Chop-socky gets sozzled in Drunken Master, the kung fu flick that saved Jackie Chan from obscurity and introduced the world to the “drunken monkey” style. The paper-thin plot – rebellious kid (Chan) is trained by a boozy beggar (Yuen Siu Tien) – allows Chan to perfect his slapstick persona as the Cantonese Chaplin. It’s crude and anarchic: energetically choreographed action maxing out the wack-wack-wah as Chan fights swordsmen with cucumbers, rubs villain Stick King’s face in dog doo and hilariously tries to skive out of his master’s tortuous training regime.
DVD Extras:
“Good kung fu is opera meets ballet,” explain genre experts Ric Meyers and Jeff Yang on the ramblingly informative yak-track, before arguing that Drunken Master is Hong Kong’s answer to Animal House. Chan’s irreverent take on Chinese folk hero Wong Fei Hung also gets a great going-over. Pity the disc lacks the other extras that were available on the previous R2 DVD.
