Let's Drink A Toast To Our Ship That's Sinking: Drunken Master (1978)

I have rather vague memories of watching something regarding silent film stars while spending a summer with my grandparents.  From this documentary, I was able to glean two things:  First, I learned about Harold Lloyd and his doing amazing death defying stunts despite only having one hand.  This fact, remained in my memory and when I finally caught up with the film roughly around this time laster year, I was amazed to recollect it with little to no effort.  Secondly, I remember witnessing a portion of an interview with Jackie Chan, wherein he makes considerable note of the influences the early slapstick masters had upon his performances and particular choice to do comedic film.  The interview as aired with clips of Chan from Drunken Master, and ever since then it has been a film that seemed to just linger in my memory, so when I finally undertook this kung fu marathon, it was yet another title that "had to be" included.  There was a decided amount of hesitation to this inclusion, because I was worried that the vague memories might not have been as nice upon fully engaging with the film, particularly since the film does have a narrative it must incorporate while also displaying excellent martial arts choreography.  My memories were not completely betrayed however, because while the film does tend to wander narratively, almost to the point of being a set of sketches more than a coherent story, the choreography and fight scenes in this film are excellent, at times even outright hilarious.  I mea the fights in this are really really good, despite being under the guise of humor, what Chan and some of the other members of the cast are able to do with their bodies, often simultaneously, equals that of the prowess and perfection of the late Bruce Lee.  While I am uncertain as to where to fall critically on a film that, undoubtedly, embraces the possibility for highly functioning alcoholism, Drunken Master does manage to be a film that is both incredibly indicative of its late seventies production, while also possessing a degree of endearing coming of age elements that make for a decidedly worthwhile experience.  Chan manages to make light use of bawdy humor to great effect, while the narrative moves about in a critical manner, deconstructing misinformation concerning the expectations and limitations of gendered and classed bodies.

Drunken Master begins in a dojo where the cunning and often mischievous Wong Fei-hung, Freddy Wong in the English dub, (Jackie Chan) practices his martial arts under the tutelage of his father.  Given that his father is indeed the head of the dojo, affords Wong a considerable amount of indifference to all other authority figures, to the point of attacking them in jest.  During one day in the village, Wong makes unwarranted advances on a young girl, whose mother happens to also be present, an act that proves highly ill-conceived in the later discovery that the girl's mother is indeed related to the family.  When Wong's father discovers his childish and repugnant acts, he disowns him, claiming that the only way he could come to respect is son again would be for him to train heavily in martial arts and become a well-known master.  Of course, Wong's dad's idea of who would make a great master flies in the face of Wong's desultory lifestyle and the young man instead decides to take about moving through the world on his own.  His unemployment and lack of direction lead to attempts on his part to obtain meals from restaurants without paying, which immediately land him in hot water with the staff.  Instead of being obliterated by the other fighters, Wong is rescued by an elderly old man known as Beggar So (Yuen Siu-tien), who just happens to be a master in the unusual martial art techniques of The Eight Drunken Immortals, or more colloquially Drunken Boxing.  Still resistant to authority, Wong attempts to cheat at his training, often waiting until Beggar falls asleep to end training or advance his task in noticeable ways.  However, when Beggar is attacked by the martial arts assassin Thunderleg (Hwang Jang Lee) Wong comes to realize the importance of martial arts both as a way of defending onesself, as well as a means by which to aid those in need.  Putting slightly more effort into his training, Wong quickly becomes proficient at the various styles within drunken boxing, which range from kick heavy attacks to blocks that rely primarily on the wrist.  Wong, however, is hesitant to embrace the styles that are deemed feminine.  Nonetheless, while returning to show his father his skill, Wong meets Thunderleg in a fight, proving his skill and eventually using the very style he dismissed as a means to destroy the deadly assassin.  This act, one that happens to save his father, also gains the respect he had been denied prior, as well as a considerable amount of self-growth.

