1905 movie network feature As an audience, no matter how much experience you have, there will definitely be a name that cannot be avoided in the memory of growing up: Jackie Chan. Therefore, when the fourth "Jackie Chan Action Film Week" opens soon, it must once again evoke everyone’s feelings and tributes to this kung fu superstar.
This movie week not only showcased 24 Jackie Chan’s classic action movies, but also chose "Drunk Fist" as the opening film. For viewers who are more familiar with "Police Story", "Project Eagle", "Red Fan District", "Rush Hour", "Zodiac" and even "New Police Story", it is a bit "long".
Why does Jackie Chan have a "soft spot" for "Drunken Fist" this time? This drama is not only the origin of his road to stardom, but also the portrayal of his 40 years of success. It can be called a benchmark that changed the development of Hong Kong kung fu films and made Hong Kong films go to a golden age. It even has influence across the film field… Whether it is an exaggeration, let Xiao Dianjun accompany you to reveal the legendary appearance of "Drunken Fist" for 40 years.
1. "Something out of nothing" Drunk Eight Immortals
Producer Wu Siyuan, director Yuan Heping, and star Jackie Chan’s "Iron Triangle" were credited with the launch of "Drunken Fist". They had previously teamed up to create a Kung Fu comedy "Serpentine Diao Hands". After the box office hit, the Taiwanese filmmakers invited them to the local celebration party. Unexpectedly, the various movements of the filmmakers during the banquet triggered Wu and Yuan’s inspiration for "Drunken Fist". Ba Ye (Yuan Zhi’s nickname) even thought that "Drunken Fist has a sense of comedy, and the image will look good when shot!"
But boxing always has an ins and outs. As a result, Ba Ye spent a month summing up eight formulas from various ancient stories, including "Lv Dongbin: Drunk to carry the pot with great strength", "Tieguai Li: It’s true to choose a knee and hit the drunk", "Han Zhongli: Drunk walking and hugging the top of the heart", "Zhang Guolao: Drunk throwing a cup and kicking a chain", "Lan Caihe: A single toast to stop the waist and break", "Uncle Cao: Immortal toasting and locking the throat", "Han Xiangzi: Catching the wrist and hitting the chest and drunk blowjob" and "He Xiangu: Bouncing the waist and offering drunken swinging steps", which were interpreted by Jackie Chan and became a classic in the history of kung fu films.
In other words, the "Drunken Eight Immortals" boxing route that audiences are familiar with today is actually eight inspirations "made out of nothing"!
Second, Jackie Chan’s "double eyelid" truth
If you watch "Serpentine Diao Hands", you will find that Jackie Chan was still single eyelid at that time, why did "Drunken Fist" become "double eyelid"? This is from the list of Jackie Chan’s injury history, "Shooting" Drunken Fist "The corner of the eye was kicked out"…
It is said that when Jackie Chan was filming, Huang Zhengli, known as the "King of Leg Skills", kicked the part above the eye and below the eyebrow, bleeding profusely on the spot, and the diagnosis was that the corner of the eye was cracked. But Jackie Chan, who has always been afraid of injections, refused to sew, and finally could only stick the wound with medical tape. After tearing it off, the wound turned into a "double eyelid", and finally could only "open" the other eye. Therefore, "Drunken Fist" is not only Jackie Chan’s famous work, but also can be said to be a "cosmetic work".
3. "Look at my red face and thick neck"
In addition to filming injuries, Jackie Chan also worked hard for the performance. Especially before each performance, he didn’t really drink, but let himself bow down and hold his breath, and by holding his breath, all the blood rushed to his head, so that it looked like his face was red after being drunk.
It can be seen that Jackie Chan sang in the song "Drunk Fist" many years later, "Look at my blush and thick neck, and know in my heart that I am a hero", which is a portrayal of his drunkenness when he "held back" himself.
IV. Yuan Xiaotian became very popular in his later years
"Drunken Boxing" should not only mention Jackie Chan’s Wong Fei-hung, but also Yuan Xiaotian’s "Su Qier". As the father of Yuan Heping and others, Yuan Xiaotian is not only one of the earliest martial arts instructors in Hong Kong, but also made a series of "Wong Fei-hung" movies in the 1960s. By the 1970s, he had retired, but in order to support Yuan Heping’s directing career, he was willing to go out again, not wanting to be popular all over Asia.
In fact, Ba Ye conceived martial arts moves that combined elements of acrobatics and comedy in the theater, and his father was behind it: "My father basically passed on what he knew to our children… At that time, his academic career was very hard, and he practiced every morning… In the afternoon, he went to the suburbs to practice basic skills, swords, swords and halberds, and learned boxing and somersaults." So from the play that Yuan Xiaotian taught Jackie Chan in "Drunk Fist", Ba Ye did put a lot of childhood memories in it.
