from that difficult situation is that he learned a brand of acrobatics and martial arts that helped make him an international movie star. As a 24 year old at the time of filming DRUNKEN MASTER, he’s in peak physical condition. As great as he is in his later American movies like RUSH HOUR and SHANGHAI NOON, his athleticism is off the charts here. When you combine Chan’s physical talents with the martial arts director Yuen Woo-ping, you can expect special results. The fight scenes are the primary draw here and they deliver. There’s a reason that filmmakers like the Wachowski’s, Ang Lee & Quentin Tarantino would ask Yuen Woo-ping to choreograph the martial arts in movies like THE MATRIX, CROUCHING TIGER HIDDEN DRAGON, and the KILL BILL’s.
DRUNKEN MASTER would be a huge financial success and its combination of action and comedy would be the blueprint for success throughout the rest of Jackie Chan’s career. It’s one of the best of its kind.
Through the Shattered Lens