Drunken Tai Chi
   
Director: Yuen Wo-ping
Year:  1984
Rating: 7.0
Viewed at Subway Cinema Fest

The theme for today's afternoon films was Before They Became Famous - Jackie Chan in Dragon Fist, Sammo Hung in The Victim (which I have already seen a few times so skipped it today though it is great) and a very baby faced Donnie Yen in his film debut. Yen was brought up in Massachusetts where his mother ran a martial arts school and he somehow came to the attention of the Yuen Clan who brought him over to Hong Kong to make a movie. And he never went back. For years I had it in for Yen, his glib screen persona just irritated me like a nail across a chalkboard - and bad acting didn't help. Though he was in a lot of films - many of them good ones - it took him a long time to become the star he is today - really not until many of the HK action stars of the 80's and 90's began to age and fade away in the early 2000's - but the guy is in his mid-50's today and is partly responsible for keeping HK action films on the map for the past fifteen years. So kudos to him. But he is irritating in this film! But amazing as well.



This is a Yuen Clan production - with three of the sons of Simon Yuen Siu-tien acting and another directing. In all Simon had six sons who were in martial arts films as well as Simon too - best known in Drunken Master with Jackie Chan. Keeping the Yuen Clan straight is for better men than me - there are so many Yuen's in Hong Kong films I always forget which are part of the Yuen Clan and which are not. But here are four of them. Directing is the legendary Yuen Wo-ping and he brings in three brothers - Yuen Cheung-yan (who often plays eccentric or nutty characters), Yuen Yat-cho (the nice one) and Yuen Shun-yi (often playing a brute). What they all have in common is great martial arts skills and hundreds of action choreographed films between them.





This is kung-fu comedy and when the Yuen's do kung-fu comedy it can be pretty goofy. This one is definitely goofy but is constantly inventive with great martial arts woven constantly within. It is everywhere from a puppet show to loading rice on a cart - why do something simple when you can use kung-fu to do it. Yuen Wo-ping gives Donnie every opportunity to show his stuff and stuff he has - from skateboarding to moon walking to bicycle stunts to comedy to showing his physique and of course fighting. And his skills are undeniable - for a first film he is amazing. But he can't act - ok first film - and his goofiness takes a small toll on your nerves after a while. But you can't knock the raw talent.




He and his brother (Yuen Yat-cho) are sons of a rice merchant and when someone tries to get them with fireworks they are able to turn the tables and cause him mental damage. The father (Don Wong) of the now unbalanced son hires Iron Steel (Yuen Shun-yi) to kill the whole family. Donnie meets up with a husband wife duo of martial artists (Yuen Cheung Yan and the woman everyone calls Fatty. Played by Lydia Shum of course who has a wonderfully silly encounter with Yen in which she is heavily doubled). I enjoyed the film though my friend Paul said the comic elements were way too much for him but a good debut for Donnie that bombed at the box office but helped lead to better roles down the road. But I kept waiting for the "drunken" in Drunken Tai Chi and there was none!