Drunken Master 醉拳

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Drunken Master 醉拳

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GeekJuiceMedia Presents Drunken Master  ( Chinese :  醉拳 ;  lit.  'Drunken Fist and Jui Kuen'), also known as  Drunken Master The Beginning , is a 1978  Hong Kong martial arts   comedy film  directed by  Yuen Woo-ping  and produced and co-written by  Ng See-yuen . [ 1 ]  The film features much of the same crew as Yuen's  Snake in the Eagle's Shadow  released earlier the same year, including lead actors  Jackie Chan ,  Yuen Siu-tien  (Woo-ping's father), and  Hwang Jang-lee ; although narratively unrelated,  Drunken Master  bears similarities to its predecessor in its story and style. Drunken Master  features Chan and Yuen Siu-tien as fictionalized versions of martial artists  Wong Fei-hung  and  Beggar So ; in the film, Wong is an irreverent young man forced under the fierce tutelage of So, master of the  drunken fighting style ; although the two do not originally get along, Wong eventually gains humility and respect for So. Considered an early milestone of martial arts comedy and one of the best films in the genre, the film was a large box-office success, earning two and a half times the revenue of the already-successful  Snake in the Eagle's Shadow ; [ 2 ] [ 3 ]  it had a significant cultural impact, inspiring numerous later films, music,  manga ,  anime  and  video games  with its depictions of teacher-student relationship and the drunken style, and helped establish Chan as one of Asia's most popular actors. The film was followed by two sequels directed by  Lau Kar-leung  in 1994: the direct sequel  Drunken Master II , in which Chan reprised his role, and the mostly-unrelated  Drunken Master III .  Drunken Master  would be Yuen Siu-tien's final film released during his lifetime, although he would portray Beggar So again in several films released posthumously, including the  Drunken Master   spin-off   Dance of the Drunk Mantis  (1979), also directed by Woo-ping. Plot Wong Fei-hung  (sometimes dubbed as "Freddie Wong") is a young and mischievous son, who runs into a series of troubles. Firstly, he teaches an overbearing assistant martial arts teacher a lesson, and later makes advances on a woman to impress his friends. He is consequently thrashed by her older female guardian. His shame is compounded when these two are later revealed to be his visiting aunt and cousin, whom he had not met before. Lastly, he beats up a  hooligan , who turns out to be the son of an influential man in town. His father decides to punish him for his behavior by making him train harder in  martial arts . Wong's father arranges for  Beggar So  to train his son in martial arts. Beggar So has a reputation for crippling his students during training so Wong flees from home in an attempt to escape his punishment. Penniless, Wong stops at a restaurant and tries to trick a fellow patron into offering him a free meal. As Wong was about to leave after his meal, he discovers that the man is actually the owner of the restaurant. He fights with the owner's lackeys in an attempt to escape. An old drunkard nearby is drawn into the fight and helps him escape. The drunkard turns out to be Beggar So (who is known in some versions of the film as Sam Seed, So-Hi or Su Hua-chi), the Drunken Master. Beggar So forces Wong into his brutal and rigorous training programme, but he flees again to avoid the torturous training and runs into the notorious killer Yim Tit-sam (known in some versions as Thunderfoot or Thunderleg) by accident. Yim is known for his "Devil's Kick", a swift and deadly kicking style which has never been defeated. Wong provokes and challenges him to a fight and is soundly defeated and humiliated. He makes his way back to Beggar So and decides to commit himself to the Drunken Master's training program. The training resumes and soon Wong learns Beggar So's secret style of martial arts, a form of Drunken Boxing called " The Eight Drunken Immortals ", named after the eight  xian  that the fighting style references. Wong masters seven of the eight styles with the exception of  Drunken Miss Ho 's as he feels that her style of fighting is too feminine. Meanwhile, Yim