"The Legend of Drunken Master" is one of Jackie Chan's fans' favorites. There is plenty of martial arts action in the film, but not much else. Martial arts films are not known to have the most complex plots. In fact, the films are usually based on honor, revenge or thievery. This film just so happens to cover the thievery arena.
In Hong Kong the film is better known as Jui Kuen II. This 1994 film is an unofficial sequel to the Chan's 1978 film, Jui Kuen. Wong Fei-Hung is the title character in each of the films, portrayed by Jackie Chan both times. Chan is known for creating some of the most slapstick martial arts humor in the film industry. Chan has acted in dozens upon dozens of martial arts films in Hong Kong. In the early 80s Chan received parts in "The Cannonball Run" and "The Cannonball Run II." However, it was not until 1998 that Chan broke onto the scene in America with "Rush Hour." The success of the film propelled Chan into American stardom and spawned two sequels.
Since then, Chan has appeared in several action films, such as "The Medallion" and "The Tuxedo," both of which contain martial arts in a humorous fashion. While the choreography may look silly, it indeed is well staged and executed. Bloopers almost always come with Chan movies, as it is incredibly difficult to execute the moves.
"The Legend of Drunken Master" centers on the drunken boxing form of martial arts. Chan stars a Wong Fei-Hung, a master at drunken boxing. The more that Hung drinks the more he kicks his way across the screen. The problem is, Hung doesn't know when enough is enough. His drinking always lands him in hot water with his father.
At the beginning of the film Hung tries to avoid paying taxes on a box of Ginseng. He therefore stows it in the ambassador's luggage, as the ambassador is free from taxes. On the train Hung tries to recover the item, but it is mistakenly taken by a martial arts master. The two engage in an incredible battle, and when it is over each thinks that they have the item that they intended to get.
Back in their village, Hung and his father return to work as physicians. However, Chan is always messing things up. When he tries to defend his stepmother's honor, he goes too far with the drunken boxing and is disowned by his father. Meanwhile, the ambassador is smuggling ancient Chinese artifacts back to Britain. That is the simple plot of the film. Several citizens of the village try to find out what the ambassador is up to and stop him.
Hung is the village leader and does everything in his power to stop the ambassador. In the final martial arts sequence, Hung is able to control the amount of alcohol intake and gets the proportion just right to perform drunken boxing properly.
While the martial arts sequences are quite pleasing to watch, that is
about all that there is to this film. Of course, I'm sure that is way
everyone watches martial arts films.
Despite the slightly above average quality of the movie, the video
quality is perhaps some of the worst that I have seen on the Blu-ray
format. However, it is difficult to expect much from a low-budget
Chinese film from the mid 90s. Still, improvements could have been
made to the video quality given a little extra effort. Most noticeable
with this video transfer is the condition of the source print. There
are noises of all types permeating throughout the film. There are some
that I never have seen before on the Blu-ray format. There are bright
streaks, or scratches in nearly every scene. There are constant dust
and dirt bubbles on the screen. The color palette is nearly
monochromatic. Only minor splashes of color appear randomly throughout
the film. The image is incredibly flat due to poor black levels. The
boosted contrast levels cause more problems that can be counted.
Details are virtually absent. When I say the image was soft, I truly
mean it. Noise reduction has blurred the image incredibly. Although I
can't imagine what the amount of film grain must have been before the
noise reduction. Speaking of which, film grain is inconsistent from
scene to scene. Some may find that the Blu-ray transfer is better than
the lousy standard DVD transfer, but all in all, the Blu-ray transfer
brings out a whole new batch of issues. Don't expect much from this
transfer other than some added resolution.
The film comes to Blu-ray with a lossless DTS-HD 5.1 audio track. Only
an English dubbed track is available. There is no original Cantonese
audio track present on the Blu-ray. That being said, this audio track
is a laugh riot. It is truly stereotypical of kung fu films. The
dialogue is very prominent, so much so that it stands readily out of
the mix. The mixture of the music and effects stems with the foreign
dialogue stem is rather poor. Note, the problems with the audio track
are mainly due to a lack of cohesion in the original mix. Of course,
more attention could have been paid to this Blu-ray audio track. The
entire audio track is muffled at best. Dialogue is somewhat
intelligible at times, but studies show that intelligibility decreases
as the audio becomes more out of sync from the picture. So in the case
of this film the English overdubs aren't anywhere close to the lip
movements of the original Cantonese speech. The rear channels are used
here and there, but directionality is poor as is panning. Everything
in this audio track is blended together. There is no separation
between one sound effect and another. Frequency response and dynamics
are limited. The LFE channel is present, but extremely muddy. The
lossless codec of this audio track brings out all the issues that were
not repaired in post-production.
The Blu-ray disc comes with only one bonus feature. There is an old
interview with Jackie Chan that spans about seven minutes. That is all.
"The Legend of Drunken Master" is entertaining in terms of martial
arts. However, the extremely poor image and audio quality hinders the
enjoyment of this film. I can't recommend upgrading to this Blu-ray
unless you are a die hard fan that must contain everything Jackie Chan
or martial arts.
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