V. Unexpected success
In 1978, the "Iron Triangle" of Wu, Yuan and Cheng was already satisfied with the big sale of "Serpentine Diao Hands", but they did not expect the success of "Drunken Fist" to exceed their imagination: in Hong Kong, the film was released from October 5 to November 3 of that year, and the box office reached 6.76 million Hong Kong dollars, which digitally broke the box office record (5.31 million) held by Bruce Lee’s "Raptors Crossing the River", and finally ranked second in the annual box office.
In Taiwan, Wu Siyuan even described the results of "Drunken Fist" as "too profitable" and "outrageous at all", even to the point where the film distributor gave him a bunch of money every time he saw Wu Siyuan! In fact, before "Drunken Fist", many Taiwanese film distributors refused to buy Jackie Chan movies, on the grounds that "Jackie Chan is a box office poison, you want me to die!" But after the film was released, Jackie Chan soon became a millionaire, and even Golden Harvest wanted to poach him to pass the file, even offering a salary of 4.80 million Hong Kong dollars, which can be called "straight to the fool"!
South East Asia
"Drunken Fist" was already selling crazy in Hong Kong and Taiwan, and I don’t want to go even further when it was released in South East Asia and Japan and South Korea in 1979. In Japan alone, the film’s box office was as high as 1.90 billion yen, ranking eighth among the top ten grossing films of the year; in Seoul in the same year, the film was screened for half a year, and the number of viewers was as high as 1.42 million, which is equal to 4.27 million people in South Korea watching "Drunken Fist" at that time, thus breaking the local historical record and maintaining it for 11 years. It was not until 1990 that it was broken by "Ghost Love". No wonder the Korean newspapers said at that time: Why can other people’s movies be made so well?
"Drunk Fist" also broke Singapore’s historical sales record, with a box office of up to 1.46 million Singapore dollars; as for Malaysia, Wu Siyuan’s words describe it as "a sea of people at the entrance of the Kuala Lumpur theater, the boss ran to the box office and grabbed a lot of money, and wrapped it up for me with something…"
In the end, "Drunken Fist" reached more than 22 million US dollars at the global box office that year, confirming what is meant by "sensation"!
Seven, "bonuses" and "prizes" are not missing
If the box office is a "bonus", then the selection of the major film institutions is the prize that "Drunken Fist" deserves – who said that the kung fu films in the early Republic of China could not be elegant?
In 2000, "Double Film Weekly" selected "100 Best Hong Kong Films of the 20th Century", "Drunken Fist" ranked 20th, second only to "Jingwumen" in the kung fu film; in 2005, the 100th anniversary of the birth of Chinese film, the Hong Kong Film Awards Association selected "100 Best Chinese Films in a Century", and "Drunken Fist" ranked 33rd; in 2011, the Golden Horse Film Festival voted for "100 Classic Chinese Films in Film History", and "Drunken Fist" was once again on the list; in the same year, the Hong Kong Film Archive selected "100 Hong Kong Films You Must See" list, and saw "Drunken Fist". It can be seen that from Hong Kong to the entire Chinese film, "Drunken Fist" is a classic masterpiece with far-reaching influence.
Eight, the rise of kung fu comedy
The popularity of "Drunk Fist" made the Kung Fu comedy reach its peak in the early years of the People’s Republic of China in 1979-80. All Hong Kong was thinking about how to add various comedy ideas to martial arts, so the authentic Hong Quan Liu Jialiang shot "Mad Monkey" and "Bad Head He", the fledgling Tsang Zhiwei shot "Kicking the Hall" and "Thief Stolen". In addition to shooting "Lin Shirong", Hong Jinbao Yuan Heping, the former’s "Mad Kid" won Yuan Biao, and the latter’s "North and South Drunk Fist" won his younger brother Yuan Xinyi. Even Cheng Xiaodong rarely shot "Ma Liu" as the protagonist, and even Xu Hark’s "No Door to Hell" also has many shadows of kung fu comedy. In short, the famous action movie artists we are familiar with today all contributed to the kung fu comedy back then.
However, in those two years, no one could shake Jackie Chan’s superstar status: in 79, Jackie Chan’s first self-directed and self-starred "Laughing Fist" became the annual box office champion with 5.45 million Hong Kong dollars; in 80, "Junior Brother" became the first film in Hong Kong’s film history to break through 10 million box office, and became the opening work of Hong Kong’s "Spring Festival"!
Nowadays, if you mention or revisit kung fu comedy, you should remember the transformative significance of "Drunken Fist".