Tit-sam is contracted by a business rival to kill Wong's father. Wong's father fights with Yim and is defeated and injured by him. Wong and Beggar So arrive on time and Wong continues the fight with Yim. Beggar So promises not to interfere in the fight. Wong employs the new skills he has learned and outmatches Yim's kicking style. Yim then resorts to his secret technique, the Devil's Shadowless Hand, which is too fast for Wong to defeat. Wong confesses that he did not master the last style so Beggar So tells him to combine the seven styles and create his own version of the last style. Wong follows the instruction and discovers his own unique style of Drunken Miss Ho, which he uses to overcome the Shadowless Hand and finally defeats Yim. Background The film's protagonist  Wong Fei-hung  was a Chinese martial artist, a  traditional Chinese medicine  practitioner and a revolutionary who lived towards the end of the  Qing dynasty . He became a Chinese folk hero and the subject of several Hong Kong television programmes and films.  Beggar So , who plays a supporting role in the film, is also another character from Chinese folklore and one of the  Ten Tigers of Canton . The Beggar So character is often cast as an associate of Wong Fei-hung or Wong's uncle. Cast Jackie Chan  as  Wong Fei-hung  / Freddy Wong (UK version) (voiced by Tang Wing-Hung [ 4 ] ) Yuen Siu-Tin  (or Simon Yuen) as  Beggar So  / Su Hua Chi / Sam Seed Hwang Jang-lee  as Thunderleg Yen Tie Hsin / Yim Tit-sam / Thunderfoot Dean Shek  as Professor Kai-Hsin Lam Kau as  Wong Kei-Ying  / Wong Chi-Ying / Robert Wong (UK version) Fung King-man  as Mr. Lee Man-ho Hsu Hsia as King of Bamboo Hsu Ching-tien Linda Lin as Wong Fei-hung's aunt Yuen Shun-yi  as Chan Kwok-wai / Charlie Wei Tong Jing as Wong Fei-hung's cousin Tino Wong as Jerry Lee Yuen Woo-Ping  as Man with bucket of greens Fight scenes and martial arts A number of notable fights are featured in the film, almost all of them with strong elements of comedy—from the game of  Keep Away  with  Wong Kei-ying 's cocky, but incompetent, assistant kung fu instructor, to the novel "head-fu" fighting style used by one of his opponents. The film features the  Hung Ga  system of fighting, which was historically practiced by  Wong Fei-hung  and his father Wong Kei-ying, both of whom are major characters in the film. The animal styles of Snake, Crane, and Tiger performed in the film are derived wholly from the Hung Ga system and bear only a tangential relationship to the  Fujian White Crane , Lama Pai (Tibetan White Crane),  Black Tiger , and  Snake  systems of kung fu.  Monkey  style kung fu, popular in Southern Chinese martial arts performances, is also shown briefly. Numerous systems of kung fu include "Drunken Boxing" forms (e.g.  Choi Lei Fut  and  Drunken Monkey ), and the  Taoist Eight Immortals  are popular staples of Chinese culture and art. However, the "Eight Drunken Immortals" forms depicted in this film are likely the creation of director and choreographer  Yuen Woo-ping  and based on routines found in other systems. The primary villain in  Drunken Master  is played by Hwang Jang-lee, a Korean martial artist specialising in  Taekwondo  and known for his high-flying kicks, which are prominently displayed in the film. The systems of "Devil's Kick" and "Devil's Shadowless Hands" employed by Thunderleg are entirely fictitious. According to his book  I Am Jackie Chan: My Life in Action , Chan nearly lost an eye after his brow ridge was injured. [ 5 ] [ 6 ] Theme song The theme song of  Drunken Master  is based on a Chinese folk song, "Under the General's Orders". Since  Drunken Master , the theme song has been popularly associated with the folk hero  Wong Fei-hung , who Jackie Chan plays in the film. It was later used in the 1983 film  Winners and Sinners , starring  Sammo Hung ; it was played in a market scene whilst the  Five Lucky Stars  are watching two men demonstrating the beneficial effects of their medicines and their martial arts stances, in reference to Wong Fei-hung. "Under the General's Orders" later become the main theme song for the  Once Upon a Time in China  series starring  Jet Li , who also plays Wong Fei-hung. Box office At the Hong