The Young Master (traditional Chinese: 帥弟出馬) is a 1980 Hong Kong martial arts-action film directed by and starring Jackie Chan as Dragon.
The film is notable for being the first that Jackie Chan worked on for Golden Harvest, and despite being his second film as director (his first was The Fearless Hyena), this is often incorrectly credited as his directorial debut. It was co-written by Chan and King Sang Tang and produced by Raymond Chow and Leonard Ho.
As is common with Jackie Chan's films, the fight scenes involve the use of many different weapons including poles, a rope, fans, benches and swords. Dragon Lord is supposedly the sequel to The Young Master and was even originally called Young Master in Love, as confirmed by Jackie Chan in his book.
Synopsis
In the film, the school attended by Dragon (Chan) and his brother, Tiger (Wei Pei) is entered against a rival school in a Lion Dance competition. The school needs to win the prize money to remain open but their star performer, Tiger, is seemingly injured when he falls from a ladder, leaving his brother, Dragon, to take his place. During the competition, Dragon realises that his brother feigned his accident in order to take part in the competition for the rival school.
The rival school wins the competition, but the truth emerges about Tiger's betrayal and he is exiled in disgrace. Dragon vows to bring back his errant brother so the pair can make amends to their master. Dragon sets off on his mission, but en route is mistaken for a criminal known as The White Fan by local police chief, Sang Kung (played by Shih Kien). Meanwhile, Tiger collaborates with his employers (the rival school) by freeing a dangerous criminal known as Kam (Hwang In-Sik). However, Tiger is later framed for a bank robbery. To stop his brother from being arrested, Dragon promises to apprehend the escapee, Kam.
Theme song
The theme song played over the closing credits, "Kung Fu Fighting Man" was the first song recorded and performed by Jackie Chan. He has since gone on to release many records, and has performed the theme songs on many of his films.[1]
Records
- The film was the highest box office draw of its day beating previous box office records set by Bruce Lee and establishing Chan as a Hong Kong cinema's top star.
- The fan-fighting scene in this movie required 329 takes to complete due to the intricate choreography.
- The climactic showdown between real life hapkido master Hwang In-Shik and Jackie Chan in the original release of this film was approximately 15 minutes long, reputedly the longest fight scene in any kung-fu movie to that date. Subsequent releases of the film have edited this scene down for time.
Cast
Versions
There are two main versions of the film currently available, one being the 106 minutes (NTSC/film speed) Hong Kong cut and the 90 minute international cut. A Taiwanese video featuring footage missing from both the Hong Kong and international cuts was also released.
However, even this version is not definitive - the original version of the film that Chan handed over to Golden Harvest was reportedly three hours in length. This had to be re-edited, so over 70 minutes of footage was cut during the first edit.[1]
References
- ^ a b "Jackie Chan: Kung Fu Fighter Believes There's More to Him Than Meets the Eye". hkvpradio (Hong Kong Vintage Pop Radio). http://www.hkvpradio.com/artists/jackiechan/. Retrieved 2009-02-12.
External links
