My Review of "Drunken Master II (aka The Legend of Drunken Master)"

Drunken Master II (aka The Legend of Drunken Master) is a classic kung fu movie that came out in 1994. You can say I instantly fell in love with this movie the first time I ever saw it, which was many years ago. Unfortunately North America had never gotten a proper physical or digital release of this movie for quite some time.

Every time they would release this movie in North America it would only be released with an English dub. I can see why they would do this since the majority of people are English speakers in North America. The only way I was able to watch the original Cantonese version of this movie was through some sort of underhanded means.

My mother tongue is Cantonese so there is a connection to me and this movie. Some of those connections actually go deeper than this. So this is why I was overjoyed when I heard that they finally released a Cantonese dubbed version on Blu-Ray. Finally our voices have been heard and I was overjoyed that I would be able to see this movie in high definition.

This movie starts off innocently enough. Our main protagonist is Fei-hung, he's the son to a very well respected man in his village. They are coming back from a trip to collect medicine for the local villagers. Fei-hung thinks it would be wise to hide some of the medicine in the luggage of foreign dignitaries to avoid extra tax.

Unfortunately for Fei-hung, while he attempts to retrieve the medicine, he brings back something else. This is the catalyst for gangsters and high ranking officers to tail Fei-hung and makes his fellow villager's lives a living hell.

To understand the significance of this period in which they base this movie under you have to be aware of the century of humiliation. This is along the same line as the Ip Man series. During this desolate period in China's history China was basically losing every battle. Their egos were destroyed and foreigners were basically taking everything from them.

One of the big plot devices in this movie is that Fei-hung hid his ginseng medicine into a foreign dignitary's luggage. They did this because none of the foreigners had to pay the duties that the locals did. Even worse the foreigners had certain Chinese people to carry out all of the dirty work for them. We would see that they pretty much enslave a lot of the local workers through violence. The world was changing back then.

We see on the other side that Fei-hung's father is extremely noble but his nobility isn't really helping out the village with their real problems. He kind of lives in his own righteous bubble and pretty much holds Fei-hung to this bubble. It is after all Chinese custom to respect his elders.

This movie is basically going through the boxer rebellion. This was the uprising of the Chinese people against foreigners. In this movie one of the big issues is that the foreigners were trying to steal priceless Chinese artifacts for their museums. Fei-hung is obviously opposed to this as he doesn't believe Chinese people should have to travel to another country to view their own cultural artifacts.

I'm happy that this movie made me more aware of my own cultural background. I never learned anything about the opium wars and boxer revolution in school. It took this movie to nudge me in the right direction. That's why the action sequences felt a lot more impactful for me. I understand how some would see it as xenophobic propaganda but these people did really go through this in their history.

That's not to say this movie is all serious and no fun. On top of the over the top action we also have the comedic timing of Fei-hung's mother. She practically steals the show with all of her hilarious antics. At times I wished there was a spin off sitcom series with just her and her husband.

The action in this movie is also second to none. You won't get all of that shaking camera footage in this movie. Each scene is carefully crafted so you get the best angles and perfect view of the action. These are some of the best fight scenes I've seen. I miss the days where you could totally understand what is going on with the action sequences. Scenes are choreographed so well that it almost feels more like a beautifully brutal dance than just a simple fight scene.

The Blu-Ray version of this movie totally outclasses the original file I watched back in the day. It's in full 1080p glory. I know that we're in the 4k era but I'll take what I can get. I remember getting the DVD for this movie and was so disappointed that they only had the English dialogue. It just further perpetuates the problems that Fei-hung was fighting about in the movie in the first place.

They released a Blu-Ray version earlier on but it was simply an upgraded version of the English only DVD. This newer Blu-Ray version is exactly what I was looking for. You're not going to get 5.1 surround or any special features. It's a bare bones movie transfer and to me that was fine because all I wanted was a Cantonese version of this movie.

Overall, I am overjoyed that I was finally able to see this movie again in its full glory. A rush of nostalgia flooded me as I was watching it. There is just so much more than a kung fu movie here. It's storytelling, history and art all in one place. That's why I have to give this movie a 9 out of 10. I will be going back to this movie over and over again.