Year: 1994
Running Time: 102 Minutes
Rated: R
SRP: $39.99
Studio(s): Dimension
Release Date: September 2009

Film/Feature: A
The importance of the Legend of Drunken Master is that it was the film that launched Jackie Chan in to world-wide stardom. Yes Chan was in other films before this 1994 blockbuster semi-sequel to Yuen Woo-Ping’s Drunken Master (1978), but it established his stamp on the martial arts genre: a mixture of acrobatic street brawling kung fu, inventive uses of everyday objects as weapons, and a Charlie Chaplin-esque humor.

Chan portrays Chinese folk hero, Wong Fei Hung who finds himself in the middle of the British consul smuggling the ancient artifacts of his fellow Chinese. He stands up to the thieves and shows of his style of kung fu–inspired by whatever tasty beverage is at arm’s length–called Drunken Boxing. It’s a stock story that follows the recipe for martial arts films at the time, but the last half hour of the film defined Chan’s contribution to the genre. It’s full of creative Yuen Woo-Ping fight choreography, over-the-top stunts that you’re certain Jackie had spent days in the hospital recovering from, and had that “top this” attitude attached to it.

Video: B+
The DVD may have been satisfactory, but this blu-ray is even better presenting Drunken Master on an 1080p encoded transfer in 2.35:1 aspect ratio. Overall, I’m pleased with this transfer as the obvious upgrades in color and details are apparent. The color of fabric and clothing especially the primary reds do jump out as opposed to the earth tones. It’s easy to distinguish the varying browns, blacks and grays in clothing although it still looks dull on the screen compared to what were used to these days. It was a muted film as far as color palettes go, but that’s true to life.

Details like the individual strands of the thick, Asian hair come out very well, but the picture could stand a bit more clean up. There’s still a bit of lint and debris which I noticed more in the final fight sequence but this is the cleanest I’ve seen the film. Major blemishes have been taken out. For example, in the start of the chapter entitled, “Eureka,” on the DVD there is an oval shaped burn that shows up in the upper right corner (which to my knowledge is taken from the actual negatives where the reels are supposed to change). Well now that’s gone. So despite what goes around in other reviews, we sometimes fail to remember that most of the great martial arts films haven’t even made to DVD yet, so the only thing that exists are crappy VHS tapes in some bootleg drawers. Could this film be mastered better? Sure, and I’d be the first in line to buy it, but this transfer will likely satisfy its core audience.

Audio: C-
Drunken Master gets a new 5.1 English Dolby TrueHD audio track. That’s right. No Mandarin track available. Not even at Dolby Digital. EPIC FAIL! But you can hear Jackie on that English dub, but man, I really do tire of films, especially martial arts films that don’t bother to prioritize the remastering of the audio tracks correctly. The English dub, folks should be last priority. I don’t care if you gotta dig through endless bowls of sticky rice and moo-goo gai-pan, get me that original Mandarin track.

There’s more dynamic range to the audio, at a lower volume level it comes ready to punch a hole through your wall, but this isn’t a soundtrack that’s been carefully mixed. Instead it sounds like someone set the levels high enough to discern a difference in level and then walked away for 90 minutes for lunch.

There’s an effort to send some directional noise to the rears which always makes the home experience that much better. For example, the geese that are sent loose on the train, echoing, igniting flames all push towards the rear channels. Also in the final scene where the barrels get dropped onto Jackie have a balanced thud that reminds you that you do have a subwoofer. But this is a film that’s mostly made for the front of your home theater and is not very exciting outside of that. Other audio selections include: 5.1 French Dolby Digital , 2.0 Spanish Dolby Digital, and subtitles are available in English, English SDH, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Polskie, Ceske, Turkish and Mandarin.

Extras: D
I don’t need great extras to accompany this film, and I certainly don’t need a 90′s interview of a young Jackie Chan reminiscing over Drunken Master memories. I’d gladly trade them for a new audio track. No? Okay, fine.

Behind the Master: An Interview with Jackie Chan SD (6:35) rehashes the old interview found on the DVD that explores the unique directing techniques and self performed stunts by Chan. It does show the difference of what the DVD looked like because this extra is not in HD.

Overall Shock Value: C
Drunken Master by itself is still a benchmark to which modern martial arts films are held to, including anything Chan has done since, and is arguably the most popular of his films. I was excited to see this film on high definition as an upgrade from my DVD, and it is that. The picture is improved as far as cleanliness, detail and definition, but I was still disappointed at the lack of effort to not give us a Chinese audio track. We will forever be stuck with the English dub. Copies exist out there, I just know it, and I find it hard to believe that Miramax couldn’t put forth the effort/money to track that original audio and master it for blu-ray. Outside of the upgrade in picture, the blu-ray isn’t a necessity until they put some investment into this title.