Blu-ray Review: 47 Ronin (2013)

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Infusing what should’ve been a straightforward samurai film based on one of Japan’s most celebrated historical legends with unnecessary supernatural elements (better suited to Universal’s Mummy franchise spin-off The Scorpion King) morphs what could’ve been a surefire epic success for the studio into one of Hollywood’s biggest genre-blended flops since Disney gambled on John Carter.

Using everything in their arsenal to try to make the film work on a level beyond mere 3D spectacle, not even Oscar nominated screenwriter Hossein Amini’s rewrites to the script penned by Cellular turned Fast and Furious scribe Chris Morgan could salvage this sprawling, awkward combination of rousing martial arts epic period picture and fantastical B-movie.

One of the best examples of why filmmaking by committee is a disastrous approach – because 47 Ronin aimed to provide something for everyone it failed to connect with anyone.

Whether it was in ordering reshoots to add more 3D wow or play up the forbidden love between Keanu Reeves’s cruelly mistreated half-British, half-Japanese half-breed and the daughter of the good-natured Japanese lord who took him in as an abandoned orphan, sadly nothing could keep Ronin from falling apart.

All in all, it’s an expensive reminder of just how important it is to have a solid script in place before you hire a single soul, let alone award a greenlight.

Barely held together as it is by its rather ludicrous interpretation of the eponymous legend filtered through a decidedly revisionist version of feudal Japan (as reimagined by the Dungeons and Dragons generation), 47 Ronin comes across as a bizarre hodgepodge of paint-by-genre filmmaking – adding a dash of witchcraft here, romance there and so on for its roughly two hour running time.

Ultimately relying on spectacle over substance from start to finish, while this tale of shapeshifting spell-casting samurai, demons and shogun (oh my!) is bewitching in its visual approach by commercial director turned feature filmmaker Carl Rinsch, it flows together as strangely as ads in any primetime television commercial break.

Although the art direction, costuming and makeup is exquisite, this choppily edited and weirdly constructed wannabe epic in search of an epic storyline merely pays lip service to its subject matter.

As such Ronin can only skate by on mindless eye candy for so long before you realize that in the end, Rinsch might have been better off chucking the film altogether in favor of one seriously badass Super Bowl commercial.

And while Universal was right to hire a commercial director to helm what in the end amounts to a work that’s been packaged and presented like a hot new product, unfortunately there’s nothing in Ronin that’s remotely worth buying… even if you can figure out exactly what it is they were trying to sell.
   

Text ©2014, Film Intuition, LLC; All Rights Reserved. http://www.filmintuition.com Unauthorized Reproduction or Publication Elsewhere is Strictly Prohibited and in violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.  FTC Disclosure: Per standard professional practice, I may have received a review copy of this title in order to evaluate it for my readers, which had no impact whatsoever on whether or not it received a favorable or unfavorable critique.

Blu-ray Review: The Grandmaster (2013)

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Gone are the long takes of people walking down lonely streets and dimly lit hallways from In the Mood for Love.

In Wong Kar Wai’s The Grandmaster, shots are roughly two to three seconds long on average but manage to convey the fluidity and dizzying aesthetic ballet of Wing Chun martial arts all the same by taking you through each movement shot by shot, similar to the way he led us down those streets and halls.

And while it’s edited differently, there’s still no mistaking the imagery for anything other than the creative realization of Wong Kar Wai given its buttoned up passion, gorgeous framing and overall aesthetic sweep that practically stamps his signature onto every frame.

Though it is undoubtedly the fastest moving Wong Kar Wai film, it’s also the first one that’s bursting at the seams with details – not just due to the astounding set pieces and costumes – but its multifaceted characters who are introduced so quickly that there are tons of bonus subtitled screen cards to underline who each player is before they even begin branching off into their own subplots.

