Drunken Master is Chan's second hit in the movie industry, the first was Snake in the Eagle's Shadow. Both were directed by Yuen Woo Ping. Drunken Master is full of fights with the legend Wong Fei Hung being a young man always up to no good. The movie starts off introducing the villian, Thunderfoot, who is an assasin. Then it goes on to introduce Wong Fei Hung, who had gotten into big trouble this time by harassing a young girl. He was betting the other guys he could get her to kiss and hug him, so he acted like he had something stuck in his eye and asked if she would blow it out. She blew once, then Fei Hung turned his cheek to her and she accidentally kissed him. Then a snake came by, she saw it and jumped on Fei Hung. Then he mother came over, who decided to test out Fei Hung's Kung Fu. Fei Hung was no match for the woman. Soon he goes to his house with his father talking to two women. He has Fei Hung come over to meet them. Fei Hung peeks to see who it is, he finds that it's the girl he harassed and her mother. His father tells him they are his aunt and cousin. Fei Hung avoids having eye contact, claiming his neck is cramped. His aunt comes over and gives his neck a twist, and then realizes it's the boy who harassed her daughter. They both sit down, Fei Hung still acting if his neck is stiff. Then his aunt says that she heard Fei Hunng was a very nice boy, and not like some other boys. She told Mr. Wong that she had been hit by a boy that harassing her daughter. Mr. Wong, in a rage, asked if she would recognize him. Soon her daughter told him it was Fei Hung. Mr. Wong got very angry and threatened to beat him to death. Then a group of men from another school came in the door, one man was on a stretcher. Fei Hung had beaten him badly before for breaking a man's jade and not paying. Mr. Wong was really in a rage now, Fei Hung's aunt pitied him and told him that one of the men could give him 10 blows as hard as they can. One of the men comes at him, Fei Hung can still block the kicks and punches, but every once and a while the man would hit him hard. Soon his ten hits were over, and, being very frusturated, the man ran at Fei Hung again. Fei Hung fought back fighting very well using Snake and Crane technique. Before the fight was over, the man's master had already been hit twice by him accidentally. They leave, and Mr. Wong threatens to beat him again. Fei Hung's aunt tells Mr. Wong that he should punish him through practice, so Mr. Wong oreders Fei Hung to do the horse stance for three hours. The next scene is pretty impressive, Fei Hung does the hosrse stance with weights on his arms, and bowls on his legs, head and arms. Soon his friend helps him by putting a small bench under him. The person watching Fei Hung was clipping his toe nails instead of watching him. Mr. Wong comes to check on him and notices the bench. He kicks Fei Hung for using it and scolds the other person for not watching him. Mr. Wong decides to send Fei Hung to his Uncle, Sam Seed. Fei Hung has to do a horrible looking training lesson that night where he has a barrel tied to his neck, with his hands tied behind his back leaning over. Luckily his friend comes and helps him. He runs away before his friend can catch up. mThe next day he goes to a resturant and goes up to a man claiming they are neighbors. He quickly eats a little of his food when the man's not looking. Then Fei Hung ordes a load of food and eats it as fast as he can. Then he whispers to the man that he'll pay for it. He goes to the door but is stopped before he can get away. Fei Hung said that the other guy was paying and said he was his father. The man that stopped him was that other man's son, and he brought out a giant looking man named Gorilla to beat him up. After a while an old man stops the people from hitting Fei Hung and beats them all. The two of them run off and talk. Fei Hung told the homeless man that he was ordered by his father to go see his uncle Sam Seed. Soon the beggar tells Fei Hung that he is Sam Seed, so the horrified Fei Hung runs off as fast as he can. The beggar drinks a bit of wine and goes after Fei Hung. Soon after he catches Fei Hung he quickly tangles him up and tells him it will take 1 year to train him. Fei Hung goes with him and after his first lesson: Falling, he does another where he stands on four pots filled with water and he empties the water into different ones in random order. He soon jumps in the pot of water and acts like he's drowning. Sam Seed goes to help him and Fei Hung dumps him in the water and runs off. In the next scene Fei Hung is drying his clothes when Thunderfoot, the assasin comes by. He tells Fei Hung to shove off, but Fei Hung stays. Thunderfoot teaches Fei Hung a lesson by beating him and burning his clothes. Fei Hung runs off and thinks about what happens. He goes back to Sam Seed and apologizes. Sam Seed agrees to teach him again. Next Fei Hung does some amazing training sequences like doing several upside-down sit-ups. He also down pushups on his wrists, palms facing up. After a fight in the market with a man with a very hard head, Sam and Fei Hung become good friends. The next day the man with the very hard head comes back with a fighter, the stick king. Before Sam Seed had told Fei Hung to go get wine but instead Fei Hung fills the pot with water. When Fei Hung gets back he throws the pint of water to Sam Seed, he drinks it but throws it down because it was water. Sam shakes rapidly when he doesn't drink wine and he loses strength. They soon get away, and that night Fei Hung brings up a conversation. He asks Sam Seed why there has not been any fighting yet, just training. Sam Tells Fei Hung that he is ready for his secret style, "The 8 Drunk Gods". The next scene is great, Fei Hung shows off the Drunken forms perfectly, doing every single "God". Fei Hung decides to test out this new style on the Stick King. First he just get "Mr. Stick" as Fei Hung calls calls him, as mad as possible. Then he fights normally, waiting for a chance to take a gulp of his wine. Soon he pretends to be drunk, and the stick king thinks he lucked out. Then Fei Hung uses the Drunken teqnique on him, and defeats him. Meanwhile, Fei Hung's dad, Mr. Wong, had been suspecting a man of another school of buying land cheap from the villiagers because he knew there was coal there. Mr. Wong had been tells the villiagers not to sell their land to him. The other teacher threatens Mr. Wong. Thnderfoot was told to kill Mr. Wong before, so he makes one man tell Mr. Wong that someone had been digging up the hill, and Mr. Wong goes to take a look. Thunderfoot approaches him, and tells him someone had told him to kill Mr. Wong. He tried to tell Thunderfoot that he would pay him double to kill whoever had payed to have Mr. Wong killed. Thunderfoot told him that he wouldn't do it. Fei Hung then comes running down the hill, before he had read a letter from sam Seed telling him his training was completed. Fei Hung hurled a pot of wine at Thunderfoot and he jumped and smashed it into peices. Right before Fei Hung and Thunderfoot, who had recognized Fei Hung from the last time he beat him up, were going to fight, Sam Seed came running down the hill and threw Fei Hung some wine. Fei Hung guzzled it and began to fight. Soon he pretended to be drunk and fooled Thunderfoot. Fei Hung begins to show off all of the "Gods" one by one, displaying a great fight. After he had gone threw all of the Gods but one, Ms. Ho, a woman's style that Fei Hung refused to practice, Thunderfoot started to come back and Fei Hung looked like he was beat.Then Sam Seed yelled to Fei Hung to combine all of the Gods and make up his own Ms. Ho. Fei Hung then guzzled some more wine and finally defeated Thunderfoot with his own styke of Drunken Boxing.
This movie is one of my favorites, because for one, there were no dull moments. There were about 10 fights total. I also love the drunken style because it's so graceful and Chan did it perfectly. I give this movie a 10/10 rating.