The Young Master

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UK DVD cover

The Young Master is a 1980 martial arts film that stars Jackie Chan as Dragon.

The film is notable for being the first that Jackie Chan worked on for Golden Harvest, and despite being his second film as director (his first was Fearless Hyena), this is often credited as his directorial debut. It was co-written by Chan and King Sang Tang and produced by Raymond Chow and Leonard Ho.

1 Synopsis
2 Trivia
3 Cast
4 External links

[edit] Synopsis

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

In the film, the school attended by Dragon and his brother, Tiger (Wei Pei) is entered against a rival school in a Lion Dance competition. The school needs to win the prize money to remain open but their star performer, Tiger, is seemingly injured when he falls from a ladder, leaving his brother, Dragon, to take his place. During the competition, Dragon realises that his brother feigned his accident in order to take part in the competition for the rival school.

The rival school wins the competition, but the truth emerges about Tiger's betrayal and he is exiled in disgrace. Dragon vows to bring back his errant brother so the pair can make amends to their master. Dragon sets off on his mission, but en route is mistaken for a criminal known as The White Fan by local police chief, Sang Kung (played by Shih Kien). Meanwhile, Tiger collaborates with his employers (the rival school) by freeing a dangerous criminal known as Kam. However, Tiger is later framed for a bank robbery. To stop his brother from being arrested, Dragon promises to apprehend the escapee, Kam.

Chinese DVD cover

[edit] Trivia

The Young Master was the highest box office draw of its day beating previous box office records set by Bruce Lee and establishing Chan as a Hong Kong cinema's top star.

The fan-fighting scene in this movie required 329 takes to complete.

The climactic showdown between real life hapkido master Hwang In-Shik and Jackie Chan in the original release of this film was approximately 15 minutes long, reputedly the longest fight scene in any kung-fu movie to that date. Subsequent releases of the film have edited this scene down for time.

The first version of the film was said to be roughly three hours in length. There are two main versions available though, one being the 106 minutes (NTSC/film speed) Hong Kong cut and the 90 minute international cut. Plus, there is a rare Taiwanese video which features footage not in either the Hong Kong or international cuts. This being said, there is approximately an hour of unseen Young Master footage that has not been seen since its first edit.