Being a great fan of Chinese martial arts movies in general and Jackie Chan in particular, I had to watch “The Young Master” (also known as “Shi di chu ma”). It is one of the first movies directed and produced by Jackie Chan himself. And it was very good.
The story was kind of weak. But it usually is in these movies. It is only to match and mix fighters of all levels into both group and duel fights. Which there were plenty in the film. Four fights were standing out and I guess they were either the classics by the time Chan did them, or they became classics afterwards. When Dragon (played by Jackie) is fighting with cheif police inspector’s son, who is using a wooden bench is interesting and innovative. Especially the part where the bench is used to tie and control the opponent. Fight between Chan and cheif police inspector in the house was hilarious. It can be used to measure Chan’s progress in recent movies. Fight with inspector’s daughter and her dress was classy. It was so good that Jackie even tries to use it two times in the same movie, when later he fights two bad guys using a dress from the shop. The closing fight with the bad guy was good too. It was surprisingly long and style changing.
This movie is fun and if you like either Chinese movies about kung-fu or Jackie’s action movies, you should see this one.
7 out of 10.