Drunken Master

Drunken Master
Theatrical release poster
Chinese name
Traditional Chinese	醉拳
Transcriptions Yue: Cantonese Jyutping Zeoi3 Kyun4
Directed by	Yuen Woo-ping
Written by	Siao Lung Ng See-yuen
Produced by	Ng See-yuen
Starring	Jackie Chan Yuen Siu-tien Hwang Jang-lee Dean Shek
Cinematography	Chang Hui
Edited by	Pan Hsiung
Music by	Chow Fu-liang
Distributed by	Seasonal Film Corporation
Release date	5 October 1978 (1978-10-05)
Running time	110 minutes
Country	Hong Kong
Language	Cantonese
Box office	US$16.5 million (est.)

Drunken Master (Chinese: 醉拳; lit. 'Drunken Fist and Jui Kuen'), also known as Drunken Master The Beginning, is a 1978 Hong Kong martial arts comedy film directed by Yuen Woo-ping and produced and co-written by Ng See-yuen.^[1] The film features much of the same crew as Yuen's Snake in the Eagle's Shadow released earlier the same year, including lead actors Jackie Chan, Yuen Siu-tien (Woo-ping's father), and Hwang Jang-lee; although narratively unrelated, Drunken Master bears similarities to its predecessor in its story and style.

Drunken Master features Chan and Yuen Siu-tien as fictionalized versions of martial artists Wong Fei-hung and Beggar So; in the film, Wong is an irreverent young man forced under the fierce tutelage of So, master of the drunken fighting style; although the two do not originally get along, Wong eventually gains humility and respect for So.

Considered an early milestone of martial arts comedy and one of the best films in the genre, the film was a large box-office success, earning two and a half times the revenue of the already-successful Snake in the Eagle's Shadow;^[2][3] it had a significant cultural impact, inspiring numerous later films, music, manga, anime and video games with its depictions of teacher-student relationship and the drunken style, and helped establish Chan as one of Asia's most popular actors. The film was followed by two sequels directed by Lau Kar-leung in 1994: the direct sequel Drunken Master II, in which Chan reprised his role, and the mostly-unrelated Drunken Master III. Drunken Master would be Yuen Siu-tien's final film released during his lifetime, although he would portray Beggar So again in several films released posthumously, including the Drunken Master spin-off Dance of the Drunk Mantis (1979), also directed by Woo-ping.