Kong box office,  Drunken Master  earned an impressive  HK$ 6,763,793 [ 2 ]  ( US$ 1,445,255 ). [ 7 ]  It was the second most popular film in Hong Kong in 1978 behind the  Hui  brothers'  The Contract  and third on the all-time list. [ 8 ] [ 9 ] In  Japan , where it released on 21 July 1979, it became one of the year's top ten  highest-grossing films , earning  ¥ 1.9 billion [ 10 ]  ( US$8.7 million ). [ 11 ]  In  South Korea , it was the highest-grossing film of 1979, with 898,561 box admissions in  Seoul City , [ 12 ]  equivalent to an estimated  ₩ 1,347,842,000 [ 13 ]  ( US$2,784,800 ). [ 14 ]  The film also broke records in  Malaysia  and  Singapore . [ 8 ] In Germany, where it was released as  Sie nannten ihn Knochenbrecher  ("They Called Him Bone Breaker") on 25 July 1980, it was the 41st highest-grossing film of the year, selling 584,312 tickets, [ 15 ]  equivalent to an estimated €1,460,780 [ 16 ]  (US$2,063,606). [ 17 ]  In Spain, the film sold 823,203 tickets, [ 18 ]  equivalent to an estimated €1,070,164 [ 16 ]  ( US$1,489,989 ). Combined, the film grossed an estimated total of approximately  US$16,483,650  (equivalent to $79,000,000 in 2024) in  East Asia  and Europe. Sequels and spinoffs Drunken Master II  (1994) stars Jackie Chan, and is considered the only official sequel. Chan portrays the same character, Wong Fei-hung. The US release of the film in 2000 was entitled  The Legend of Drunken Master . In 2021, the film was released again in the United States on Blu-ray as part of the Warner Archive Collection under its original title with previously censored content added back into the film. [ 19 ] In 1979,  Yuen Siu-Tin  reprised the role of Beggar So in the film  Dance of the Drunk Mantis , which is entitled  Drunken Master Part 2  (not to be confused with the film  Drunken Master II  referenced above) in some releases. The film, which was again directed by his son,  Yuen Woo-Ping , does not feature Jackie Chan, focusing 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 Drunken Master  and  World of the Drunken Master . Imitators As with several successful Hong Kong action films, a number of 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: 5 Superfighters  (aka  The Drunken Fighter ) (1978) Drunken Swordsman  (aka  Drunken Dragon Strikes Back ) (1979) Drunken Arts and Crippled Fist  (Featuring Li Yi Min) (1979) Drunken Master, Slippery Snake  (Starring  Cliff Lok ) (1979) Shaolin Drunken Monkey  (Starring  Elton Chong ) (1981) 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), starring Johnny Chan, [ 20 ]  whose name allowed him to trade off his more successful namesake in other low-budget martial arts films including  Golden Dragon, Silver Snake  (1979) and  The Eagles Killer  (1978) Drunken Master III  (aka  Drunken Master Killer ) – starring  Andy Lau  (1994) The Little Drunken Masters  (1995) 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 . Home media On 24 April 2000,  Hong Kong Legends  released a DVD in the  United Kingdom . The image is cropped from 2:35:1 to 1:78:1 and has the  Mandarin  soundtrack with  dubtitles . However, it has a number of additional features including a deleted scene and an interview with producer  Ng See-yuen . On 2 April 2002,  Columbia TriStar Home Video  and  Destination Films  released a DVD in the  United States . Despite a 2:35:1 image and the inclusion of the original Cantonese track, the audio is incomplete in some sections (reverting to the English dub) and contains  dubtitles . There's an audio commentary by  Ric Meyers  and  Jeff Yang . [ 21 ] On 18 March 2004, HKVideo released a "Wong Fei Hung" DVD boxset in  France  containing this film (French title: "Le maître chinois") and two others. It contains a full 2:35:1 image and the Cantonese soundtrack. However, it contains slightly poorer image quality and no English subtitles. On 30 April 2004,  Mei Ah Entertainment  released a remastered DVD in  Hong Kong  (pictured right). It contains a 2:35:1 image, Cantonese Dolby Digital 5.1 track, original Cantonese Dolby Digital 2.0 mono track and Mandarin Dolby Digital 2.0 mono track. Subtitles include Traditional Chinese, Simplified Chinese and English. The missing Cantonese for the opening has been