Needless to say, it’s a complicated picture that relies on fast hand eye coordination from its grandmasters onscreen as well as its audiences off the screen to digest not just the typed information as well as the subtitled dialogue but also put it together with the constantly moving scene cuts, which leave you trying to absorb a vast amount of cinematographic data at the exact same time.

The type of film that you’ll only grow to better understand and appreciate that much more on a second viewing than just based on its dizzying first impression alone, The Grandmaster is filled with repetitions in dialogue, choreography, music and its subtlest nuances come to life to represent an altogether different feature on a second viewing than the one you’d first experienced.

What purports to be a biopic is in all actuality a study of honor in the face of adversity and a film that emphasizes far more than just one subject. To this end, The Grandmaster is a major achievement by Wong Kar Wai and a work that begs to be dissected on par with his celebrated ‘90s masterpieces.

Although the title is translated in the singular for its English language release, Wong Kar Wai’s period epic actually results in the plural in Asia whereby more than just honoring the heroic Ip Man martial artist who would go on to train Bruce Lee, the helmer’s work transcends the limits of the biopic.

In doing so, The Grandmaster honors all of the other unheralded grandmasters of various schools throughout the regions of North and South China before the Japanese invasion.

The film reunites the director with actors Tony Leung and Ziyi Zhang – both of whom give mesmerizing turns as Ip Man and the daughter of another grandmaster who inherited her father’s gifts (whom Ip Man is hopelessly in love with despite being a faithful husband).

Utilizing his favorite ingredients of romantic longing, love triangles and a person being pulled in opposite directions by duty and their heart, Wong Kar Wai has made another passionate, potent, poetic and hypnotic work.

Intriguingly and unlike the recent Ip Man trilogy which dedicated itself solely to its subject, The Grandmaster challenges its initial thesis. Testing the limitations of a biopic to tell what is an even more emotionally riveting story of Zhang’s grandmaster in her own right, the film celebrates the plural far more than the literal singular translation of one master from start to finish.

Playing out multiple character arcs throughout the film’s narrative, we see a Yin and Yang approach to their journeys as Zhang is fueled by vengeance and Ip Man refuses to give in, no matter how much he is tested as both individuals experience highs and lows due to these decisions.

While the romantic angle echoes themes the filmmaker explored early on in his career (perhaps most famously in Happy Together, Chungking Express and In the Mood for Love), Zhang’s character’s plight rivals our hero’s as the most riveting one in the film as she vows to track down the man who betrayed her father.

Touching on gender power issues of the time and place and her own war-like quest for revenge during wartime, Zhang gives one of her strongest performances to date in Grandmaster, which I read gives her character an even greater arc in the Chinese cut of the film which is twenty minutes longer than this version.

While so far to date there’s said to be at least three different editions of the film that Wong has screened as he is famous for tinkering with the final frames of his features, only the shortest American theatrical version is included in this Blu-ray release.

And admittedly, this cut does suffer slightly from abrupt segues in the final act that lose the fiery rhythm of the film’s divine first hour and the rapid fire introduction to so many grandmasters in Grandmaster’s first act may make some viewers glad this razor sharp Blu-ray comes with an impressive English language dub to switch back and forth between reading and listening.

Yet all things considered, this is Wong Kar Wai's strongest release since Mood. Making up for the standoffish 2046 and beautiful trifle My Blueberry Nights, The Grandmaster is a master effort that’s filled with impressive fight sequences which rival some of action choreographer Yuen Woo Ping’s finest achievements in the Ziyi Zhang starring Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.

Visually intoxicating on Blu-ray, one of the highlights of The Grandmaster occurs as a Ping/Zhang collaboration once again in a character-defining battle by a train that (given the amount of sound blaring over the speakers and their relationship to vengeance for their fathers that will alter them forever) seems to echo the same pivotal moment for Al Pacino’s Michael Corleone in the original Godfather, in which he comes out of a bathroom with a gun in his hand.

