Wopsploitation: "The Young Master"(1980)d/Jackie Chan

In 1980, Jackie Chan kicked off a long-standing relationship with Golden Harvest studios with tonight's entry, having just come off a disappointing initial Hollywood star bid with The Battlecreek Brawl(1979) and out of a creativity-stifling contract with Lo Wei after Raymond Chow and Wang Yu('Jimmy', not Yung, mind you) finally convinced the angry old man to call off his Triad muscle and let the blossoming young star venture out on his own.For his first feature, Chan assembled an impressive supporting cast that included Shih Kien, aka/ "Mr. Han" from Enter the Dragon(1973), Peking Opera classmate, Yuen Biao, lovely shadow kickstress extraordinaire, Lily Li Li-Li(Clones of Bruce Lee(1978) didn't offer as many Lee's in succession, I'd imagine), and not least of all, Hapkido grandmaster Whang Ing Sik, ruthless and sinister, as always, as the negatively charged obstacle in Chan's path towards martial harmony.Without Lo to hold him back, Chan effectively crafts a period piece unlike any that came prior(and most that came afterwards), injecting a broad range of physical comedy into elaborate fight choreography that includes a historic finale square off with Master Whang that runs upwards of fifteen minutes in length(!) and is entirely unique for the time in that it often resembles a real brawl between the two actors, foreshadowing things to come in Chan's later modern vehicles.Thirty-plus years later, Young Master remains one of Jackie's best films to date, packed full of fists, feet, and folly enough to keep the eyes of any self-respecting kung fu movie enthusiast well glued to the non-stop action, and the smirk-inducing hijinks in between.The whole thing starts out with a critical Lion Dance...

Yuen Biao's benchmark bench skills come up short against Jackie's poleplay.
With top student Lo(Wei Pai) suffering from a leg injury that leaves him out of a competitive lion dance with the rival school, a desperate Master Tien(Tin Fung) is forced to rely on Lung(Jackie Chan) to control the head, instead.Midway through, Lung discovers that the rival lionhead is being controlled by Lo himself, in a treacherous turn to score cash towards a slut from the local brothel he's taken a shine to(Pussy over pugilism?Preposterous!).The broken-hearted Lung stays tight-lipped concerning his elder brother in defeat, and even covers for him when he tries to lay the concubine down on his spacious floor mat(!), but Tien uncovers the fiendish plot and banishes Lo, later sending Lung off to find him after his better judgment takes over.Meanwhile, Lo finds work with the rival school, freeing a career criminal/martial murderer named Kam(Whang Ing Sik) from an enshackled procession to jail on a desolate country road.The authorities identify Lo's white fan and offer reward money for his capture, unaware that Lung also has a white fan in his possession.Mistaken for the man he's been sent to find, Lung crosses paths with the son(Yuen Biao) of the local Marshall, Sang Kung(Shih Kien), who tries to aprehend him using his bench-centered kung fu, and later the Marshall himself, who anonymously helps Lung defeat his own son before springing his identity on him (but after Lung has pimpslapped the son's grill and verbally abused the pair). Hilarious quicksand hijinks ensue with Lung and Sang repeatedly tossing each other into the quagmire, and Lung eventually evading Sang's bracelets and the subsequent arrest.

"You're his 'dumb ape of a father'??!!Ooof!" laments big-mouthed Lung(Jackie Chan).
Lung inadvertently wanders to Sang's home, covered in mud, and asks his daughter(Lily Li) for use of the family rainbox while she goes out shopping.Sang, also dirtier than a hedonist's chastity belt, wanders into the showers, unaware that the man he's been trying to aprehend is on the other side.After some soapy ass-grabbin' slapstick, Lung uses the Marshall's antique pipe as leverage in a prop-heavy fight with the lawman before his daughter returns(Does mistaken identity ever stop being funny?No?Well, have some more, then) and takes Lung out using her billowy skirt to execute shadow kicks on him.Elsewhere, in a greedy instant, Kam, weary of Lo and looking to lessen the gang's loot-divvy by one, frames him during a bank heist.Lung, now free of all criminal suspicion by default, throws himself on the mercy of Sang to release his fellow schoolmate, but to no avail, until he remembers the effectiveness of blackmail through the Marshall's delicate pipe.Reluctantly, Sang agrees to free Lo from the local jail only if Lung singlehandedly apprehends Kam and his gang in the young man's place.After improvising some fabric into a flowing skirt, a disguised Lung humiliatingly defeats Kam's henchmen(Fung Hak On, Lee Hoi San)in the center of town, first mimicking the shadow kicks of Sang's daughter, then pasodoble-ing them like a matador would charging bulls.Against Kam in the countryside, Lung finds himself hopelessly outmatched, as refereed by the rival school's stroke-faced boss(that the overlord was about to cut out of the split when Lung showed up).Kam repeatedly punishes the young fighter with devastating kicks and punches until Lung is accidentally given opium pipe water in between rounds, which transforms him into an unstoppably furious attacker.He carries the bodies of both men slumped over a bo staff back into town, keeping good on his promise.In the end, we see Lung in a body cast as a result of the fight, covered head to toe in bandages, save for two fingers, which he waves bye-bye with.Credits...

"Look at these bulging veins!I'm having an acute myocardial infarction!"
Chan would revisit the concept of using berserker strength to tip the odds in his own favor again in the finale of Liu Chia Liang's Drunken Master II(1994), even injecting a similar sense of comedic realism when the final reel ends(his character ends up retarded from drinking industrial alcohol in Drunken, and broken everywhere but two fingers in bandage-wrapped mummy-style traction in Young).Young Master also marks the first of many instances where Chan provides vocals for the theme song, in this case, "Kung Fu Fighting Man", himself.He followed this hit up with a sequel, Young Master in Love(1982) aka/Dragon Lord, after the film surpassed all previous box office records held by Bruce Lee, establishing Chan as Hong Kong's top draw.His second bout with the director's chair(after Fearless Hyena(1979), which we just took a look at), a perfect introduction to real Chan-man fare for newcomers to his often-imitated style of action film.In my estimation, the only thing missing here is a training sequence of some great degree of difficulty, or form display on a dramatically lit stage, to showcase the techniques he was going to ride to ultimate victory, the kind that viewers had come to expect from kung fu movies of the era.But I'm not gonna punish the movie for going against the grain; on the contrary, it stands as one more three Wop Jackie Chan kung fu movie on the scale.As we've seen thus far in Chan-uary, he's got quite a few of these in his filmography, and the month's not nearly over, just yet.Highly recommended.