Kung-Fu Drunks

KUNG FU OF EIGHT DRUNKARDS-1980-More inebriated martial arts craziness. An alcoholic Kung Fu master Wu Shing tries to teach a young student Kam Fung (Fei Meng) but the student gets frustrated and leaves. He goes to work  in a noodle shop for his uncle who constantly abuses him. Meanwhile, Monkey, a thief who says he doesn't care about women but every time one passes his queue goes rigid, causes trouble with some firecrackers. When Kam's uncle's place is vandalized he realizes the town bad guy wants Kam to reveal the whereabouts of Wu Shing. The bad guy's daughter also comes around looking for trouble unaware of her father's involvement. The main story is fairly serious but the the fights are comical until the finale. 

A pre-credit introduction explains that the "drunkard style" has nothing to do with drinking. It's just that the moves resemble a drunken man. Still the old master drinks constantly. Oddly, the movie never refers to it as "drunken style" (despite the title). Characters always call it "8 Immortals Style"!  The plot is very confusing but this is probably due to bad editing and dubbing. And despite a lot of tragic battles this ends on a comical note! 

Directior (that's how it's spelled in the credits!) Ma Wu was also an actor. For some reason at certain points in the film a version of "Dixie" is played!

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Three Quickies

MAN-THING-2005-Not much to recommend in this low budget adaptation of the swampy Marvel Comics character. A new sheriff (Michael Le Nevez) runs into problems from hillbilly locals, tribal legends and an evil swamp creature. Jack Thompson is the bad guy. It debuted on THE SCI-FI CHANNEL edited for TV. The uniqueness of the original character (created by Steve Gerber) and the weird comic storylines including it’s tagline “Whoever knows fear burns at The Man-Thing’s touch”, are abandoned for the usual bad script, sub-par SFX and boredom. Director Brett Leonard also made THE DEAD PIT, THE LAWNMOWER MAN and VIRTUOSITY as well as videos for Peter Gabriel, Billy Idol and Siegfried and Roy!

THE GOLDEN KILLAH (THE GOLDEN MASK)-1980 –Fairly action filled Taiwanese Martial Arts period piece featuring the usual “out for vengeance” storyline and a character that roams around in a gold mask. Two old men have a pretty funny battle near the end and in the finale the hero fights several Gold Mask Guys with “flying guillotine” type weapons.

THE YOUNG TIGER-1973-I’m leery of a Martial Arts movie that plays a weird “disco-fied” version of Led Zeppelin’s “The Immigrant Song” during the opening credits but then the packaging of this video makes it seem like Jackie Chan is the star but he only appears in the last 12 minutes in a kind of documentary-workout! In the main story a Martial Artist (Fei Meng who was in 5 FINGERS OF DEATH) is accused of a crime he didn’t commit. He escapes the police and goes after the real killer and a bunch of gangsters.

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