Can a film that essentially promotes a figure who uses alcohol as a means to attain his point of perfection, be considered entirely positive?  Probably not, but Drunken Master only uses this sort of stumbling buffoon iconography as a gateway to consider larger narratives of social expectation and access based on identity.  One cannot deny that Wong comes from a considerably well-to-do status since he is the son of a kungfu master and is provided a space within which to occupy indefinitely.  However, he is also a person who seems decidedly against performing stoicism or a follower of rigid social norms.  Indeed, where it not for his highly problematic advances towards the women at the beginning of the film, he would seem like a careless trickster, who was doing hardly any harm and when it did occur it was directed at persons of privilege and decadence.  As such, Drunken Master becomes not a film of conformity, but instead appropriation.  Considering that it is expected of Wong to train in martial arts and to, subsequently, become a master, a degree of seriousness is to be associated with the endeavor, much as is the case when a person decides to undertake a martial art, usually based on discipline.  Instead, Wong manages to find a martial art that, while no less impressive physically, does allow him a degree of improvisation and unruliness, thus letting his lifestyle influence his martial arts, as opposed to the restrictions of his discipline changing his personal behavior.  Wong could not be expected to ever earn a place in the prestigious ranks of a Shaolin temple, but, to be fair, he clearly has no desire to do so.  Knowing full and well that to attack the girls was wrong, Wong is capable of making changes to his life and reconsidering what is a necessary social agreement and what rules are made to be broken.  This is perhaps most clear when he steps up to defend his father against Thunderleg.  The Wong of the early portion of the film would likely have dealt with such an encounter with indifference, because he would not have seen how it affected him.  Yet, after earning the skills of his unusual form of martial arts, he also understands that killing for money is wrong and that defending against such acts is not a point of ambiguity.  Such meshes are welcomed in his mixing of styles, but not in the realm of defining and defending a human life.

Key Scene:  The moment when Beggar trains Wong through what can only be described as a "mannequin method" is impressive kung fu choreography, if only for its reliance on two bodies moving in unique ways.

This is a solid rental and well worth engaging with for its unique reconsideration of the genre, while also staying decidedly within its traditional confines.

For Your Awareness: Chop Kick Panda (2011)

Knowing that I would being undertaking the kung fu marathon for a month I planned accordingly to include some more unusual films, and since I try to cover all aspects of cinema I knew that including an animated film was a necessity.  However, I also knew that I did not really want to watch Kung Fu Panda.  I am sure it is a fine film, but not one that I was particularly in a mood to engage with.  Fortunately, my dear friend over at the newly emerging Bull Moose Bravo blog, reminded me that Kung Fu Panda had a mockbuster equivalent known as Chop Kick Panda.  Given my penchant for the absurd I knew it was something that I would have to include in the marathon.  The mockbuster, is, of course, a film released by companies like Asylum to bank on the success of another big budget picture, a popular example being the release of Atlantic Rim to coincide with Pacific Rim.  These films are always low-budget, usually poorly produced and intended almost entirely to prey upon unsuspecting parents who are seeking to rent/buy a DVD for their children.  Admittedly, I could just as easily make a mistake between Transformers and Transmorphers if they were standing next to one another on a shelf.  The ethics in such releases are problematic, but it is also somewhat brilliant conceptually, because it is releasing to profit, without the illusion of anything else, and anything that can foreseeably stick it to the Hollywood big wigs, even if in the market of 99 cents rentals is great in my book.  The crazy thing about Chop Kick Panda though is that, for only being forty minutes of super minimal animation (not even bothering to use 3D), it manages to be a somewhat watchable work, with a decent enough message for the youth audience it is assumedly directed towards.  I am not suggesting that it is anything profound or even cinematically valuable, but merely arguing that it could have been so much less and still served the purposes of a mockbuster.  I hesitate to use the word earnest to describe such a work, but it is impossible not to see moments when the voice actors and sound editor are clearly having fun and enjoying the work.  To be fair, for a lot of the people involved it was likely their entry level job in the world of filmmaking and given the lax nature of the productions they were afforded considerably free reign, resulting in some moments of sound filmmaking, in the most unlikely of settings.