Although it didn’t garner a foreign film Oscar nod, Wong’s unique action-driven philosophical tale defies the martial arts or biopic genres, remaining in the end true to that unique and rare heading as a Wong Kar Wai picture, which (much like his others) uses sumptuous visuals and a sweeping score to help translate the “opera of life” to use a phrase uttered by Leung’s Ip Man.

Filled with more romantic yearning, heartache and regrets of the doomed game of chess that occurs between man and woman kept from one another by timing and fate, the characters nonetheless keep the light of love burning by “being, knowing and doing,” while choosing to stay upright in the battle of life, love and death, whether they’re on camera for two seconds, two scenes or two hours.

Text ©2014, Film Intuition, LLC; All Rights Reserved. http://www.filmintuition.com Unauthorized Reproduction or Publication Elsewhere is Strictly Prohibited and in violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.  FTC Disclosure: Per standard professional practice, I may have received a review copy of this title in order to evaluate it for my readers, which had no impact whatsoever on whether or not it received a favorable or unfavorable critique.

Blu-ray Review: Iron Monkey (1993) -- Ultimate Force of Four Box Set Collection

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In a society where hospitals dump the homeless on the street when they can't pay their bill and people fall into massive debt, discrimination, and death due to the health care crisis in America, man, is it refreshing to find a doctor we can cheer for in the form of China's Wong Fei Hung.

By embellishing the biography of the real-life late nineteenth and early twentieth century physician, revolutionary, martial artist, and healer Hung to the stuff of folkloric legend as one of China's most enduring and endearing sources for cinematic inspiration, Hung has lived on long past his death in 1924 through the many actors who have portrayed him on TV and film.

The two most notable takes on the grown up heroic Hung were crafted first by Jackie Chan in the Drunken Master films and later by Jet Li via his epic Once Upon a Time in China series. In fact these two films and the character they share have become so famous in their own right that I'd erroneously believed I'd seen Iron Monkey until I sat down and viewed the Blu-ray in preparation for the review to watch an early take of the very same character (actually played by female actress Tsang Sze-man).

Over the years, the tales about the legendary doctor have become much taller, essentially making Hung the Chinese equivalent of Robin Hood, Dr. Syn, The Scarlet Pimpernel, Zorro, and any number of American superheroes. As I settled into the movie, my first impression in translating it to action movie geek-speak was that I'd be viewing The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles as opposed to say, Raiders of the Lost Ark given the fact that our hero is only twelve in this film yet it turned out to be a film that I felt even surpassed Jackie Chan's take on Hung in Drunken Master which suffered from its thin plot and broad humor.

While of course, this isn't a slam on Chan's performance at all since the action choreography in Master is among China's best but as an entire cinematic experience, you just can't duplicate Iron Monkey for both its tremendously swift fight scenes crafted by the now iconic Yuen Wo-Ping (who choreographed Crouching Tiger, The Matrix, and Kill Bill) as well as the film's true beauty.

Naturally, it goes without saying that the action scenes are top-notch given the resume of Ping and his supremely unique style of constant motion plus signature movements that augment the strengths of every actor involved. However, I was also thrilled by Monkey's nice blend of the same poetry that would be enhanced in Ang Lee's Oscar winning Tiger seven years later.

Although I could gush continuously about some of the sequences that left me dazzled, one standout begs to be celebrated as it impressively utilized zero violence as the Robin Hood-like physician Dr. Yang (Yu Rong-quong) and his beautiful assistant employ amazing hidden wire-work and magical technique to catch loose office papers that are flying through the air.

It's an important origin story for Hung by illustrating-- as director Quentin Tarantino acknowledged in a behind-the-scenes extra feature introduction-- the powerful role that both Hung's own hardworking honest father (Donnie Yen) and herbalist Dr. Yang would eventually play in his own mythological storyline we've seen unfold for years onscreen.

