Drunken Master

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Drunken Master

DVD cover
Directed by Yuen Woo-ping
Produced by Ng See-Yuen
Written by Lung Hsiao
Ng See-Yuen, Yuen Woo-ping
Starring Jackie Chan
Yuen Siu Tien
Hwang Jang-Lee
Music by Chow Fu-Liang
Cinematography Chang Hui
Editing by Pan Hsiung
Distributed by Seasonal Films
Release date(s) 1978
Running time 110 mins
Country Hong Kong
Language Cantonese
Followed by Drunken Master II
Allmovie profile
IMDb profile

Drunken Master (traditional Chinese: 醉拳; pinyin: zuì quán, literally drunken fist) is a 1978 Hong Kong martial arts-action-comedy film directed by Yuen Woo-ping, and starring Jackie Chan, Yuen Siu Tien (aka Simon Yuen), and Hwang Jang-Lee. The film was Chan's most successful to date at the Hong Kong box office,[1] earning two and a half times the amount made by his previous film, Snake in the Eagle's Shadow.[2] It is an early example of the comedic kung fu style for which he became famous.

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[edit] Background

Chan's character, Wong Fei Hung, is a figure from Chinese history, a martial artist, a practitioner of traditional Chinese medicine, and a revolutionary. He became a Chinese folk hero and is the subject of many Hong Kong television programmes and films. The character of the Su Hua Chi, the Beggar So, is another real life character from Chinese folklore, and is said to have been an associate of Wong Fei Hung.

[edit] Plot

The plot centers on a young and mischievous Wong Fei Hung (sometimes dubbed as "Freddie Wong"), played by Jackie Chan. He gets into trouble in a variety of ways, including showing up an overbearing assistant kung fu teacher, unknowingly making sexual advances on his own cousin, fighting with his aunt, and beating up the son of an influential man in town. His father disciplines him for this behaviour.

Wong learns that his father has arranged for him to be trained by a kung fu master infamous for crippling his students. He flees from his home in an attempt to escape. Penniless, he stops at an inn and tries to scam a person he thinks to be another patron into offering him a meal. About to leave, he discovers his intended victim to be the inn's owner and has to use kung fu to escape his irate lackeys. Doing so, he drags into the fight an old drunkard who turns out to be his intended teacher: Su Hua Chi, the Drunken Master. (Su Hua Chi is also known as "Beggar So", dubbed in some versions of the film as Sam Seed or So Hi, and played by Yuen Siu Tien.) Su Hua Chi forces Wong into his brutal and rigorous training program.

Wong flees again, only to run into the professional martial artist and assassin Thunderleg (Hwang Jang-Lee). Wong unwisely challenges him to a fight and is soundly defeated and humiliated. He crawls back to Su Hua Chi, now prepared to commit himself to the Drunken Master's kung fu training.

The training resumes, and Wong learns of Su Hua Chi's secret style, a form of Zui Quan called "The Eight Drunken Immortals", after the eight mythological figures that the fighting style emulates. Wong masters the styles of seven of the eight Drunken Immortals, but disregards that of "the Drunken Miss Ho", feeling that hers is an unmanly fighting form.

It is not long before Wong is forced to put his new skills to the test, especially when Thunderleg is contracted by a business rival to assassinate Wong's father. Wong's father is quickly injured by Thunderleg, but Wong and Su Hua Chi arrive. Su Hua Chi promises not to interfere in the fight between Wong and Thunderleg. Wong employs the styles of the first seven Drunken Immortals. Thunderleg's kicking style is outmatched, but he resorts to his secret technique, the Devil's Shadowless Hand, which Wong cannot defeat. Wong confesses that he didn't practice the style of "the Drunken Miss Ho". Su Hua Chi tells Wong to combine the other seven Immortals and create his own version of "the Drunken Miss Ho". Wong does so, discovering his own unique style of Zui Quan, defeating Thunderleg, and becoming the new Drunken Master.

[edit] Cast

[edit] Fight scenes

A number of notable fights are featured in the film, almost all of them with strong elements of comedy: from the game of keepaway with Wong's cocky but incompetent kung fu teacher, to the novel "head-fu" fighting style used by one of his opponents. The movie features several distinctive styles of fighting, including the Snake and Crane, Tiger, and Monkey, as well as the famous "Eight Drunken Immortals" / "Eight Drunk Gods".

