The Young Master [DVD]

In this, yet another period piece, Dragon (Jackie Chan) plays the part of an orphaned kung-fu student who, along with another orphaned student named Tiger (Wei Pei, 'Magnificent Butcher') was taken in by the kung-fu school Master (Tien Feng, 'Fist Of Fury', 'Ninja In The Dragon's Den') and trained for the preceding ten years. The story opens as Dragon and a fellow student are about to compete in a lion-fight (a bit like a lion-dance, but with a more competitive, combative edge). Unfortunately, much to the dismay of Master, Dragon loses the contest, but the worst of it is that Tiger was in the opposing school's lion in an attempt to make some money, which he does.

A chance sighting of the money bag in Tiger's bedroom leaves Master no alternative but to banish the treacherous student from the school. Tiger then goes to the rival school, who reject the (now broken) promise of making him a teacher there. However, the school force him to do another errand for which he will be paid: go with two other students (played by Fung Hark-On and Lee Hoi-San, both of whom were in 'Magnificent Butcher') to free their soon-to-be-executed boss Master Kim (the superb Hapkido expert Whang In-Sik, who played the Japanese fighter in Bruce Lee's 'Way Of The Dragon') from the police. After the releasing of Kim, Tiger is the one the police blame for the attack.

Meanwhile, Dragon, still looking for Tiger to bring him back to his original Master, gets mistaken for him, so not only must he be wary of the rival school, but also of the police, led by the cunning District Marshall (Shih Kien, 'Enter The Dragon') and his son (Yuen Biao). And, if that was not enough, his only chance of clearing his and Tiger's name may be to come face to face with Kim!

Suddenly being the key film-maker of the now-defunct Golden Harvest studios for the first time may have gone to Jackie's head a little. He admits in biographies that there are problems with continuity, and as such the film has suffered somewhat in terms of a decent plot. There are some action sequences that only really give Jackie and co a chance to show off their physical abilities and do not really advance the plot any. Mind you, as you would expect from Jackie, they tend to be top-class. Bear in mind that it was made in 1980, so the now-familiar quick crisp fight choreography that would take over a few years later only really shows in bits involving Whang In-Sik, who quite frankly gets one of the best openings of any bad-guy. When you see the final showdown you get twenty minutes of flying fists and feet (and bodies!) to marvel at, making it one of the longest climactic one-on-one fights ever (and now it's completely uncut!). And long before this you get to see Jackie fight Fan Mei-San ('Magnificent Butcher') with a fan -- one section of which reportedly took well over a hundred takes to get right!

Now, whilst we're talking about Whang In-Sik, some people who have seen 'Way Of The Dragon' and not 'Young Master' may wonder why on Earth Whang was hired for 'Young Master'; I agree, he didn't look all that great in 'Way Of The Dragon', but there is a back-story behind that which reportedly made Bruce Lee make him look inferior on that film (which I won't go into here, as it is only a rumour and not fully substantiated). Jackie, however, made him look more like a true Master -- which he is, a Grandmaster, in fact. When you see the speed and execution of his kicking and locking techniques you would barely know it was the same guy who looked so average in the earlier film.

The other visual bits tend to be broadly humorous, but often containing genuine, silent-comedy-style comic genius. This sort of humour may be an acquired taste for some who are more used to the so-called gross-out comedies like 'Dumb And Dumber', 'American Pie' or 'Scary Movie'. Personally I think it shows more genius when people don't feel they have to be vulgar to be funny, and this is actually part of Jackie's appeal, because it meant younger people could access it (well, in other countries, anyway. The martial arts sequences netted it a 15 rating in the UK).

Extras include a great interview with, and demonstrations by, the Korean Hapkido expert Whang In-Sik (who is now in his sixties, teaches martial-arts classes across the pond and can speak very good English). There is also the usual HKL choice of English dubbing or Cantonese language with English subtitles, plus optional audio commentary with supremo Bey Logan, an interview with Jackie himself showing how he came up with a different approach to filming Whang In-Sik's classic opening fight sequences etc, some deleted footage (which is only available with the naff original English dubbing) and trailers (including the original cinematic trailer for 'Young Master').

So, all in all, not bad, but not as good as his later, more accomplished efforts.