Traveling the countryside with his ethical physician father who is also a skilled martial artist in his own right (and brilliantly portrayed by the Donnie Yen in some showstopping scenes), the young Hung is held captive by authorities when they erroneously accuse Yen of being the vigilante known as the Iron Monkey who rights wrongs and steals from the haves to drops coins of gold in the laps of the have-nots. When the true Iron Monkey (crime fighting herbalist Dr. Yang, of course) arrives in his iconic black mask in court just as the judge was about to throw the book at Hung's father, they eventually let him loose with the condition that his son will only be released when the real Monkey is brought to justice.

However, foreshadowing the talented martial artist and innovator he'd later become, the twelve year old manages to stage his own jailbreak and meets up with his father. Through director Ping's stunning choreography and breakneck pace of the brisk eighty-six minute film that never overstays its welcome, we're as invigorated and inspired as Hung is from not just the visual contact high but given the idea that during our current health care crisis, at last (if only on film) we have a physician whom we can truly celebrate.

And again, by ensuring that the storyline will avoid anachronisms in the onscreen mythology of Wong Fei Hung, it's a treat to see the young man realize that the villain they're after may wear black (just like Zorro), but the Iron Monkey transcends what's black and white by standing up for the helpless and concerning himself with the gray area between what is the law and how much of it is worth breaking to ensure basic human rights among the less fortunate.

Making its way to Blu-ray for the first time now in 2009, Iron Monkey had been previously remastered once before in 2001 to help cash in on the Kung Fu craze that hit our shores after the release of Ping's choreography in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon along with the success of Jackie Chan's Legend of Drunken Master which introduced a larger audience to Wong Fei Hung.

And although some of the original flaws of the theatrical print are still there including several darkly lit shots that benefit from a few adjustments on your TV, with the full power of 1080 pixels behind it, the refreshingly PG-13 rated Monkey still packs a much bigger punch than big budget Hollywood action flicks routinely clogging up space at our local multiplex. Likewise, the sound balance is perfect and it thankfully includes English subtitles and the foreign audio soundtrack.

As the fourth and final feature of a high caliber Blu-ray set from Buena Vista Home Entertainment, Iron Monkey is no doubt one you'll find yourself viewing perhaps more frequently than the other three immensely stylized yet uniquely different works as the title with the biggest potential appeal across all generations, backgrounds, and of course gender since the little fighter to become a national male hero was played by one tough female Kung Fu cookie.

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Blu-ray Review: Hero (2002) -- Ultimate Force of Four Box Set Collection

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As the most prolific and highly respected Chinese Fifth Generation director, Zhang Yimou elevates the craft of filmmaking to the purist form of painterly, poetic art. With a passion for seeking out the most exquisite and emotionally potent shade of a certain color and ensuring the precise sound, cut, and rhythm in any given project he takes on, Zhang Yimou is one of cinema's most innovative and impressive directors.

While Chinese film is largely known for exploring violence and relishing in the martial arts with the tremendously breathless Hong Kong action packed titles Kung Fu fans have been devouring for decades, it took the incredibly patient Yimou roughly two decades to venture into the genre he'd always wanted to explore.

Especially interested in moving beyond the traditional swordplay of martial arts genre pictures and drawn to the "warring states period" of China during the third century B.C., he developed an original story that sought out philosophical and ethical answers regarding just what comprises a hero and worked tirelessly with two screenwriters for twenty-four months before he decided it was acceptable to begin filming.

While most filmmakers seem ready to rush into production with a treatment alone and rewriting the work as they go along when they have a big budget and A-list talent to play with since you're essentially guaranteed box office gold, Yimou has never been the kind of director who will sacrifice style for speed and quality for quantity. And sure enough, even when one of his films isn't quite the finished product viewers may have desired such as in the recent mixed bag of the sumptuous mess Curse of the Golden Flower, we can at the very least sense his singular vision, ambition, and strive for perfection on every level from beginning to end.

Perhaps most famous in America for his collaborations with former muse and romantic partner, Gong Li including Raise the Red Lantern, the daring Yimou has ventured like a true artist back and forth through several periods from sultry film noirs like Ju Dou and Shanghai Triad to politically charged epics like To Live to naturalistic neorealism focused works Not One Less, Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles and The Road Home.

