Beverly Hills Cop III

 My second favourite BHC film. Felt slightly more childish because of Wonder World, but I absolutely love this movie!! Wish there were more uses of Axel F, and I wanted Taggart back. 

10/10

Let's have a drink because of how awesome Drunken Master II is

My review of a masterpiece

 

Directed by and starring Lau Ka Leung

Co-directed by and starring Jackie Chan

Screenplay by 

Edward Tang

    Tong Man-ming

    Yuen Chieh-chi

Produced by   

    Eric Tsang

    Edward Tang

    Barbie Tung

Starring   

    Anita Mui

    Ti Lung

    Felix Wong

    Ho Wing-fong

    Chin Ka-lok

    Lau Ka-yung

    Ram Cheung

    Ken Lo

    Ho-Sung Pak

    Andy Lau

    Yvonne Yung

    Suki Kwan

    Vindy Chan

Release date: February 3, 1994

 

Synopsis

 From a land where honour and tradition reign, comes the legend of a martial-arts hero unlike any other -- the "Drunken Master" -- who can turn just one drink into devastation and humiliation for his enemies. His technique is fast, furious... and powerfully funny. Fei-hung Wong (Jackie Chan), a young martial artist who knows the ways of Drunken Boxing is caught between respecting his pacifist father's wishes or stopping a group of disrespectful foreigners from stealing precious artifacts when Wong Fei-Hung is unwittingly caught in a battle between smugglers who want to steal ancient Chinese artefacts and loyalists who are determined to save the pieces from leaving the country.

Review

Drunken Master II / The Legend of Drunken Master was Jackie Chan's first traditional martial arts film for 12 years since the release of Dragon Lord (1982). While he hadn't done any martial arts films for twelve years, wow. He definetly improved with DRUNKEN MASTER 2!

Drunken Master 2 is the pinnacle of Hong Kong 90s action films right beside the US cut of Supercop (1995). Watching as Chan gets his butt beat, you know he's gonna win but it's super interesting to see. The movie also has an inpeccable soundtrack in both versions, scored by William Hu in the original version and Micheal Wandmacher in the Dimension Films / Miramix re-release. 

I'm not saying that Micheal W's is bad, but it's like store-bought pizza. The real thing is better, and in this case the real thing is William Hu's score. Micheal W's score is just "durr insert Asian noises" and so is the original, but because it's about an Asian fighting style. Not to mention it actually uses Asian instruments beautifully. William takes the win.

The movie also teaches a lesson to drinking and all the bad things that happen to Fei-hung (getting beat up, disowned AGAIN just like in Drunken Master 1, and brain damage at the end of Hong Kong's OG version of the film) unlike 1978's Drunken Master, which glorified drinking. 

The film shows a lesson, has impeccable music and fight choreography, and a mix of Lau Kar-leung's serious action which is more respectful and accurate to actual Drunken Boxing / Drunken Fist / Drunken Fairy / Drunken Monkey (Jui kuen/Zui quan) Jackie Chan's comedy kung fu.

 The movie also has multiple scenes with comedy during fights, like when Kei-ying fought his own son and Fei-Hung started touching his nose and saying "Oh, papa ha ha what a cute nose!" and when Anita Mui's character (Wong Ling) fakes pregnancy to not get her stepson in trouble, and when Fei-hung spits out kerosene on a burning rod and he looks at the flame then to Ken Lo with a "Huh, cool." face then goes back to beating him up. Same with when Fei Hung throws a Drunkfit (Temper tantrum) right in the middle of the fight and breaks a box then goes back to fighting him, then at the end of the fight Fei hung blows a bubble out his mouth, has a fazed/shocked expression then falls unconscious to the ground.

Anyways, Let us have a non-alchaholic drink to how amazing this movie is.

Watch The Drunken Master II on

https://archive.org/details/TheLegendOfTheDrunkMaster21994 (1994 Warner Bros version)

The Legend of Drunken Master - English re-dub, 2000 Dimension Films version

https://archive.org/details/the-legend-of-drunken-master

Rating: 10/10

Believe's rating: 9/10