To git into the swang of thinks I decided to git drunk to rearview this one, hiccup. Well, not really, but Jackie Chan finds that his arts are more martial when he has a drink or ten so order up another round. The folks at Buena Vista might’ve have one too many as well since they did the Drunken Masters no favors on Blu-ray.
Wong Fei Hung (Jackie Chan) is a practitioner of Zui Quan (style of the Drunken Fist). Meaning that the more alcohol he drinks the more ferocious his kung fu, that is unless he drinks too much. His father Kei Ying (Ti Lung) is a respected doctor and doesn’t appreciate his son’s style of fighting.
Hung accidentally exchanges some ginseng for an antique jade seal that has stolen by a British diplomat (Louis Roth). Hung and his stepmother Ling (Anita Mui) have to hide the loss of the medicinal ginseng from Ying but the Brits and their henchmen are in hot pursuit of the treasure. Their best henchman is John (Ken Lo) whose kicks are powerful. Hung better drink up if he is going to take on these thugs.
The star of the show is Jackie Chan and the final battle with John in this film is the highlight of the film. Chan has been down the liquored road before and this film is a quasi-sequel to his 1978 Drunken Master. He’s a one man stunt team and the final battle in the film is breathtaking and thrilling.
Unfortunately the same can’t be said for the presentation of the film on Blu-ray. Where the film is let down mightily is this is the same cut that was redone for American consumption. So you have altered music, sound effects, and an English dub. Thankfully Chan does his own dialogue in the English dub. There are alternate dubs (French and Spanish) but you do not get the original Cantonese dialogue track.
I always prefer it when the original dub is included and don’t appreciate it when it isn’t. You would think that for this film’s Blu-ray debut that more care might’ve been put into it.
The larger storage capacity of Blu-ray would’ve also allowed for the original and Cantonese cuts and certainly the original dub. Maybe it was a matter of rights issues, but I just wonder if it wasn’t laziness on the studio’s part.
Legend of Drunken Master is presented in a 1080p high definition transfer (2.35:1), but looks like it could’ve benefited from some remastering. The only special feature is a 6 minute interview with Jackie Chan.
Sadly, Legend of Drunken Master stumbles around like the drunkard of the title. The disc could’ve been made more into an event title (for the first time in the original cut or some other promotional blather [the even drunker edition!] could’ve been applied).
Sadly, it was just slipped onto Blu-ray with little care and fans might not like that Chan’s film was done this way. The action is excellent and Chan truly suffers for his art, but the disc is sloshed.
The Legend of Drunken Master [Blu-ray] is now available at Amazon . Visit the DVD database for more information.
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