52in52: Drunken Master

Drunken Master was one of Jackie Chan’s breakout roles from 1978. It is acclaimed as one of the original and best martial arts comedies created. It was directed by Yuen Woo-ping, who would eventually be the choreographer for the Matrix and Kill Bill series. Basically, I’m trying to say I had a lot of expectations going into the movie.

After finishing it, I thought it was a fun and charming movie. Jackie Chan made the movie very enjoyable to watch; he was so fluid in his stunts and very expressive. I watched a video that talked about how Jackie said his acting style is inspired by silent actors like Buster Keaton, who heavily used expressions. The plot was nonsensical but enjoyable. It’s cool seeing where future kung fu movies drew inspiration from (for example, Kung Fu Panda). We watched it as an English dub, and usually I’m not a fan of dubs, but the quirkiness of it added to the fun.

I had a hard time rating it cause I originally rated it 6/10, but when I think about the issues I have are due to comparing the movie to modern movies. The parts I didn’t enjoy were that the movie felt slow at times, but I think that is just my zoomer-goldfish attention span issues, more than a movie fault. Also, the movie felt incomplete at the end with many hanging plot points, but again, I don’t think that was the point of the movie. Re-evaluating the movie, I’d give it 3.6/5. Next week’s movie is Studio Ghibli’s The Tales of the Princess Kaguya.

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