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#72 - Drunken Master II
Lau Kar-leung and Jackie Chan, 1994
Wong Fei-Hung once again gets into some ridiculous mischief as the result of an unintentional mix-up and must question his reliance on drunken boxing as a result.
The original Drunken Master is probably the best of Jackie Chan's early films, which basically means it's one of his best films full stop. Taking well-known folk hero Wong Fei-Hung and making him into a cartoonish fool who was still somehow a capable fighter was a risky choice but it definitely paid off for him. Drunken Master II came out about fifteen years later and just before Chan really broke into Hollywood. It's as good a connection between his classic output and his Hollywood output as possible, especially given its emphasis on a bigger narrative than its predecessor.
Unlike the original and its bare-bones "learning kung-fu" storyline, this film opts to tell a bigger story as Fei-Hung gets embroiled in a conspiracy involving the smuggling of ancient artifacts, along with contending with his strict father (Ti Lung) trying to stop him from performing drunken boxing out of the understandable concern that it will ruin him. Of course, this being a Jackie Chan film the plot only exists to provide a variety of fights and stunts that demonstrate Chan's ability to both give and take a lot of physical harm, and of course, they are good. Chan does drunken boxing, which of course involves several gags involving him needing to get drunk enough to do some, plus his attempts to cover up his various mistakes so that his father doesn't find out. It's definitely not of the same quality as its predecessor and runs a little longer than it should but it's an entertaining enough entry into Chan's filmography.
Lau Kar-leung and Jackie Chan, 1994
Wong Fei-Hung once again gets into some ridiculous mischief as the result of an unintentional mix-up and must question his reliance on drunken boxing as a result.
The original Drunken Master is probably the best of Jackie Chan's early films, which basically means it's one of his best films full stop. Taking well-known folk hero Wong Fei-Hung and making him into a cartoonish fool who was still somehow a capable fighter was a risky choice but it definitely paid off for him. Drunken Master II came out about fifteen years later and just before Chan really broke into Hollywood. It's as good a connection between his classic output and his Hollywood output as possible, especially given its emphasis on a bigger narrative than its predecessor.
Unlike the original and its bare-bones "learning kung-fu" storyline, this film opts to tell a bigger story as Fei-Hung gets embroiled in a conspiracy involving the smuggling of ancient artifacts, along with contending with his strict father (Ti Lung) trying to stop him from performing drunken boxing out of the understandable concern that it will ruin him. Of course, this being a Jackie Chan film the plot only exists to provide a variety of fights and stunts that demonstrate Chan's ability to both give and take a lot of physical harm, and of course, they are good. Chan does drunken boxing, which of course involves several gags involving him needing to get drunk enough to do some, plus his attempts to cover up his various mistakes so that his father doesn't find out. It's definitely not of the same quality as its predecessor and runs a little longer than it should but it's an entertaining enough entry into Chan's filmography.