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Review
by Kozo: |
Shaw
Brothers makes a new movie! Sort of. Drunken Monkey
represents a return to the classic kung-fu flick in many
ways. A) It's directed by master Lau Kar-Leung (AKA: Liu
Chia-Liang), who directed the old school classic The
36th Chamber of Shaolin and the new school classic Drunken
Master II. B) Lau Kar-Leung is featured in a starring
role, along with a "guest appearance" from old
time kung-fu star Gordon Liu (AKA: Lau Kar-Fai). C) The
setting is period (1930s China) and features your typical
kung-fu iconography (masters, pupils, revenge, bonds of
brotherhood, etc.). And D) It was actually produced by some
of those shadowy Shaw Brothers executive types. With all
that going for it, one would hope that Drunken Monkey
is able to capture that oldtime kung-fu magic.
Lau Kar-Leung stars as Man
Biu (or Man Bill in the subtitles), the proprietor of the
respected Chun-Yuen Delivery company. Man Biu is also a
renowned practicer of that most awesome martial arts form:
The Monkey Fist. Called "Monkeyish Fist" in the
amusingly old-school subs, the Monkey Fist is a kung-fu
form that involves lots of rolling around, crouching like
a lower primate, and screechy monkey noises. It's also widely
popular among certain hip youth (if 1930s China even had
hip youth), including budding artist Chan Ka-Yip (Lau Wing-Kin)
and his great-uncle Tak (Wu Jing of Tai Chi 2 and
The Legend of Zu), who just so happens to be the
same age. You see, Tak's dad was really the great-uncle
of Ka-Yip's dad, which means lots of family shenanigans
about who really wears the pants in the family, the young
elder or the actual aged folks. Whether such comedy hijinks
are actually interesting may depend on your familiarity
with such wacky family trees—the safe bet being that
very few of you are. You probably came for the kung-fu.
Which the film returns to,
gratefully. Man Biu gets ousted from his own trading company
by younger brother Man Pao (Chiang Chun-Wan) and evil bastard
Yu (Chik Kun-Kwan). Biu is beaten to a pulp and nearly drowned,
and actually survives, though he's content to remain in
hiding with his adopted daughter Siu Man (played by Shannon
Yao, and called "Mandy" in the subs) instead of
seeking retribution. He wishes to forget the evil days when
his own brother tried to kill him, but as is the case with
all these family gangster ties: whenever he tries to get
out, they pull him back in. Inspector Hung Yat-Fu (Gordon
Liu) comes calling and discovers that Man Biu is considered
dead. Luckily, he also happens upon Ka-Yip and Tak, who
are wandering around trying to find their idol Man Biu.
How they deduced he was still alive is somewhat of a mystery,
but their goal in seeking him out is dopey with a capital
"D." Ka-Yip wants to complete his "Handbook
of the Monkeyish Fist," while Tak presumably wants
to learn how to kick ass like a monkey. They run into Siu
Man practicing Monkey Fist in the local market (that's keeping
a low profile) and proeceed to chase her to their quarry:
Master Man Biu. They also eat lots of bananas and behave
in a generally wacky and sometimes annoying manner. Boy
this is exciting.
Ah, but the the re-emergence
of Man Biu means that Hung Yat-Fu and evil bastards Man
Pao and Yu can't be far behind. Revenge and the defense
of honor become the big topics of the day, and in the end,
there's a climactic showdown between a fistful of Monkey
Fisters (Man Biu, Siu Man, Tak and Ka-Yip) and the new Cheung-Yung
Trading Company, which was changed by the aforementioned
evil bastards into (gasp!) a front for opium smuggling.
People fight, act like monkeys, and DRINK. Apparently, to
fully utilize the Monkey Fist, you must drink like a fish,
and whale away at your opponent (editor note: we
apologize for the mixed metaphors). Like in Drunken Master
II, alochol makes you stronger and less impervious to
pain. It also means the actor gets to mug and overact like
a madman, which the whole cast gleefully does. Crouching
Tiger, Hidden Dragon this is not.
Not that Lau Kar-Leung is
trying for some wannabe Ang Lee effort. Billed as "the
first real martial arts movie of the millennium", Drunken
Monkey certainly gives us the martial arts. The Drunken
Monkey Fist is a seriously silly martial art, and is given
to more wacky hijinks than is probably asked for by today's
moviegoing audience, but it can also be entertaining. When
Wu Jing (a former classmate of Jet Li), Lau Kar-Leung and
company cut loose with the Monkey Fist, there is a minor
thrill in seeing real kung-fu artists strut their stuff
instead of your typical well-coiffed employees of EEG. The
fight sequences are entertaining in their effective choreography
and doses of impact. If you can ignore the constant mugging
and the uninteresting actors, then a good time can be had.
However, the actors do
mug too much and they are generally uninteresting.
It's great to see Lau Kar-Leung and Gordon Liu back on the
screen, but they're brought down by the incredibly uncharismatic
Lau Wing-Kin, and the almost as uninteresting Wu Jing. At
the very least, Wu Jing displays a suitable physical presence,
but his hyperactive mugging recalls Dicky Cheung Wai-Kin
in his terrible nineties movies, or a kung-fu actor afflicted
with seizures. Likewise the bad guys are incredibly two-dimensional,
and even get to laugh riotously like James Tien Chun wannabes.
Also, the family "comedy" is annoying and dopey
to distraction. Maybe this stuff was business-as-usual back
in the Kung Fu Movie heyday, but that doesn't mean it's
necessarily welcome today.
What is welcome, however,
is the fighting. If you want to watch people hit each other,
then Drunken Monkey is probably a better bet than
The Twins Effect, though the actors are nowhere near
as pretty. The film gives itself numerous pats on the back
for being the genuine deal (the opening credits is a narrative-unrelated
martial arts exhibition), and despite the uneven silliness
of the film, it does provide better choreographed and staged
fu than we're used to seeing nowadays. Drunken
Monkey is also the only game in town, which gives it
automatic cred for fighting fans everywhere. Its status
as the only film of its type helps overshadow the fact that
it's really not a good movie; in todays' fight-starved movie
economy, a meager genre example like this gets higher marks
than it should. Had it been released in the early nineties,
Drunken Monkey would likely have been compared to
the egregious Drunken Master III instead of the sublime
Drunken Master II. Lau Kar-Leung directed all three
films, which could indicate that the missing ingredient
is none other than Jackie Chan, who appeared in only Drunken
Master II. However, given Chan's recent output (The
Medallion), it's doubtful he would have made Drunken
Monkey that much better. (Kozo 2003)
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