I found a copy of Drunken Master, the original 1977 version. It is so freaking funny. The sound effects are so corny and the fighting is so funny. I didn’t understand the first scene though. I guess one of those 2 guys was the assassin? I dunno. Kind of weird. Who else has seen it?
I’d imagine that just about everybody here has seen it.
This movie is vastly superior to the “Legend of Drunken Master” (Drunken Master II) which I never liked.
The sound effects and even kung fu were a bit hokey, but the hardcore intensity of the training was VERY REAL.
Its a great movie
The villain was the famous Hwang Jang Lee. Who was a Tae Kwon Do master, and has proven the effectiveness of his art in real life. His kicking on screen was amazing in all his movies (no other kicker on screen matched him).
Jackie Chan also did a great job on the Drunken forms. He weaved and moved like a real drunken master. It takes years of skill to be able to move and weave like that.
you gotta see “Drunken Wu tang” (originally called Taoism Drunkard) it takes zaniness and corniness too a new level. very over the top and campy. Done by The Yuen clan,(including Yuen Wo Ping!). there’s a clip of it at badmovies.org
I found a copy of that movie Drunken WuTang at the store the other day, but I heard it was beyond corny and didn’t want to waist $8 on it.
That movie was so ridiculously bad that I actually LIKED IT!
Did anybody else here notice the fat student doing the Hung Ga 5 Animals set right before Freddy’s dad was called off by Mr. Li’s crony?
Did you know there is a movie called Drunken Tai Chi which stars Donnie Yen. I am a fan of Donnie but haven’t seen it yet. Anyone see it?
I saw Drunken Tai Chi. It was ok. Donnies Tai Chi master looks like a rabbit in it. Big Buck teeth, oh and he has a fat wife who beats donnie up allot.
The opening scene of the original Drunken Master shows a “contract killer” (Hwang Jang Lee) coming to kill another fighter (Yuen Hsin-Yee). It was basically to show how dangerous the villain is. A lot of the old kung fu movies from that era had prologues like that.
Hwang Jang Lee was the best kicker in the movies and was battle-tested. From 1966 to 1968 he was a member of the Korean Tiger Division, and on several occasions he used his art effectively in incidents of hand-to-hand combat.
Jim
Hwang Jang Lee! You speak of Tae Kwon Do Super Kicker Hwang Jang Lee! His status is almost legendary nowadays. Rumors range from killing a man with a single kick to running a golf tee factory or a body guard company. One of the most successful non-Chinese stars of HK action cinema.
Have you ever heard of Cassanova Wong aka Ka Sa Fa? Nicknamed Human Tornado for spinning kicks. That dude was so fast, so powerful. he trained in Koreas Icy rivers and was TKD champ of the Korean Tiger army. Most people in fight scenes can’t keep up with him.
These are the guys that earned alot of respect for the industry. There are also other kickers who promoted their arts very well such as John Liu (created Zhen Kwon Do which he teaches in Paris) and Tang Tao. Gordon Liu who showed great acting skills and martial arts skills was loved by fans, showing virtues of shaolin. Guys like Jackie showed that comedy and martial arts can work well, and be succesful at it. Venoms were great and still have a big following, with great entertainment and acrobatic skills, besides having pretty good Gong Fu skills. Yep, I have alot of respect for the industry, and for what these guys showed, especially considering how little shaw brothers paid them, and they still provided the same quality of action as they stepped up to the screen.
Order:
Yes, you are right. I also heard that Hwang Jang Lee was running a company in Seoul that manufactures plastic golf tees. But knowing his background it’s hard to believe that would be all he’s been up to these years (as far as I know he appeared in his last HK movie in 1987. One of those was against Cynthia Rothrock in No Retreat No Surrender II where he even spoke a little English). IMO his best performance was in the Shaw Brothers film The Kid From Kwangtung, filmed in 1982 and also featuring Young Wang Yu and Ren Shi-Guan (villain of The Fearless Hyena and The Master Strikes.
Casanova Wong was also an awesome TKD man. Excellent performances in Heroes Two with Sammo Hung, and also as a crazy man in The Master Strikes. Unfortunately he did not appear in enough HK films. I saw some of his native Korean films which were not as good. He also made an interesting film in Spain with John Liu.
John Liu was a very interesting character and super kicker. I heard in the early '80s he disappeared and went on the run owing much money to American Express. Prior to that he was teaching his Zen Kwun Do in Paris and even made a film there called Zen Kwun Do Strikes in Paris opposite French fighter Roger Paschy and Dan Schmitz. Since he disappeared no one seems to have any idea where he went.
Tan Tao-Liang (Delon Tam) was one of the first to fully popularize TKD kicking in HK movies in the period after Bruce Lee (along with John Liu and Hwang Jang Lee). Tan was a Chinese with Shandong roots who grew up in Korea and was a TKD champion there before moving to Taiwan and being discovered for movies. IMO he possibly had the most beautiful, picture-perfect side kick in movies. He now teaches in Monterey Park, CA., I believe.
