Shaolin Drunk Fighter (1983)

Shaolin Drunk Fighter (1983)
aka: The Royal Monks
Chinese Title: 少林醉棍
Translation: Shaolin Drunk Stick

 

Starring: Jacky Liu Hong-Yi, Chiang Cheng, Hau Chiu-Sing, Hyeon Kil-Su, Guk Jeong-Suk, Unicorn Chan
Director(s): To Man-Bo, Choe U-Hyeong
Action Director: Wong Chi-Cheng

Shaolin Drunk Fighter is arguably one of the best choices I could’ve made for a final film in my drunken boxing movie binge. Out of all the movies I watched, it’s the only one that really breaks out of the Seasonal formula mold established by the Jackie Chan hits Snake in the Eagle’s Shadow and Drunken Master in 1978. It’s probably not the last drunken boxing film to come out during the old school period, but its 1983 release year is significant, at least in Hong Kong. The previous year had seen the release of some of the most beloved classics of the genre, including Sammo Hung’s The Prodigal Son, Jackie Chan’s genre swan song Dragon Lord, Lau Kar-Leung’s Legendary Weapons of China, Corey Yuen’s solo directorial debut Ninja in the Dragon’s Den, and Yuen Woo-Ping’s sorcery classic The Miracle Fighters. It also saw the release and success of the first Mainland Chinese kung fu film, Shaolin Temple, which launched Jet Li’s career.

1982, however, was sort of the last hurrah for the kung fu movie, at least in Hong Kong. From there on out, successful period pieces tended to be of the more fantastic variety, like Zu: Warriors of Magic Mountain and A Chinese Ghost Story. Shaolin Drunk Fighter came out when the kung fu genre was quickly becoming an anachronism whose popularity was all but dead in Hong Kong, but still alive in other territories in Asia, like Taiwan and South Korea.

Interestingly enough, South Korea really jumped on the kung fu bandwagon in the late 70s and early 80s (although they started making martial arts films in the early 1970s), making a valiant attempt to copy their Chinese counterparts in terms of story and choreography. Instead of glorifying their own martial history, Korean filmmakers seemed content with churning out their own Brucesploitation films, films set at the Shaolin Temple, and Drunken Master rip-offs, probably because it was more profitable to do so. These movies often starred washed-up Hong Kong and Taiwanese actors (Eddie Ko Hung, for example), in addition to Korean actors (Dragon Lee, Elton Chong, Casanova Wong, and of course, Legendary Super Kicker Hwang Jang Lee), many of whom had experience in theHong Kong and Taiwanese markets. If viewers were lucky, they’d get a talented veteran like Corey Yuen or Chin Yuet-Sang to work on the choreography. When that didn’t happen, the results were often dismal, ranking down there with the very worst.

Although mainly a South Korean production, Shaolin Drunk Fighter does have some Chinese talent in front of the camera, though none of the actors were what one might call “big.” I suppose you could call Unicorn Chan “big,” if only because of his connections to Bruce Lee. The sole review of it at the Hong Kong Movie Database suggests that it’s a South Korea-China co-production, which would make some sense. However, most of the actors that had any sort of a notable career worked in Hong Kong and Taiwan, not in Mainland China. What’s mostly fascinating about it, however, is that’s really a product of the time in that instead of ripping off Drunken Master, it rips off its contemporaries, namely Duel to the Death and Shaolin Temple.

We start off with a decidedly wuxia beginning, with a evil General, Tiger Ko (Hau Chiu-Sing, Stroke of Death and Five Superfighters), cackling over his having killed a rival general.

Unfortunately for him, two of the fallen general’s retainers have taken his son, Huang Chi-Yeh (Jacky Liu Hong-Yi, Funny Kung Fu and Edge of Fury), into the forest. Tiger Ko sends his guards, led by the great Unicorn Chan (Way of the Dragon and Fist of Unicorn) after the three. The guards are old school wuxia types, they where cone-shaped hats and carry exotic weapons, in this case, a pair of spears that look to have been severed in half. The guards kill one of the retainers, but Huang and the other escape.

Enter a Japanese samurai, Lu Shing Yi Pu (Hyeon Kil-Su, Shaolin Drunk Monk and Mantis Under Falcon Claws), who’s in China in order to challenge the monks of the Shaolin Temple and perhaps learn from them. He’s eating at a restaurant when a couple of swordsman types poison him. They try to jump him outside of a town, but Huang and the retainer show up and kill most of dishonorable knights errant. Unfortunately, one of them escapes and runs into Unicorn Chan’s bunch. The hunt is on.