Chop Kick Panda is more than a turning a new leaf narrative, which is what I assume its influence Kung Fu Panda centers upon.  Sure the main character Zibo is a lovable loser to varying degrees in his hopes of being so "legendary that his legend is legendary," but he respects his job and obeys the rules of the dojo he works within.  Indeed, in this film it is entirely the acts of ill-willed bad guys who make Zibo even seem remotely lacking.  Indeed, Zibo's dream of becoming a kung fu master are neither unhealthy nor hindering those around making for a narrative of finding one's self that is positive.  This is, however, not the big surprise of the film, because Zibo is not a lone wolf character who is coming to his own in a individualistic sense.  In fact, Zibo has a son who looks up to him with adoration, finding his job as a janitor in a dojo to be not only respectable, but a point of pride amongst his somewhat more skeptical friends.  Chop Kick Panda is quite positive about the relationship it portrays, even going into detail about the loss of Zibo's wife and how it has led to the particular bonding between him and his son.  This sort of narrative is considerably rare within the children's film, particularly those that are animated.  It seems to be yet another benefit of this unusual form of alternative cinema, in its decidedly detached concern for producers intents.  In so much, as something like Chop Kick Panda exists solely to play against another release, it manages to put some considerable concern into what it is promoting narratively.  Aside from embracing non-traditional images of family, the film also uses language in a clever manner, which, probably by accident, manages to serve an educational role to the children who are listening.  Again the film does have a decidedly simple element about it, but this does not mean it is unwatchable.  I through unconventional means have come to find this mockbuster and I do not want to jump to conclusions until I have seen a few more in this "genre," but it seems that his might be just as revolutionary a style of alternative cinema as the orphan film or web-series.   Chop Kick Panda does not have to meet expectations, and in this it is also allowed to reconsider them.  I, much to my surprise, would defend this film adamantly.

Chop Kick Panda is available on DVD or streaming on Amazon Prime.  I would suggest giving it a look, you might find yourself pleasantly surprised at its genuine sentiment.

The Blackness Of My Belt Is Like The Inside Of A Coffin: Beverly Hills Ninja (1997)

It was only a matter of time before I came across a movie during this marathon that I had a less than stellar reaction towards.  Which is fortunate because I was beginning to form a rather intense bond to the genre and as it stands I am far too invested in a ton of different films movements, genres and eras to afford picking up another.  Of course, the movie in question is Beverly Hills Ninja so maybe it is a bit unfair to let it speak to a bad moment within the genre, because at face value it is indeed just a comedy that happens to involve ninjas, who occasionally engage in martial arts.  Yet, knowing that I had never encountered the film prior and had a great experience with Tommy Boy, I figured given my liberal consideration of genre that it would be a perfect movie to include.  Tragically, where it could have benefitted from the slapstick comedy of Chris Farley or the entrenchment within the martial arts genre the film cowers away, only marginally exploring the various themes or tropes, whereas it feels far more inclined to spend excessive amounts of time exploring the woes and absurdity of Beverly Hills decadence.  Sure these moments are funny, but they are also a rehashing of jokes and observations that had already occurred to great excess in films like Clueless.  Indeed, where other parodies would succeed in perfect respect to the genre through clever revisionism, Beverly Hills Ninja only uses the themes to skirt over vague considerations of the style and tropes, ultimately, failing to even capture the vaguest of humor or pertinence.  Trust me, I wanted Beverly Hill Ninja to be a great film, I am on a constant quest to find a handful of nineties comedies that can create a cap in my understanding of its evolution, but this simply was not one worth including.  The name Dennis Dugan has come to be a black mark on Hollywood comedies as of late, and deservedly so, because he and Adam Sandler have clearly stopped trying, but there was a time when films like Billy Madison defined the eras comedic output.  With this in mind, Beverly Hills Ninja stands as the perfect middle ground between Dugan's early work and the complete nonsense that he now releases.  It is neither a bad film, nor is it particularly great.  Instead, it is so run-of-the-mill as to be understandably forgotten.

