Jackie Chan gives us a tour de force of kung fu magic. Who else in todays movies can give you a fight between one drunk guy and 10 adversaries and pull it off in such a way that the results are both believable and hilarious!

##Drunk or sober, Jackie knows how to kick some butt!

[[dmii]] What can you say
about this movie except that it achieves near perfection in the Jackie Chan
movie style.

The movie centers around the Wong Fei-Hung character of Chinese legend.
The character grew out of a historical figure known for fighting against
injustice coming from foreign occupiers. The injustice that is the hook
for this movie revolves around a plot by the British to smuggle out
ancient Chinese artifacts, in particular a Jade statuette.

With the Drunken style of fighting, the practitioner attempts to mimic the movements of an inebriated person in order to confuse his opponent. At the
same time, the relaxed state of the body helps him to counter with
unexpected techniques. Does this make sense? In any case, when you see
this movie you really get an idea of why a drunken style might be
effective.

The fight choreography in this movie is so inventive and
entertaining that it could make a movie all by itself. But beyond that
there’s some very effective comedy thrown in for good measure. I remember
one of the times I saw this on laser disc with a friend whom I was sure
would find it to be just another bad kung-fu movie like the ones that used
to play on Sunday morning when I was growing up. But he absolutely loved
it! He was laughing so hard at times I thought he was going to loose
control (and the version we saw didn’t have subtitles and wasn’t dubbed,
so the comedy was purely physical and universal in its appeal). He also
loved the fight choreography. I can’t tell you how many times we backed up
the disc to watch a scene again. And each time his jaw dropped in
amazement (mine too)!