29 June 2006 | winner55
First, about Wu Ma: If you watch a lot of Hong Action films, you have seen him hundreds of times. He is one of the most employed character actors in the history of Chines cinema. he's a short guy, not very athletic, with a wide mouth. He usually looks like he's hanging onto a slow-burning fuse. what even many people who recognize this actor don't know is that he was one of the finest directors of the old-school chop-socky period in HK 'films. I strongly suggest the remarkably mature "From China With death', which, despite its title, is an early action comedy about two con-men who find themselves in over their heads with a band of bank-robbers. Also well-respected is his "Deaf-Mute Heroine", which has the bloodiest, most violent title sequence in the history of the genre.
Having said that, I now have to warn the viewer that Wu Ma really slips with this one. An attempt to construct a film continuing the story of Sam the Seed - the master who teaches Drunken Style to Jackie Chan in Drunken Master - the film is misconceived from the start. For one thing, it doesn't make sense to try to do a Sam the Seed film without the actor with whom the part is wholly identified, Simon Yuen.
Secondly, there's no point in making a film about the drunken style without a firm grasp of its basic theory, which has to do with keeping one's limbs utterly relaxed.
Finally, the reason why the real drunken style theory cannot be used in this film is because the Jackie Chan wannabe here is Meng Fei, one of the stiffest fight-performers in the genre, and utterly incapable of the looseness and swagger that makes drunken style so much fun to watch.
Why not call this, "kung Fu of someone who's never been drunk and doesn't know how to act it"? Minor disappointment from Meng Fei (who grew more self-indulgent and less interesting as his career wore on); but a major disappointment from Wu Ma, who should have known better.