Yet the one recurring theme that shows up again and again in his humanistic films is in the power of human choice and the everyday heroics of people in relation to others whether it's on a small scale or one much larger in scope. Ethical considerations and political implications run throughout his oeuvre and indeed, the period film Hero seems especially timely as a martial arts movie that doubles as an allegorical work, which reflects some recent Chinese infighting over separate states today.

Still, it's an important distinction to point out that the movies themselves are about people first and never place messages over the characters and plot since he shares that it's his belief that, "the objective of any form of art is not political. I am not interested in politics." While in the same page of quotations collected on IMDb he explains further to acknowledge his two most successful films of the 2000s-- Hero and House of Flying Daggers-- as "commercial" pictures and sure enough critics fell all over themselves comparing the movies to Ang Lee's Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon especially because they share the actress Zhang Ziyi, they're amazing efforts in their own right and from a visual standpoint alone, much more beautiful than Crouching Tiger.

Thankfully, to the joy of viewers, the patient perfectionist Yimou has been reluctant to cheapen his vision with CGI. Preferring to follow the image he sees in his mind, Yimou would only film a high wire fight with Jet Li and Tony Leung flying over a lake with mirror perfect still water. To achieve this effect, he spread out the shooting schedule for three weeks, using the lake for the two hours each day when the water was completely still.

In the same token, he waited for leaves to turn just the right vibrant color of gold and knowing that they would only retain their beauty and shade for three days, he filmed Ziyi and Maggie Cheung's beautiful fight within that breakneck schedule. While doing so, he urged the women not to blink as the leaves were gathered and used again and again along with eye drops due to the wind that blew dirt around in every single take.

These approaches probably seem insane to Western filmmakers as his strive for only the highest quality possible would no doubt have sent most American producers running back to their accountants and actors to their trailers in frustration over giving up control to serve the director's vision. Yet as evidenced throughout the extensive behind the scenes extras on this cinema quality Blu-ray edition of Hero, we discover that his cast and crew feel exactly the same way as Yimou fans do in knowing that he's doing his very best to ensure the movie's sensuous loveliness will imprint directly into your dreamscape.

And that is exactly what's happened to me as I hadn't seen Hero since its 2004 release yet the fight among the golden leaves and the dazzling one over the idyllic blue lake immediately sprang to mind as the film began. Furthermore, my memory of Hero consisted primarily of its overwhelming beauty since its Rashomon style tale keeps doubling back, evolving, and daring you to keep up with its labyrinthine twists.

And honestly the first time I saw Hero, I didn't keep up-- either lost in the beauty so much that I missed a few crucial subtitles or getting a couple of characters mistaken-- finally I just gave into my confusion and watched the movie for its cinematic poetry. Moreover, I was relieved to read that a few critics I greatly admire had a little trouble following not just the thread but the final twenty minutes which I'm still not sure logically works in sync with the rest.

While made in 2002, it took a full two years and the power of Quentin Tarantino to help bring the film to American audiences where it became the first foreign language movie in history to debut at #1 at the United States box office. Thus, when House of Flying Daggers was released the same year from Sony Pictures Classics rather than Miramax and produced in '04 instead of two years prior, I was among the few who preferred Daggers despite its slightly over-the-top Shakespearean inspired demise in the final showdown. However, again proof of the importance of watching movies a second time around as well as a fervent desire that I could have this opportunity more often since I take in so much media that it blurs together from time to time, I've completely changed my stance on Hero with this review.