Huang and his companion nurse the samurai back to health, who disappears before they can really learn about him. They wander around a little more in the forest before they meet Lu Shing’s sister, Miss Yeda (Guk Jeong-Suk, Snake Woman and The Young Taoism Fighter). She asks him if they’ve seen her brother, but they’re not much help to her. The movie makes it seem like Huang is unable to make the connection between the two when she first asks. I mean, how many Japanese samurai were running aroundChina during the Ming Dynasty, anyway? Unicorn and his mob eventually catch up to Huang and kill his retainer before injuring him and causing him to fall to his doom.

Only it’s not his doom. Miss Yeda finds him and nurses him back to the health, or at least partially so. It’s while she’s looking after him that an alcoholic monk, Yuen Kong (Chiang Cheng, The Tigress of Shaolin and Shadowblade), appears and decides to take Huang to Shaolin. This being the Ming Dynasty and not the Qing, Huang’s not allowed to stay at the temple past the initial caring for his wounds, since the establishment doesn’t accept laymen. Huang agrees to become a monk and ritualistically shaves his head, takes some vows, and ultimately starts learning kung fu.

Of course, it’s only a matter of time before Unicorn’s half-spear wielding secret service team finds out that Huang is now a Shaolin monk. Tiger Ko, upon discovering this, sends a Japanese ninja platoon that conveniently showed up at his HQ looking for work to kill Huang. If they fail, there’s always Unicorn Chan and Ko himself to do the dirty work.

It’s pretty clear that Shaolin Drunk Fighter is nothing more than a pastiche of other, better genre films. It is amusing that none of those films is Drunken Master. Let’s see: Japanese samurai who wants to challenge Shaolin? Sounds like Duel to the Death’s conflict between Norman Tsui’s samurai and Damian Lau’s Shaolin swordsman. How about burrowing, disappearing, and exploding ninjas? Those were in Duel to the Death, too. What about the endless scenes of Shaolin monks doing weapons forms? Or the injured hero who is carried to Shaolin while on the run from a corrupt warlord? How about the alcoholic monk who teaches the hero the drunken pole technique just giving a demonstration? That’s easily Shaolin Temple territory if you ask me. And the whole bit with the hero being the son of a murdered official/military officer saved by his father’s retainers could’ve showed up in any low-budget Taiwanese wuxia film made in the 1970s.

Now, being a mixture of other films isn’t a problem in and of itself. The main problem with Shaolin Drunk Fighter is that the two major sources of inspiration never gel with each other. The whole Japanese samurai subplot is ultimately superfluous, especially since Lu Shing Yi Pu doesn’t have anything to do in the film after his brief duel with a Shaolin monk. Had he gotten involved during the climax that at least would’ve justified his inclusion in the film. Nor does the subplot involving Lu Shing’s sister go anywhere. After she and Huang have a brief “comic” fight following the latter catching the former taking a bath, the movie sets up a possible romantic subplot, with her coming to visit Huang several times at the Temple. But since the two never meet up while he’s at the temple, the whole exercise becomes rather pointless.

Arguably more pointless than those two characters are the ninja that show up midway through the film. It’s pretty coincidental that a bunch of disaffected Japanese shinobi would show up in China and offer their services to an evil warlord…wait a minute, that happened in the lauded, overrated Swordsman II, didn’t it? Nonetheless, those ninja represented the best part of the film, as we get to see them disappear in the blink of an eye, explode in a puff of smoke whenever a character is about to deliver the death blow to them, and burrow under the ground as if they had forgotten to take the left turn at Albuquerque. The anemic and clumsy fight choreography actually comes alive whenever they’re on the screen, which is a testament to the saving power of the ninja.

The rest of the fights are okay at best, which is sad, considering the talent involved (in front of the camera; I have no idea who action director Wong Chi Cheng is and I couldn’t find an entry for him at the HKMDB, so I don’t know what else he worked on). The gratuitous Shaolin training scenes are proof that the characters know what they’re doing, fight-wise.

Unfortunately, the fights tend to be sloppy, simple, and it almost feels like the players are staggering through the choreographed routines. It’s pretty sad. We do get more weapons on display in this film than we tend to in other films involving drunken boxing, but that’s more due to the Shaolin Temple roots in this exercise. I will point out, however, that the action does pick up in the final duel against Hau Chiu-Sing, where Jacky Liu gets to perform some drunken pole and extensively use the rope-dart, which he looks good at doing. I’ll have to check my notes, but it’s actually one of the better rope-dart fights I’ve seen, to be honest. It’s a shame the rest of the action was so uninspired.

When all is said and done, you’re really better off watching Shaolin Temple and Duel to the Death than this film. It doesn’t deserve to be ranked (or even compared to) with Drunken Master, because it’s really not in the same ballpark. It operates under completely different genre assumptions than Jackie Chan’s hit. But if you insist in me comparing them, let’s just say that Jacky has nothing, and I mean nothing, on Jackie, if you catch my drift.