DAY 25: Jackie Chan!

It took America too long to get behind Jackie Chan.

When this was released, Jackie Chan was already a global icon, but he decided to return to his roots in traditional, old-school kung fu for the first time since 1983’s Fearless Hyena Part II. He teamed up with the legendary director Lau Kar-leung to unleash a cinematic hurricane that completely redefined what an action movie could be. Don’t believe me? Time Magazine called it one of the top 100 best films of all time. The BFI ranked it among the top 10 action movies ever made. They aren’t wrong.

The story takes place in early 20th-century China. Jackie plays the legendary Cantonese folk hero Wong Fei-hung. On the way home from a trip, Fei-hung accidentally switches a box containing a valuable ginseng root with another box containing the Imperial Seal. It turns out the British consul is trying to smuggle priceless Chinese artifacts out of the country, and now they want that seal back.

Fei-hung tries to cover his tracks by cutting a root off his dad’s favorite bonsai tree to pass it off as the missing ginseng. After a massive public brawl, Fei-hung’s strict father (played by Ti Lung) finds out about the fake ginseng, disowns his son and kicks him out into the street. Now he has to restore honor to his family name and, oh yeah, get wasted. Luckily, he has help from Anita Mui, who steals every single scene she is in as Fei-hung’s stepmother, Ling. She’s hilarious, fiercely supportive and literally encourages Fei-hung to get plastered so he can unleash his drunken boxing on the bad guys.

Ken Lo (who was actually Jackie’s real-life bodyguard and a legit Taekwondo champion) plays John, the consul’s chief enforcer. The guy’s legs move like lightning. To beat him, Jackie breaks his vow of sobriety, chugs industrial alcohol and goes into a full-blown, fire-breathing, drunken berserker mode. It’s one of the wildest things ever captured by a camera.

When Dimension Films brought it to US theaters in 2000 as The Legend of Drunken Master, they did what US distributors always did back then: they dubbed it, swapped out the incredible original musical score, altered the sound effects, and cut the final 35 seconds of the film. Why? Because the original Hong Kong ending shows Fei-hung blinded and mentally crippled as a comedic side-effect of drinking industrial steel-factory alcohol. Played for laughs in HK, the US distributors thought it was way too dark.

For decades, fans had to rely on out-of-print Mei Ah LaserDiscs or cropped bootleg DVDs just to see the real movie. Not anymore.

Drunken Master II is the perfect intersection of physical comedy, historical epic and death-defying stunt work. It catches Jackie Chan at the absolute apex of his physical capabilities. If you call yourself a fan of action cinema, Hong Kong movies or just pure entertainment, this isn’t just recommended viewing.

It’s everything.

Extras on this Arrow Video release include new commentary by martial arts cinema experts Frank Djeng and F.J. DeSanto; Before the Breakout, a new featurette in which stuntman Wang Yao, academic Dr. Wayne Wong and critics David West and James Mudge look back at Jackie Chan’s earlier career; Breakout! Part 1, a new featurette in which Wong, West, Mudg and stuntman Mars look back at the film; interviews with co-writer Yuen Kai-chi, Mars and academic Dr. Lars Laamann on the historical context behind the film; Drunken Defiance, a new appreciation of the film by martial arts cinema expert Ricky Baker; an archival interview with Jackie Chan; an archive Mandarin drinking scene; outtakes; Chinese New Year messages recorded by Jackie for the Taiwanese and Malaysian openings; trailers and an image gallery. You can get it from MVD.