The very words Jackie Chan are currently synonymous with fast, furious action and comedy. In hits such as "Shanghai Noon" and "Rumble in the Bronx," Chan's ballistic acrobatics, inventive slapstick comedy and must-be-seen-to-be-believed stunts have struck a chord with audiences around the world hungry for fearless, no-limits entertainment.
Now those audiences will have a chance to discover the breakthrough comic thriller that established Chan's reputation as a master of non-stop, death- defying action in THE LEGEND OF DRUNKEN MASTER. The film has been dubbed "the Citizen Kane of action films" because it serves as a veritable catalogue of high-octane techniques - offering some of the most spectacular and intricately choreographed fight scenes ever witnessed in motion pictures.
Until now, few of Jackie Chan's enormous and ever-growing bases of fans have had a chance to see Chan at the very height of his powers. In THE LEGEND OF DRUNKEN MASTER, Chan gives one of his most heart-felt and charismatic performances, giving every punch -- and punch-line -_ his all as real-life folk hero Wong Fei-Hung, who brings a 180-proof mix of courage and hilarity to the fight to save China's ancient heritage from foreign exploiters.
Wong is a master martial artist - a drunken master, it turns out, skilled in an ancient form of combat that involves a bobbing, weaving, cross-eyed style of fighting that throws his opponents completely off-balance. His stern father has strictly forbidden him to use the potentially shameful style, but when foreign gangsters threaten the nation, Wong has no choice but to defy all the ancient codes of tradition in order to save China's most sacred treasures.
The result is martial arts madness - with artfully executed, almost Chaplinesque sequences of Chan dodging blows, high-kicking opponents and guzzling wine until he falls over backwards simultaneously. He lurches, staggers and belches his way to victory. The story takes off at a lightning pace that builds to one of the most revered climaxes in the action genre - a twenty-minute free-for-all complete with crashing barrels, red hot coals, fast-punching henchman, runaway mine carts and Chan's own stunning performance as a warrior who takes out the enemy with a combination of guts and laughter.
"If I could be compared to one filmmaker I would want it to be Buster Keaton," Chan has said. He got his wish with THE LEGEND OF DRUNKEN MASTER, which has repeatedly been compared with the work of such early film masters as Keaton, Charlie Chaplin and Harold Lloyd, Like those men, Chan uses precise timing, stunning physical control and clever responses to impossible situations in order to highlight the humor beneath the manic pace and chaos of life.
Similar to Keaton, who created the film world's first comic epic with "The General," Chan places his underdog hero in the path of immense mechanical objects such as trains and mines as well as entire armies of opponents. And like Keaton's heroes, Chan's Wong Fei-Hung triumphs despite his very human - and even touching - insufficiencies. In one of the film's most remarkable scenes, Chan barely emerges by the skin of his teeth.
Says Chan: "From watching the silent movies of Keaton and Lloyd and Chaplin, I learned how body language can speak and how mechanical objects can interact with human actions. They have given me ideas for many of my scenes, but I try to take them in new directions. I am the modern heir to a style of filmmaking that has always thrilled audiences."
With THE LEGEND OF DRUNKEN MASTER, Chan brought to the fore a new "comedy of thrills" - and reignited the notion that action films can be eloquent, expressive and filled with cinematic invention. For those experiencing the "Drunken Master" for the first time, it is still unlike anything else ever seen.
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