La Leyenda del Maestro Borrachon

Well, Jackie Chan has had an interesting career. On one hand, he's made some classics like Project A and Dragons Forever. On the other hand, he's made some less-than-spectacular movies like Crime Story and First Strike. This movie is easily his best film ever...and also one the best martial arts movies ever made. He revisits the role that made him famous: Wong Fei Hung, the drunken master. The plot deals with smugglers trying to steal China's treasures, but in the end it isn't important. The fights are what matters, and Chan fights like a son of a gun. There are some excellent traditional fight scenes like him fighting Lau Kar Leung and one w/ a Choy li fut stylist. There's a memorable fight against an Ax Gang (Ax army is more like it). The finale, where he takes on the smugglers led by a super kicking Thai boxer, is probably the greatest fight scene choreographed. This movie doesn't cease to entertain. A must see for any fans of action, martial arts, HK movies, or just Jackie Chan himself.

I may be wrong about this, but I think Chan is responsible for the avalanche of ironic performance fights we have now.

Here's the deal: movies need to be cinematic and fights are cinematic so we have them.

Movies fall into two rough buckets: various concepts of sincerity and those that have (incorrectly as it turns out) been conflated under the concept of irony. Anything that exists in the first eventually has a sibling in the second; that's the way the world works.

So if you have fights, even elaborate kung fu productions that are sincere, sooner or later someone will figure out how to annotate them. Chan was the guy that found a way to turn fights into a show and at the same time produce a simultaneous commentary that says: "watch this, its funny."

To do the annotation, a requirement is that first level be excellent. Chan IS an excellent fight performer, and key to this awareness is the much publicized fact that no cheating is done on the effects. But he also a great humorist as well.

This particular film isn't the turning point for all fight irony that follows. That was much earlier, but this is probably the best and most explicit.

Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.

I recently saw "The Legend of "Drunken Master" not knowing anything about it and it was a grwat suprise to find how good this movie is. I have new respect for Chan after seeing this film. The fights scenes in this movie are simply amazing, the final fight that takes place in a steel mill made my jaw hit the floor, it lasts for about 20 minutes and Chan does some amzing stunts. This is the best martial ats movie I have ever seen.

Raymond Chow-Golden Harvest production with plenty of action , humor , lots of stretching and fast kicking . It deals with a young martial artist named Wong Fei-Hung (Jackie Chan's role is supposed to be half the age the actor was at the time of filming) going back home with his pacifist father (Lung Ti is only eight years older than Jackie Chan who plays his son) after a expedition and he meets at a train a veteran expert fighter . After that , he is caught between respecting his dad's orders or detaining a bunch of ambitious foreigners from smuggling precious objects . Meanwhile , Wong aware a style of fighting called "Drunken Boxing" , a strange and engaging kind of struggle . Unfortunately , his daddy is opposed to it , let alone drunken boxing . Ultimately , Fei-Hong not only has to face off against the disrespectful foreigners , but he has to overcome his dad's opposition as well . Entertainment , comedy and amusement abound in this exciting story , culminating consequently with overlong and spectacular fights in the enemy headquarter of the nasty band led by a foreigner ambassador along with his evil thugs .

Hong Kong action comedy full of over-the-top struggles , excitement , thrills , ingenious stunts , slapstick , lots of fights but with abundant humor and tongue-in-cheek . This bemusing movie is packed with adventure , intrigue , unstopped action , and overwhelming stunt-work , in fact , the seven-minute fight at the end of the film took nearly four months to shoot , Jackie Chan indicated that one day's filming typically produces three seconds of usable film . Jackie Chan is top notch as one army man fighting a group of heinous villains and as always he makes his own stunts like is well showed . Awesome , incredible stunts and brief comic touches , as usual ; the picture is better constructed than Chan's predecessors films . The lighting-paced storyline slows down at times , but frantic action sequences make up for it . Spotlights movie include spectacular brawls , including bounds and leaps , impressive and interminable fights , a breathtaking final struggle between Jackie Chan and enemies . Jackie Chan actually crawled over the burning hot coals two times , he felt he "didn't have the right rhythm" the first time he did it . In addition other fine action sequences in overwhelming style . This is an acceptable action movie distinguished by nicely cinematography of the spectacular sequences , and contains agreeable sense of humor such as previous entries . Jackie Chan usually forms couple to notorious actresses as Maggie Chung and Michelle Yeoh . In this outing Jackie teams up again to prestigious Chinese actress Anita Mui , who plays his stepmother , a fine action star in their own right but sadly she early died by cancer . Both of them starred together several films such as ¨ Mr Canton and Lady Rose¨ and ¨Rumble Bronx¨ .

The ¨Wong Fei Hung¨ role is a Chinese historic character who has been played by several actors , as Tak Hing in numerous films , the same Jackie Chan in ¨Drunken monkey in the tiger's eyes (1978)¨ and Jet Li in ¨One upon a time a hero in China¨ series , ¨Dr Wong in America¨ and recently Sammo Hung in the recent version of ¨Around the world in 80 days¨ also starred by Chan . ¨Jui Kuen II¨ is a good action movie distinguished by fight sequences , noisy action and packs silly sense of humor as well as Jackie's subsequent entries . The picture achieved big success in China and all around the world . However , Jackie Chan's failed at Box-office in his American debut ,¨Battle creek brawl¨ . Chan is a hard-working actor and director throughout his long and varied career . Chan usually pays overt homage to two of his greatest influences as Charles Chaplin and Harold Lloyd . He went on playing ¨Cannoball¨ , ¨The protector¨ and "Rumble in the Bronx", until getting all American success with ¨Shangai Knights¨ , ¨The tuxedo¨ , ¨Around the world in 80 days¨ and ¨Rush hour¨ trilogy , and the recent ¨Karate kid¨. Of course , his biggest hits were ¨The Police story¨ series that won the Golden Horse Award, a Chinese version of the Oscar , the first was titled ¨Police story (1985)¨ directed by the same Chan , it was a perfect action film for enthusiastic of the genre ; the following was ¨Police story 2 (1988)¨ also pretty violent and with abundant humor touches . It's followed by ¨Supercop¨ or ¨Police story 3¨ and finally , ¨Police story IV : Crime story¨ . The picture is well produced by the great Asian producer Raymond Chow and Golden Harvest production and compellingly directed by Chia Liu and completed by Jackie Chan . Rating : Acceptable and passable , the picture has its sensational moments here and there , but also with abundant humor touches mostly provided by its agile star , the super Jackie stunningly accompanied by Anita Mui and Lung Ti . It's a perfect action film for enthusiasts of the genre and especially for Jackie fans .

This film is all the more fantastic because it is, however loosely, based on fact. Chan is in one of his finest roles as Chinese hero Wong Fei Hung, fighting foreigners who wish to take artefacts out of China during the Ching dynasty.

An appreciation of turn-of-the-century China does help, but even without it, the film remains incredibly entertaining. The kung-fu choreography is interwoven with a well-written story which should instil pride in any Chinese moviegoer.

Even Chan's acting is excellent, as the young Wong Fei Hung who develops his "drunken boxing" style - a type of kung-fu which is aided by the consumption of alcohol. However, his father forbids his son's drinking, fearing that he will not know when to stop. His stepmother is encouraging, hoping to put her stepson on the map in the local community. The rapport between the characters is superb and realistically acted by the players. The martial arts' choreography here is among the best in any film.

Of Chan's movies set in an earlier time period, Jui Kuen II must rank as his best. An excellent example of the genre.