Hong Kong’s "Comedy Age"
Looking back, Hong Kong films were able to achieve prosperity in the 1980s, thanks in essence to the rise of comedy themes: before "Drunk Fist", although Hong Kong had the first comedy hits by the Hui brothers, it was still "unique", and kung fu films fell into a low ebb after Bruce Lee’s death, because no one could imitate and copy him.
As a result, Jackie Chan and Yuan Heping defied tradition, and the line of "Kung Fu + Comedy" was not only different, but also more down-to-earth. The success of "Drunken Fist" made the whole of Hong Kong find that as long as you can "fight and laugh", you can make a lot of money at a low cost! Afterwards, Hong Kong people will add comedy elements to any theme they shoot, and they will try their best, thus creating a golden age of Hong Kong films – in other words, "Drunken Fist" has contributed to the market tradition of "laughing every time" in Hong Kong films!
Ten, the sequel to Drunk Fist Yan Brilliant
Fifteen years after "Drunk Fist", Jackie Chan once again played Huang Feihong and created the genuine sequel "Drunk Fist 2". Compared with the first episode, the film is more meaningful because it is a commemorative work of the establishment of the Hong Kong Action Stuntman Guild. All the creators in front of the stage and behind the scenes confiscated the pay. The initial cost of the film was only 28 million Hong Kong dollars, of which 3 million was used to buy the guild’s meeting place. It was already a "cheap" one for Jackie Chan’s works at that time.
Just like the first episode, "Drunken Fist 2" once again broke the sales record of Hong Kong kung fu films, with a box office of 40.71 million Hong Kong dollars, ranking among the runners-up in the annual box office in 1994, and only looking at the numbers, the film’s box office record was maintained for a full 17 years, and it was broken by "Ip Man 2" (43 million), which shows the audience’s feelings for "Drunken Fist".
Perhaps many people do not know that "Drunken Fist 2" is still the first Hong Kong film to be introduced in the form of national distribution after the reform of the mainland film market. In other words, Jackie Chan can be said to be the "pioneer" of the mainland entering the box office era. And just looking at these scenes, you can see how famous Jackie Chan was in the mainland at that time:
"No injury, no drunken fist"
Back then, "Drunken Fist" made Jackie Chan "double eyelids", which was already a serious injury experience. I don’t want to think that 15 years later, he staged a more dangerous scene in "Drunken Fist 2": the whole person was kicked into the fire, and the heat and pain could be felt just by looking at the screen; and the last fight, not only did it take three months to shoot, but Jackie Chan really drank a little industrial alcohol, which was better than "holding his breath" in the first episode!
Therefore, the "bonuses" and "prizes" did not harm this drama. "Drunken Fist 2" not only became the world’s Chinese film box office champion in 1994 (according to data exceeding 365 million RMB), but was also selected by Time magazine as one of the "100 Best Movies in the History of Film", and was ranked fifth by Black Belt magazine as "The Most Wonderful Film and Television Fight in History". At the same time, it won the Golden Statue and Golden Horse Double "Best Action Design"…
It can be said that the two "Drunken Fist" starring Jackie Chan can be called one of the most outstanding kung fu series in the history of Chinese movies.
Twelve, drunken boxing and cultural crossing
Over the past 40 years, the influence of "Drunken Fist" has not only been in the film, but also one of the representatives of the "cross-regional culture" of Chinese films.
As the Japanese "national manga" of "Dragon Ball", the author of "Dragon Ball", Akira Toriyama, has bluntly stated that he is a fan of Jackie Chan, and his favorite movie is "Drunken Fist". "Without this movie, I couldn’t have created" Dragon Ball "at all."
"Naruto’s Li Luoke is also a" natural drunken fist master ":
In Hong Kong, the famous cartoonist Huang Yulang also created a comic of the same name in 1981 inspired by "Drunken Fist", which was popular and was called one of the "Four Famous Works of Huang Yulang":
Even weak sounds can be used to imitate "Drunken Fist", even to the point of "God Sync":
Even the Japanese variety show "Talk Show After the Rain" did a Jackie Chan special, and specially imitated the classic scenes of "Drunken Fist":
Even FC games, released in 1990 as "Jackie Chan’s Dragon", were inspired by "Drunken Fist".
Later, whether it was the arcade game "Double Dragon Fight", or the PC game "King of Kung Fu" and "Iron Fist" Lei Wulong, etc., they also used Jackie Chan’s style or action in "Drunken Fist":
Of course, there is no shortage of Zhen Yuanzhai in "The King of Fighters", no doubt from Yuan Xiaotian in "Drunken Fist":
The history of Chinese film has been 40 years and countless classics, but "Drunken Fist" must be one of the influencers who can spread to the world; for Jackie Chan, he can become the longest-running superstar in the Chinese film industry, and "Drunken Fist" is a watershed in his acting career!