Kwon Young-Moon (Chuan Yung-Wen) was another Korean in HK movies. He often played “mad” or strange characters (opposite Billy Chong in Kung-Fu Zombie, or opposite Liu Chia-Liang in My Young Auntie). Often appeared in films getting decimated by Hwang Jang-Lee.
Hwang In-Sik was probably the first Korean superkicker in HK movies. He showed his Hapkido/Tang Soo Do skills opposite Angela Mao-Ying in Hapkido, then against Bruce Lee/Chuck Norris in Return of the Dragon. Later fought Jackie Chan in Young Master and Dragon Lord, then Billy Chong in Fistful of Talons was his last film. Looked considerably better in his later films.
Jim
Chinese Studios Plan AI-Powered Remakes of Kung Fu Classics From Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan and Jet Li
The government-endorsed initiative, revealed at the Shanghai Film Festival, will involve 100 martial arts classics undergoing an AI “revitalization.”
By Mathew Scott
June 19, 2025 2:22am [IMG2=JSON]{“data-align”:“none”,“data-size”:“full”,“src”:“https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/the_legend_of_drunken_master_still.jpg?w=1296&h=730&crop=1”}[/IMG2] Jackie Chan in ‘Drunken Master’ Miramax/Courtesy of Everett Collection
Hollywood studios and craftspeople may be busy agonizing over the proper role of AI’s potential within the film industry, but Chinese studios aren’t slowing down.
Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan and Jet Li and a legion of the all-time greats of martial cinema are about to get an AI makeover. In a sign-of-the-times announcement at the Shanghai International Film Festival on Thursday, a collection of Chinese studios revealed that they are turning to AI to re-imagine around 100 classics of the genre.
Lee’s classic [I]Fist of Fury /I, Chan’s breakthrough Drunken Master (1978) and the Tsui Hark-directed epic Once Upon a Time in China (1991), which turned Li into a bone fide movie star, are among the features poised for the treatment, as part of the “Kung Fu Movie Heritage Project 100 Classics AI Revitalization Project.”
There will also be a digital reworking of the John Woo classic A Better Tomorrow (1986) that, by the looks of the trailer, turns the money-burning anti-hero originally played by Chow Yun-fat into a cyberpunk, and is being claimed as “the world’s first full-process, AI-produced animated feature film.”
The big guns of the Chinese industry were out in force on the sidelines of the 27[SUP]th[/SUP] Shanghai International Film Festival to make the announcements, too.
They were led by Zhang Pimin, chairman of the China Film Foundation, who said AI work on these “aesthetic historical treasures” would give them a new look that “conforms to contemporary film viewing.”
“It is not only film heritage, but also a brave exploration of the innovative development of film art,” Zhang said.
Tian Ming, chairman of project partners Shanghai Canxing Culture and Media, meanwhile, promised the work – expected to include upgrades in image and sound as well as overall production levels – while preserving the storytelling and aesthetic of the originals– would both “pay tribute to the original work” and “reshape the visual aesthetics.”
“We sincerely invite the world’s top AI animation companies to jointly start a film revolution that subverts tradition,” said Tian, who announced a fund of 100 million yuan ($13.9 million) would be implemented to kick-start the work. [IMG2=JSON]{“data-align”:“none”,“data-size”:“full”,“src”:“https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/mmexport1750320662805.jpg”}[/IMG2] The partners behind the “Kung Fu Movie Heritage Project 100 Classics AI Revitalization Project” in Shanghai.
Project partners also include the China Film Foundation’s Film and Urban Development Special Fund, and Quantum Animation, the studio behind A Better Tomorrow: Cyber Frontier.
Advances in AI have been a topic of keen discussion at China’s largest festival, which kicked off proceedings on opening night with a video montage that spliced imagery generated via the technology into scenes from cinema classics such as the Audrey Hepburn-Gregory Peck classic Roman Holiday.
The country’s leaders have been quick to throw their weight behind emerging technology. On July 10, 2023, the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television and several other government departments launched a set of official guidelines under the title, “Interim Measures for the Management of Generative Artificial Intelligence Services,” before issuing a followup — “Measures for the Identification of Synthetic Content Generated by Artificial Intelligence” — in March this year. The agencies said the moves would “promote the healthy and orderly development of artificial intelligence.”
Also on hand Thursday was Zhai Xuelian, secretary general of the China Science Fiction Industry Investment Alliance, who joined the chorus of official approval for the initiative.
“[It] has shown us the infinite possibilities of the integration of traditional culture and future technology, and also the future development direction of traditional classic film and television, which is to use the new generation of science and technology as a fulcrum to allow the world to better experience the traditional charm and vitality of Chinese culture,” she said.
Shanghai International Film Festival
AI could prove useful putting product-plugs into a Drunken Master remix. Just slap a new label on those drinks!
lol YinOrYan. You’re spot on with that!