re-dubbed in Cantonese and the other missing Cantonese scenes as extended footage in Mandarin due to trouble of re-dubbing with new voice actors. Many short lines missing Cantonese had been removed. Special features include Extended footage, accessed during the film by selecting the wine jug icon when it appears on the right top corner, Mastering the Drunken Master, a 35-second music video with clips of Jackie Chan practicing the 8 Drunken Gods from the film, film synopsis and cast & crew. PanMedia released a  bootleg  DVD that contains the complete Cantonese track. Cultural impact This section  needs additional citations for  verification .  Please help  improve this article  by  adding citations to reliable sources  in this section. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed.   ( December 2010 )  ( Learn how and when to remove this message ) Fashion During the late 1970s to early 1980s, Jackie Chan's shoulder-length hairstyle in  Drunken Master  became popular across Asia, widely adopted by both men and women across the region. [ 22 ] Film In 2017, it was ranked number 3 on  GamesRadar 's list of 50 greatest kung fu movies of all time. [ 23 ] Edgar Wright 's  The World's End  (2013) had drunken pub fight scenes inspired by  Drunken Master . The film's fight scenes were choreographed by  Brad Allan , who was part of the  Jackie Chan Stunt Team  during the 1990s to 2000s. [ 24 ] Manga and anime Manga  author  Akira Toriyama  cited  Drunken Master  as one of his major inspirations for the  Dragon Ball  series of  shōnen manga  and  anime , along with  Bruce Lee 's  Enter the Dragon  (1973) and the Chinese novel  Journey to the West . [ 25 ]  Toriyama said that he would never have come up with  Dragon Ball  if he had not watched  Drunken Master , [ 26 ]  and he was drawn to its more light-hearted tone. [ 27 ]   Drunken Master  also served as a reference for the training scenes. [ 28 ]  The series pays homage to  Drunken Master  when the first tournament is held, where  Kame-Sennin  ( Master Roshi ) is disguised as "Jackie Chun" and he tries to use a Drunken Fist technique on  Son Goku  (Goku). In the  Naruto  series, the character  Rock Lee  is seen performing similar fighting styles after consuming alcohol. Known as the 'Drunken Fist' in the series' Japanese version and the 'Loopy Fist' in the English. Music Jamaican musicians  Sly Dunbar ,  Robbie Shakespeare , and  The Revolutionaries  recorded a reggae song titled "Drunken Master" that was released by Island on the album  Sly and Robbie Present Taxi  in 1981. [ 29 ] UK  dubstep  artist  FuntCase  used speech samples taken from the film in his song " Half drunk ". Video games The PlayStation game  Jackie Chan Stuntmaster  includes a bonus level in which he wears his traditional Drunken Master dress and drinks wine while fighting. He even gives the Drunken Punch as his charge punch throughout the game. 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 King of Fighters  series , the character  Chin Gentsai  was modeled after Su Hua Chi. The  Tekken  video game series features a character named Lei Wu Long, a Hong Kong detective based on Jackie Chan's Police Story films. While the character was originally nicknamed Supercop after the film Police Story 3: Supercop Lei Wu Long uses 5 to 6+ stances which have all of Jackie Chan's signature film movies. Initially in the series it focused on the Snake style he created for  Snake in The Eagles Shadow . In  Street Fighter X Tekken  released in 2012, Lei Wulong's "Ultimate Stance" is "Drunken Fist" based on his performance in the 1978 original and the 1994 sequel. The  Dead or Alive  video game franchise features a playable character named  Brad Wong ; a drunken wanderer introduced in  Dead or Alive 3  who specializes in the zui quan fighting style, and was taught by a non-playable character named  Chen . The  Mortal Kombat  video game franchise introduced  Bo' Rai Cho  in  Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance ; his name is a play on the word "borracho" (Spanish for "drunk"), and he is indeed usually depicted as intoxicated, and carrying a canister of alcohol. His fighting moves consist of drunken style fighting mixed with vulgar actions.