The Legend of Drunken Master AKA Drunken Master II–day 7 of Jackie Chan

I did not enjoy drinking much until later in life. In high school, a lot of people my age drank; I’d go to parties and end up helping the drunk kids get home, but I never touched the stuff. It wasn’t until my third or fourth year of college that I got drunk. If I remember correctly, I drank about three bottles of beer, and then once it hit me, I became incredibly talkative. I remember everything about it, and I know that I talked non-stop to anyone about anything. I left the small get-together that provided the beer and walked back to my dorm, and several people who saw me could instantly tell that I was drunk. Perhaps it was the look on my face, or my posture. I know I did feel unsteady and prone to laughing outrageously at nothing.
And I got drunk a second time in college, but that was not fun. I ended up blacking out a couple of times, which was alarming; vomiting red punch on the bathroom floor; sleeping on the floor of my friend’s dorm room; and having a shitty hangover the next day. It wasn’t the worst experience in the world, but it was enough to confirm for me that there was no good reason to get that drunk ever again. Plus, I didn’t even really like the taste of most of the beer I drank back then. Aside from the rare Hacker Pschorr a friend had me try at a German pub, the only beers I knew were Miller, Budweiser, Old Style, Coors, etc.

But today, a couple of decades later, I actually am familiar and enjoy several beers, and I’ve even been to some brewpubs: Three Floyds, Two Brothers, Brewery Vivant, Greenbush, Founder’s, Dark Horse, One Trick Pony, and Solemn Oath, just to name a few. I understand now that drinking to get drunk, or drinking to excess, is rarely a good idea. Drinking to get buzzed, however, is another story, a lesson I think Drunken Master II understands.

Drunken Master II

Just like the bad guys in Dragon Lord, the Westernized, suit-wearing, Caucasian-associating bad guys in Drunken Master II are stealing Chinese artifacts and trying to ship them out of the country. And just like in that movie, Chan plays a young man who has a hard time pleasing his father. And just like in Project A Part II, Chan allies with Manchu revolutionaries who want to minimize imperialism and keep China Chinese. Thus, the plot of Drunken Master II is reminiscent of Chan’s earlier work—but at least the plot borrows from a couple of his better movies and is actually about something significant, not something outrageous like holy armor or Nazi gold.

Furthermore, while there aren’t as many stunts in DM II, there is a lot of kung fu, and the fight scenes are very well done. Chan was about 40 years old while making this movie, and I think it showed. An early fight scene, where Chan fights a Manchu revolutionary with a spear, is exciting, but notice how much of the action takes place underneath a stopped train and is confined to tight quarters and not, say, to a two-story gambling den with stairs and windows. Also, notice how the actors playing his parents are not age-appropriate: Lung Ti, who plays his disapproving father, is only eight years older than Chan, while the very talented late Anita Mui, as Chan’s supportive and sly step-mother, was nine years younger.

There’s also a scene midway through the movie where Chan is disowned by his father and emotes effectively, almost as if Chan wanted to flex his acting chops and not just demonstrate his skill with kung fu action. He does reconcile with his family, but only after drowning his sorrows, getting beaten in a brawl, and publicly humiliated by those suit-wearing Chinese who represent a rejection of Chinese culture in exchange for Western capitalism. Not only are the bad guys trying to steal precious artifacts, but they also run a steel mill and violently attack the Chinese workers when they ask for overtime pay.

Finally, DM II takes its name from the fighting style Chan learns from his father: drunken boxing, which is pretty much what it sounds like—the fighter takes an awkward stance and keeps the body loose and fluid. And apparently it’s a real thing (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zui_Quan). Chan’s character, however, while not only effectively fighting in this style, actually chugs wine or whatever alcohol he can find, and in the movie a certain amount of alcohol does have the power to make him a better fighter. As I said above, he does get beaten by the suit-wearing bad guys, but that’s only when he’s too drunk, after he has drunk not to improve his fighting but to alleviate the pain of being disowned by his father. However, Chan’s father points out that drunken boxing is dangerous since it’s difficult to find the right balance of alcohol—and I’m not sure if Chan ever does succeed in doing this. On two other occasions, Chan drinks a few bamboo containers of alcohol before deciding it’s enough and then proceeds to kick everyone’s ass. Granted, his judgment is impaired by the alcohol, causing him to embarrass his father. However, for the most part, alcohol improves Chan’s speed and power, just like how spinach affects Popeye.

Unfortunately, in the climactic fight in the steel mill, Chan resorts to drinking industrial alcohol—which I imagine is similar to the stuff that got The Master’s Freddie Quell in trouble (http://www.vulture.com/2012/09/can-you-really-make-booze-out-of-paint-thinner.html). Despite having to crawl across hot coals, another death-defying Jackie Chan stunt, he defeats the bad guys, but in a scene deleted from the Dimension Films version of DM II, he is revealed to be blind and mentally impaired as a result of drinking the industrial alcohol. To borrow Robert Downey, Jr.’s phrasing from Tropic Thunder, Chan unfortunately does go full retard  (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DqgKIzLiDQw). While I like that DM II does show the negative effects of drinking, I wish it didn’t have to involve Chan making a joke out of being mentally challenged by sticking out his tongue, irregularly clapping his hands, and lurching pigeon-toed.  His depiction of African American women, Arabs, women in general, and now the mentally challenged has been problematic.  Thankfully, the one instance of such bad tasted in DM II is isolated to the final scene, a scene cut from some versions of this movie.