Not only do I prefer it to the gorgeously impressive Daggers but I'm actually wondering if it is superior to Crouching Tiger due to its daring decision to explore the consequences of violence, power, self vs. country, revenge, the concept of "an eye for an eye," loss of culture, heritage, and the double-edged figurative sword of using war to create peace. However the logic of the final mental chess move made by the men leading us into various extended flashback versions of possible truths still leads viewers into philosophical circles. When presented with the events, those more intrigued by logic will drive themselves batty wondering if a) wouldn't have happened, would b) have happened as the characters find themselves in the third (or c) act or in reality why a and b would've been necessary at all. However, I'm very happy to abandon attempts to over-analyze to experience the surprisingly moving and intoxicating epic which stands among Yimou's very best.

Nominated for an Oscar and Golden Globe as the best foreign film of the year, Jet Li took quite a pay cut in the film which at the time was China's most expensive production ever created. In Hero, he stars as our nameless hero who is honored with a private audience of the King of Qin (Daoming Chen) once he's eliminated the three most ruthless assassins who've come the closest to taking the king's life to prevent his drive to conquer their states and force unification.

Bringing the famous swords of the three killers-- Sky (Donnie Yen), Broken Sword (Tony Leung) and Flying Snow (Maggie Cheung)-- as proof of his victory, Li's character, just referred to as Nameless is asked by the King to recount the success of his battles and is granted permission to take several paces closer to the man for each death.

Taking supreme advantage of film as a "show me" medium, Yimou uses a distinct, unique, and eye-popping color scheme for every single battle which begins with what is considered the "chess fight" or as Li shares a great "tennis" setup as he rematches with Once Upon A Time in China II costar Donnie Yen whom he chose for the part. The stellar sequence which has become a fanboy favorite took two weeks to film involving wire work, black and white photography, and a crisp professional approach.

Continuously topping himself throughout in this amazing collaboration with frequent Wong Kar Wai cinematographer Christopher Doyle, the chess fight is in stark contrast to the passionate and fiery love triangle that occurs between In the Mood for Love stars Leung and Cheung (in Wai's film lensed by Doyle). In this segment, Nameless exploits their relationship by using the beautiful Zhang Ziyi and Cheung's past as pawns to get the killers off their game.

Employing the familiar and effective rhythms of Crouching Tiger composer Tan Dun who utilized Itzhak Perlman on violin and Kodo drummers, the film grows much more elaborate as it moves from one eye-popping segment to the next which is further complicated when the King sees through the first version of the account by Nameless. After this occurs, we're presented with the second Rashomon-like revision where the costumes, colors, and makeup changes to balance the ever-changing explanation of just what happened and is waiting to happen.

A flawless Blu-ray presentation with extensive extra features including an in-depth Jet Li and Quentin Tarantino interview wherein Li admits that he actually cried after reading the screenplay because of the emotional power packed within the action framework, fans can also relish in storyboards, featurettes, and more.

Overall, the strongest asset to an already solid collection, Hero is a masterful work filled with beauty, sorrow, and a firm commitment to integrity infused entertainment as Yimou reminds that just because something is classified as martial arts, it doesn't have to sacrifice quality or substance. Likewise, Yimou's Hero is sure to please fans of the genre from all interest levels as you can watch it for the superlative fight choreography, majestic photography, or just one more documented example that reminds us why the word "director" is far too weak to be attached to Mr. Zhang Yimou.

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Blu-ray Review: The Legend of Drunken Master (1994) -- Ultimate Force of Four Box Set Collection

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AKA Drunken Master 2

Similar to the way that Supercop is technically Police Story 3, The Legend of Drunken Master is also known as Drunken Master 2 but as fans of Jackie Chan understand very well, the plots and sequels are interchangeable and inconsequential since all we really want to see is the highly choreographed action sequences completed by the brave, talented man who does all of his own stunts.

As he's often pointed out in interviews and/or is often referenced critically-- the films of Jackie Chan and his very persona seem to be indicative of an unlikely lineage of physical comedy, slapstick, and dancer like precision that you can trace back regardless of the genre or country to the boom of silent film stars Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin. Those individuals are two of Jackie Chan's idols and indeed Chaplin is even referenced in Shanghai Knights (itself a sequel of Shanghai Noon) in one of his lackluster but successful comedy hybrids that pairs Chan up with highly verbal American costars like Shanghai's Owen Wilson and Rush Hour's Chris Tucker to be the yin to his yang.

