rena's websight Drunken Master 2
I was kind of sad to find out Beggar So isn’t in this one - he actually died the year after Drunken Master was made which is sad because he’s one of my favorite characters in all of cinema. Despite that the film is amazing, maybe better than the first one which surprised me.
This film was made 16 years after the first one and I believe Jackie was given a lot of creative control, and it all shows. He’s stronger, faster, and the fights and stunts are more interesting and impressive.
The story is confusing, but we found it didn’t really matter much. Basically they start on a train, and then some ginseng they bought is switched for an ancient chinese artifact that the damned British were trying to smuggle out of the country. Somehow this ends up with fights on a train, fights under a train, fights in a market, a hilarious drunken brawl in the street, and an epic final battle through some sort of foundry or steel mill with tons of fire and real stunts including Jackie being kicked backwards into a bed of hot coals and having to crab his way out of it.
The movie has an absurd end which left us wondering how they did a Drunken Master 3, but turns out that movie wasn’t authorized or anything to do with this one, so we decided not to bother watching it (it doesn’t have Jackie Chan in). All in all, I’d probably rate this one higher than Drunken Master, which surprised me, but numerically that’s hard to express. So maybe this one gets a 8.6 instead.
