Zui ba xian quan

this movie is obviously a knock off of Jackie Chan's 1978 Classic Drunken Master. But it's actually a good kung fu movie, better than most, which is admittedly not saying much.

Characters are easily sympathized and acting is decent. Dialog flows relatively well & doesn't stall & bore you like many Hong Kong Kung Fu flicks.

Anyone watching 70's Kung Fu Movies for the characters/acting and dialog are setting themselves up for disappointment. How's the fighting?

fight scenes are again quite good. Nothing will ever match Jackie Chan's choreography (DM is some of his best), but this Kung Fu Movie is still ahead of the pack.

also, the requisite 'kung fu chic' in this movie is particularly appealing.

After the opening credits demonstrations of drunken style, Mang Fei is training with a drunken master. Cut to Wu Ma about the town. Escaping a beating he passes by Mang Fei. Cut again to a girl cooking. She is his girl and he explains he has been away the past month learning kung fu. His uncle gives him a reality check as to the value of one entire month of kung fu training. Next he gets involved in a tournament. Exposing his drunken style creates new enemies for his entire family.

Wu Ma is one of the most famous faces in the history of Hong Kong cinema but not really a famous name, despite it being short and easy to pronounce. He had no martial arts or stunt background when he took the Shaw Brothers acting course in 1962. By 1970 he was directing. In the 1980s and until his death, his career shifted to prolific character actor. In my opinion his career was based on doing what already worked and surrounding himself with the right people such as Sammo Hung and Tsui Hark.

Everything in this movie has been done before and done better. It failed to hold my attention and had I not intended to write a review I would have napped instead. This is only for hard core fans on a slow day.

KUNG FU OF THE 8 DRUNKARDS is a cheap riff on Jackie Chan's DRUNKEN MASTER, with Wu Ma standing in as director and supporting actor. This film features Meng Fei as a rather undistinguished Jackie Chan imitator who learns the ropes at the hands of a drunken master and must work hard to beat some violent foes. It's all very predictable stuff, with lacklustre action sequences to boot, although the extremely broad comedy works rather well. Unfortunately Fei makes for a rather arrogant and unlikeable protagonist in this film.

Although he only appears in support, Wu Ma's character gets plenty of screen time and ended up being my favourite element of the movie. He gets into various scrapes with his drinking and petty crime and he seems to be having a lot of fun, which translates well to the viewer. Other than the comedy, there's not really much here that wasn't done better in DRUNKEN MASTER, and the fight choreography isn't really up to scratch. The end fight in particular is a bit weak and not the show-stopper we usually get in such a production; the low budget hurts this film quite considerably.

First, about Wu Ma: If you watch a lot of Hong Action films, you have seen him hundreds of times. He is one of the most employed character actors in the history of Chines cinema. he's a short guy, not very athletic, with a wide mouth. He usually looks like he's hanging onto a slow-burning fuse. what even many people who recognize this actor don't know is that he was one of the finest directors of the old-school chop-socky period in HK 'films. I strongly suggest the remarkably mature "From China With death', which, despite its title, is an early action comedy about two con-men who find themselves in over their heads with a band of bank-robbers. Also well-respected is his "Deaf-Mute Heroine", which has the bloodiest, most violent title sequence in the history of the genre.

Having said that, I now have to warn the viewer that Wu Ma really slips with this one. An attempt to construct a film continuing the story of Sam the Seed - the master who teaches Drunken Style to Jackie Chan in Drunken Master - the film is misconceived from the start. For one thing, it doesn't make sense to try to do a Sam the Seed film without the actor with whom the part is wholly identified, Simon Yuen.

Secondly, there's no point in making a film about the drunken style without a firm grasp of its basic theory, which has to do with keeping one's limbs utterly relaxed.

Finally, the reason why the real drunken style theory cannot be used in this film is because the Jackie Chan wannabe here is Meng Fei, one of the stiffest fight-performers in the genre, and utterly incapable of the looseness and swagger that makes drunken style so much fun to watch.

Why not call this, "kung Fu of someone who's never been drunk and doesn't know how to act it"? Minor disappointment from Meng Fei (who grew more self-indulgent and less interesting as his career wore on); but a major disappointment from Wu Ma, who should have known better.

This movie had a lot of corny jokes in it, more than were really necessary. The fighting was kind of sparse and only decent. The main character only used one style of fighting, and that was the one taught to him by his constantly drunk master, the last person to know a certain form of drunken kung fu. There's a neat little intro to the movie that mentions the Shaolin monks who organized the different styles of kung fu into 96 or so different techniques. It said that kung fu was first used to imitate different animals around a cave fire, and that a kung fu expert used all of his power in his fingers. This was very helpful for explaining why so many fighting techniques are centered around one knuckle or the fingertips.

This movie's plot was kind of weak. It was another of the "we are looking for this guy we thought we killed a number of years ago, but his style is showing up in a few places, so we will kill anyone involved." It has a protagonist who doesn't know any kung fu until his drunk master takes him in as his student, and in one month learns much more than most people would, even though he leaves his master from being tired of his strenuous exercises. He then manages to hold his own against formidable opponents, even using a bit of Jackie Chan urban weapon fighting, using barstools, benches and gambling rods to hold off attackers. The antagonist of the movie, though thought to be the guy with the dark sombrero hat, is really the girl's father, supposed head of the local evil group (every king fu movie has got one).

Moderate dubbing, moderate plot, moderate fighting, moderate characters... only an moderate movie. An annoying master, and annoying and cheesy friend of the protagonist made the movie all the more moderate. I suggest you watch it if you can find it just for the experience in cheesy king fu movies. Good day gentlemen.

-Scott-