Kung Fu of Eight Drunkards (1980)

Too punch drunk to know it's not drunken

In 1980, Kung Fu of Eight Drunkards attempted to capitalize on the success of Jackie Chan’s Drunken Master. Unfortunately, they did so without the martial arts skills of the former or the charismatic performers and were left with a below average kung fu flick.

Chang Fung (Mang Fei) took some time off of working at his uncle’s restaurant to train with a drunken master named Wu Sing (Lui Ming). At first it doesn’t appear he’s learned much but a chance encounter with a mischievous Monkey (Wu Ma) reveals to the world that he has learned Wu Sing’s style of fighting. Word gets back to the Four Bandits, the biggest and baddest played by Chan Sing. The bandits are determined to end Wu Sing for causing problems with an old deal gone wrong. Lung Fei, Henry Lu, and the Gold and Silver Tigers go up against the newly trained kung fu artist to their detriment. Ultimately it will come down to Mang Fei confronting Chan Sing. As always, it’s all fun and games until Chan Sing takes off his shirt to show he means business.

There were numerous problems with this movie, but primarily Mang Fei was too stiff to even mimic the drunken style. Lui Ming came across as incoherent bypassing sloppy drunk altogether. I kept waiting for Mang Fei to use the drunken style but most of the fights were more kung fu posing than anything. The choreography was lacking in any creativity. The fights were already slow enough but then the director added slo-mo to a couple of them making me wonder if he was trying to go back in time. The deadly confrontation with Lung Fei was filmed in the dark hiding most of the action. Chan Sing can always be counted on to bring it even when he’s only briefly in the movie. Other than his fight in the finale, only Wu Ma with his moth-eaten wig brought any life to this lackluster movie.

Kung Fu of Eight Drunkards made the cardinal sin of a kung fu movie---the fights were uninteresting and bad. Also, if you name a movie after a particular style, it darn well needs to show up in it.

11/20/23

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