Yet, in a Jackie Chan movie, everything including the props are merely a sidekick since you never know when he'll swing a costar or a lamp, run up a wall or jump on a helicopter risking life and limb to entertain us with his own unique Jackie Chan character. The bottom line is, after breakneck schedules and dozens upon dozens of movies, Chan has become one of those immediately identifiable and lovable character types in the tradition of not just Chaplin and Keaton but The Marx Brothers (Harpo especially), Fred Astaire, Gene Kelly, Lucille Ball, Jacques Tati, Peter Sellers, and Woody Allen whom you're instantly familiar with as soon as he hits the screen.

And although that may have limited him in terms of expanding past his niche, he seems quite content to stay precisely in it by resisting offers to take on films that he's described as in the Dragon Dynasty Supercop interview aren't quintessentially “Jackie Chan movies,” like Zhang Yimou's Hero (one of the other titles in this Ultimate Force of Four Blu-ray set). Yet despite the disappointing quality of a majority of his American titles after he crossed over with Rumble in the Bronx, there's absolutely nobody who can touch him in his given realm.

Widely considered one of his top five movies, although due to the fact that he was forty and far too old to reprise the role made some purists prefer the original, 1994's The Legend of Drunken Master took six years to make its way officially across the pond. Of course, due to the overwhelming amount of Jackie Chan and martial arts movie bootlegs, most of us had already seen the film and have lamented that its unparalleled humor and innovative action sequences have started to become watered down over the years in lukewarm films so bad that I've actually fallen asleep in more than a few.

While overall I still think Supercop is his more successful work from a storytelling point of view since this one basically consists of a thrown together plot a bunch of people may have shouted out in a game of charades involving greedy British government workers who stole artifacts, this is still hands down, the best cinematic proof of Chan's incredible skill as a performer and innovative fighter. Although, much like the plot, the humor is laid on way too thick as the concept involves the folkloric fighting style belief that Chan's character becomes more powerful when he drinks liquor by the case which-- aside from some amazing sight gags as Chan swings to and fro like a tree in the wind without falling over-- grows fairly old.

Possibly best presented as a silent movie or with the original language track intact and subtitles, the film unfortunately borders on the obnoxious due to the nails-on-a-blackboard English language dub that takes away from the movie's sheer power to astound with sequences that have yet to be matched and amazingly didn't involve phony tactics, doubles, or computer effects. Despite a few unpleasant sight gags involving the bodily after-effects of drunkenness, the best source of consistent humor in the film is via its biggest scene-stealer in the form of the late great Anita Mui often called the "Madonna of Asia." In the film, Mui portrays Chan's stepmother to whom he's fiercely devoted, making the comedy much more effective due to its unique twist to give a woman in the male-dominated martial arts picture such a memorable role.

Still, admittedly I'm one of the select few who never quite got as an immense kick out of the odd but legendary hybrid of drunken boxing as others including Chan whose argument that it was comedy gold with the director resulted in the helmer walking out. And while I still don't love the drunken boxing set-up, in the end Chan manages to go beyond-- as he notes-- a far more difficult challenge than other roles since he had to move wildly yet still hit marks and by taking the reigns for a showstopping final fight he leads you gasping for air as though you dove drunkenly into hot coals along with him.

Filled with intense hand-to-hand combat and constant slapstick fights, the film speeds mightily along and is at its smoothest when the plot is cast aside and we can just watch Chan take on enough foes to fill his whole village while chugging three wine bottles at once.

Featuring a retro interview with Chan as he discusses the complexity of making the movie and how he felt it was a greater physical challenge to play drunk action than sober action, while the Blu-ray sharpens the DVD release to great effect, I still wish that someday we'll be able to see it without the horribly distracting English dubbing and in the format it was initially released back in Hong Kong.

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