The Worst Film Ever

everything you have heard about this movie is true.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

Watching it is like watching the spectacle of a class clown at their best: you laugh at their jokes, instigate their defiance, and "ooooh" when they get in trouble.

After failing his fellow students in a Lion Dance competition, Dragon (Jackie Chan) is sent away from his school in disgrace, on the condition that he must find his errant brother. Much martial arts mayhem and mistaken-identity silliness ensue.Exactly how silly this film is supposed to be is unclear. I suppose any movie that uses a dance competition as a plot device has to be silly in some respect. But with the American / English dub, some of the voices are far sillier than they probably were originally. And is it the original music, because some of that is really goofy.I have to give credit to Jackie Chan for directing and starring in his own movies. There are some real auteurs in the world of martial arts cinema, and Chan is one of them. I am not a big fan of the genre personally, but he makes me want to be.

Jackie Chan is such a joy to watch, especially in his early raw Hong Kong martial arts features and his first solo directorial effort "The Young Master" goes on to show the talent he bestowed in front of the camera. The upbeat tempo and dazzling stunt work is breathtakingly executed, as when they get hit they go flying across the screen and in no time after copping a lot of blows they're back on their feet to go again. This entry does feel like a riveting collection of journey set-pieces (which are sensationally staged with creativity) to simply make up a minor narrative consisting of mishaps that leads to redemption, as it mainly plays for laughs with its goofy comic flair… however it seems to suit Chan's charming persona and flamboyant energy. Never does it loose sight of its destination, as it keeps a fast and exhilarating rhythm throughout with its spectacularly rich and dramatic music score adding another dimension. All of the performances are quite enjoyable with the likes of Lily Li, Pai Wei, Kien Shih, Biao Yuen and Kang-Yeh Cheng. Amazingly fun, light-headed kung-fu antics.

In THE YOUNG DRAGON, superstar Jackie Chan was essentially playing gung fu star Jackie Chan. His antics herein were nothing new (though he would go on to add- quite substantially- to his ouvre over the next two decades) and some of the alleged humor is merely alleged, but it's the fifteen or twenty minute pounding he takes from Master Sik at the end of the movie that makes it absolutely must-see film-making. Chan, it could be argued, is cinema's great martial arts masochist- and his protracted punishment, dished out with a sadist's delight, it seems, has to be seen to be believed. Chan has always been willing to go that extra yard, and his willingness to absorb punishment for the sake of his art is taxed to the limit here. It's brutal, no two ways about it, but it's also vintage Jackie Chan.

This is a really mixed bag of a movie. To begin with, it is very episodic, and the transitions between the episodes are confusing - even allowing for re-editing in different re-release prints. The opening episode appears to have been an attempt at homage to the Shaw Bros. style (sets, lighting, camera angles), and one suspects that Sammo Hung had a hand in it, since he had demonstrated a grasp on the Shaw style in a couple of his own early films. But once the opening is done, so too the Shaw style effects, and we're suddenly in Lo Wei territory at the Buddhist temple. Later, Chan borrows from Yuen Woo Ping quite heavily - the final fight is somewhat reminiscent of "Drunken Master", and apparently intentionally so. (It is probable that Yuen himself was on hand for consultation.) Sadly, these wildly different episodes never gel together to present us with one whole narrative; the grand finale feels like an artificial tack-on, it doesn't seem to resolve anything.There's quite a lot wrong here: There's no explanation of why Chan's character - still an adolescent student - suddenly transfigures himself into a 'kung fu genius' (to borrow a phrase from Chow's "Kung Fu Hustle"); the school, once left behind, is never seen nor heard from again until the final credits - any dramatic input it could make to the story is thereby lost. The fascinating (and brilliantly performed) episode with the Inspector and his family also gets left behind and unresolved. The use of bong-water from an opium pipe as an elixir granting increased strength is completely artificial and unbelievable - a college fraternity in-joke; the use of wine in "Drunken Master", by comparison, is derived from myth, and based on an real martial arts tradition.The one definitive term for this approach to movie making is: self-indulgence. Chan, at the time a recognized star in Asia, who felt he could do no wrong, is simply coming up with what must have appeared as good ideas and patching them together to give himself a star-vehicle and showcase for all his talents - he even sings the title track.All this noted, it must be admitted that, as an episodic showcase, the film is actually very entertaining. Once you allow that the story is really irrelevant to the comic bits and fight scenes, these can be enjoyed on their own terms - the fight scene with Chan dressed as a beggar is really quite remarkable, and the visit to the inspector's house is very funny.one more note on the release prints: I have seen a standard English-dub print and a Chinese print with subtitles; the weird thing is that the English print actually includes brief but important moments cut from the Chinese print, and would actually be preferable except that it re-arranges one important comic moment in such a way that all the humor is lost, and seems also to compress the violence so has to reduce its impact. Hopefully we'll one day get the definitive print of this; until then, best to see both prints so you know what you'd miss if you only saw one.