Drunken Master II

A good thing about Jackie Chan films is that they are all the same. This makes it easy for the audience to overlook the flimsy plot and enjoy the spectacular stunts. In all of the recent US re-releases of Chan’s films, they have been set in current time. In Drunken Master II it’s different, this film takes place in the past and all fights are hand to hand (and since it is a Jackie Chan film, it also takes place while improvising with many different common objects).

The plot in Drunken Master II is short: A group of Chinese are helping the British ship valuable Chinese artifacts out of China. Jackie Chan’s character, Wong Fei-Hong, accidentally stumbles upon this plot and it is now up to him to stop this. Wong Fei-Hong is skilled in a special fighting style called Drunken Boxing.

The fighting scenes in Drunken Master II are, to say the least, incredible. They definitely out do most of the fight scenes in US re-releases, including those in First Strike. The end-fighting scene is most impressive. The times between fighting scenes are sometimes long, but they are still entertaining, and very funny.

Drunken Master II has not been redone for re-release in the US, yet. I hope it will be soon though, it is a great show case film for Jackie Chan’s fighting and entertainment abilities. If you have a laserdisc player, you can find the laserdisc for Drunken Master II out now. The version that I saw was the laserdisc version, it is presented in Cantonese and the English subtitles are hard to read. Find a copy to watch, or if you don’t have a laserdisc player, find a friend with one and have them rent this for you to see. This is a definite must-see movie.