[edit] Box Office

Drunken Master earned an impressive HK $6,763,793 at the Hong Kong box office.[1]

[edit] Sequels and spinoffs

  • In 1979 Yuen Siu Tien reprised the role of "Su Hua Chi" / "The Beggar So" / "Sam Seed", in the film Dance of the Drunk Mantis, which is entitled Drunken Master Part 2 in some releases. The film, which was again directed by his son, Yuen Woo-ping, does not feature Jackie Chan, focussing instead on the drunken beggar character rather than on Wong Fei Hung. It is therefore generally considered to be a spinoff rather than a true sequel.
  • Yuen played this same role again in the films Story of the Drunken Master and World of the Drunken Master.
  • Drunken Master II (1994) did star Jackie Chan, and is therefore considered as the true sequel. The US release of the film in 2000 was entitled The Legend of Drunken Master.

[edit] Imitators

As with many successful Hong Kong action films, several films were released in the wake of Drunken Master (and its sequel) that could be considered to trade on the fame of the original films. These had less in common with the original films than the spinoffs starring Yuen Siu Tien. They include:

  • The Drunken Fighter (1978)
  • Drunken Swordsman (aka Drunken Dragon Strikes Back) (1979)
  • The Shaolin Drunken Monk (starring Gordon Liu) (1982)
  • Drunken Tai Chi (directed by Yuen Woo-ping and starring Donnie Yen) (1984)
  • Revenge of the Drunken Master (1984)
  • Drunken Master III (aka Drunken Master Killer) - starring Andy Lau (1994)
  • The Little Drunken Masters (1995)

It should be noted that not all films that feature the Zui Quan "Drunken Fist" style (or variations on it) can be considered as imitators of the Drunken Master films. Films such as Drunken Monkey (2002) may feature a drunken style of kung fu, and in the case of The Forbidden Kingdom (2008), the same principal star, but they have a fundamentally different plot and sufficiently different title to separate them from Drunken Master.

[edit] DVD versions

The region 1 and 3 DVD releases were distributed by Columbia TriStar and Sony. These releases have two language tracks - a dubbed English track and the original Cantonese. Due to some unrecoverable damage to the latter, some scenes play with the dubbed English audio. These releases also contain an audio commentary by Ric Meyers and trailers from Time and Tide and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.

The content on the region 2 Hong Kong Legends release differs. The available audio tracks are dubbed English and Mandarin only. However, it has a greater number of additional features including deleted scenes and an interview with producer Ng See Yuen.

[edit] Influence on video games

  • The Drunken Master was the title of a PC Engine fighting game released in 1987.
  • In the PlayStation video game Gex 2: Enter the Gecko in the level "Mao Tse Tongue" a poster on a wall says "Drunken Gecko I & II".
  • The PlayStation game Jackie Chan Stuntmaster includes a bonus level in which he wears his traditional Drunken Master dress and drinks wine whilst fighting. He even gives the Drunken Punch as his charge punch throughout the game.
  • In the Namco Tekken game series the character Lei Wulong copies Chan's Drunken Master fighting styles throughout the game play.
  • In popular PC online game Guild Wars, there is a stance-skill called "Drunken Master" which temporarily increases movement and attack speed. This effect is doubled if character is drunk.
  • In the games Dead or Alive 3 and Dead or Alive 4 of the Dead or Alive series, Brad Wong the character is popular due to his moves purely based on Zui Quan(Drunken Fist)
  • In the PlayStation 2 video game Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance a character named Bo' Rai Cho used a drunken master fighting style in the game called Drunken Fist.
  • In the Xbox game Jade Empire, the follower "Henpecked Hou" is a past-master of Drunken Boxing. The player can use this style when this follower is active, by picking up the jugs of wine that appear.


[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b HKMDb entry. Drunken Master (1978). Retrieved on 2008-04-17.
  2. ^ HKMDb entry. Snake in the Eagle's Shadow (1978). Retrieved on 2008-04-17.

[edit] External links