The Story of the Drunken
Master
Director: Wu
Pang
Year: 1979
Rating: 5.0
Dubbed
Simon Yuen Siu-tin knew a good thing when
he saw it. After years of mainly getting small parts in films going all the
way back to the late 1940s, he finally hit it big with the 1978 Drunken Master
as Beggar So and co-starring Jackie Chan. This after some 300 films as an
actor and over 40 films as an action choreographer. Oh, and he also had time
to have a few sons - who also entered into the business - Yuen Wo-ping being
the best known to today's audiences for his directing and choreographing.
With his red nose, disheveled gray hair, moustache, bad teeth and sly grin
he became a favorite of Hong Kong audiences in a series of films usually
as a wise old kung fu master often doing Drunken style kung fu. Unfortunately,
right after making it big, he was to pass away in 1980. Here again, he plays
Beggar So with three students. Though, he looks a good deal older, Yuen was
only about 60 years old. It is easy to see that he is being doubled in his
action scenes whenever there is a flip or a somersault. It would be interesting
to see him in some of his much earlier films.
The film is surprisingly lacking in excitement
or much of anything. It is a leisurely stroll for the first hour until it
finally kicks into gear. But it has Sharon Yeung Pan-pan co-starring and
that was enough to hold my interest. She was signed up to the Shaw Brothers
but was able to appear in this film produced by Golden Tripod. She is best
known though for her work in the Girls with Guns genre at the end of the
1980s. She had a long gap from 1982 until 1989 in her filmography. Until
the finale she primarily displays her athleticism, flexibility and acrobatics
in training sessions and working in a bar spinning plates on her hands while
twisting herself like a pretzel and avoiding the advances of Dean Shek. But
in that lengthy finale, she finally gets to show off her stuff and she is
a delight.
Another one of the students is Casanova
Wong, the Korean martial artist who is famous for his kicks. They give him
a doofus haircut and he too does not get much to do until the finale. It
is a strangely nothing film - Yeung Pan-pan has a persistent suitor that
she doesn't like, Dean Shek thankfully only gets the one scene as a creep
and an enemy of the Master from years before comes looking for revenge. He
is played by Yen Shi-kwan aka Yam Sai-goon who became better known years
later in films like Once Upon a Time in China, Swordsman II, The East is
Red, Heroic Trio and A Hero Never Dies.
The finale is fun as Beggar So watches his
students battle Yen while he sits in a tree. The third student by the way
is played by his son, Yuen Lung-kui who shows some astonishing acrobatics
but didn't stay in the film business for long. There are scenes like the
Shek one when you fear it is going to turn into a kung fu comedy but it never
really goes there either. Of some interest is that it is co-directed by Wu
Pang who directed tons of the old Wong Fei-hung films going back to the very
first one in 1949.