The narrative of Beverly Hills Ninja begins much as any kung fu/martial arts film does by introducing a mysterious dojo hiding in the mountains of Japan.  The clan of ninjas are foretold of the coming of a white baby who will prove to be the greatest ninja their dojo has ever seen, a prophecy that rings true when a large white baby floats onto their beach via a chest, causing great hope and admiration amongst the clan.  However, as years pass it becomes evident that the boy is far from the expert ninja the prophecy suggested.  Indeed Haru (Chris Farley) is the epitome of everything that is not ninja-like, whether it be his inability to wield a weapon without either hurting himself or an ally, or his general lack of stealthiness due to his considerable weight.  Of course, he is still fondly loved by the members of his clan, although when it comes time to appoint the ninjas with their respective garb, Haru is passed over due to his lack of skill and is instead placed on duty to guard the dojo.  This task immediately brings him into contact with Sally Jones (Nicollette Sheridan), who hopes to hire the ninjas to discover why her boyfriend Martin (Nathaniel Parker) has suddenly taken to disappearing for great lengths of time.  With the "help" of Haru, Sally discovers that Martin is indeed involved in a large counterfeiting scheme one he is willing to kill for without hesitation.  The murder, however, leads to trouble with the clan who are suspected of being involved, nonetheless, Haru takes it upon himself to engage in the quest to help Sally, who later  reveals the name to be an alias.  Realizing that Haru will certainly face an  imminent death if he is not protected, Haru's master sends his best ninja Nobu (Keith Cooke Hirabayashi) to serve as a guardian angel of sorts, one that looks out for Haru but never makes his presence known.  Eventually, Haru makes it to Beverly Hills where the culture is considerably different from that of his clan's world, in that many people are expressly mean or dismissive of his presence, until he reveals himself to be quite wealthy.  Along the way Haru also befriends a young bellhop named Joey (Chris Rock) who also wants to be a ninja.  Eventually, with the help of his master and a revealing of the aid of Nobu, Haru tracks down Martin and his gang, after diffusing bombs and fighting off various guards.  As such, Haru returns to his clan having fulfilled the prophecy, even if in the most indirect of manners.

I guess I can attempt to glean some various points of critical theory out of this film, but it got rather tough to watch after awhile as I realized the film, despite being eighty odd minutes was dragging on incessantly.  One of the major elements in the film that I did enjoy in regards to social commentary was the notion that race could exist in some space beyond pigmentation or physical identifiers, in so much as Haru is treated as an Asian person in Beverly Hills based on his clothing, as opposed to his skin tone.  This is most evident when he is dealing with the attendant at the hotel desk who assumes that he will be paying in something aside form American money, or any form of Asian currency.  However, these themes falter and indeed are betrayed when Haru's race is called into question, particularly when those dismissive of his ninja abilities ask questions like "aren't ninjas supposed to be Asian?"  This question while absurd does call attention to essentializing culture, which is one of the more pertinent themes in the film and probably where it is strongest narratively.    It suggest that Western influences are almost entirely at blame for such stereotypes, showing that in a place like Beverly Hills there is only one type of way to live, involving blonde hair and sports cars, a culture that exploits people like Joey to allow for a guise of perfection.  The scene where this essentialist issue comes to the forefront is when Haru, attempting to spy on Martin and one of his business partners, dresses as a chef at a Japanese steakhouse, one indicative of a Benihana's, appropriating the over-the-top mannerisms of the cooking art to a slapstick degree.  His outfit, however, is some wild combination of an Italian chef and a Mongolian warrior, suggesting that such places of business are tapping into an Asianness that is not only archaic, but heavily infused with Western ideologies.  Furthermore, considering that Haru comes from a ninja clan with its own social mores and practices, the notion of a type of "Japaneseness" existing in a place of Western consumption is problematic, because it not only essentializes one country,  but even one group within that space.  The film also deals with some gender performance and layers of gaze, but they were probably accidental so it is not worth considering too heavily.

Key Scene:  Haru's montage of growing up as a ninja is pretty funny, but the film does not manage to keep the pace much longer.

Honestly I would avoid this film.  There are better Chris Farley movies, and there are certainly better martial arts comedies.