Drunken Master

Young Wong Fei-hung is nothing but trouble. His father hands his discipline to a hard master known as Beggar So. The training runs like torture and Wong escapes, then returns after being beaten by a killer called Yim Tit-sam and commits to learning the Eight Drunken Immortals. Drunken boxing is the art of hitting while appearing to lose your balance. Yuen Woo-ping directed. Jackie Chan plays Wong Fei-hung and Yuen Siu-tien plays Beggar So. It opened on 5 October 1978. It was Chan's breakthrough. It took roughly 16.5 million dollars worldwide, made the top ten highest-grossing films of the year in Japan and was the biggest film of 1979 in South Korea. Its influence went past cinema. Akira Toriyama said he would never have come up with Dragon Ball if he had not watched this film. Chan's shoulder-length hair spread across Asia in the late seventies and early eighties. It counts as an early milestone of martial arts comedy and produced sequels, spinoffs and countless imitations. Who it is for: viewers who value choreography over story and like fighting played as comedy. Who it is not for: anyone who will find the training too violent. The master and pupil relationship is built entirely on beatings and the film offers it as comedy.