Episode 50 (S2E20) - Drunken Master Commentary

Final Forum: A Dragon Ball Podcast

Welcome to Final Forum's Dragon Ball-oween Spooktacular!

In this episode, Jelli and Bekinney are joined by Trevor Snyder of the Failure to Franchise Podcast as well as Days of Future Podcast Examining the X-Men for a fun break from format and into the world of kung fufilms. It's part of our October/Halloween Festivities where we're taking a break from breaking down Akira Toriyama's worldwide manga and anime phenomenon and delving into times our franchise's creators have "put on a costume" and worked on other shows and movies. In this case, it's Akira Toriyama's favorite movie of all-time and the film that helped create Dragon Ball (we've told the story about Toriyama's wife helping he and Kazuhiko Torishima coming up with the idea...and we tell it again here): Drunken Master, starring Jackie Chan.

In this episode:

• We get right into syncing because it's a longer movie and commentary track.
• Stats on the movie including release date (pre-dating Dr. Slump and even Toriyama's first official publishing credit with Wonder Island), box office and key personnel
• Dragon Ball connections as it being Toriyama's favorite movie, the connections to Jackie Chun, Drunken boxing fighting style, and more including some surprise Master Crane similarities and Master Roshi inspiration points
• An introduction to the studio behind the film, Season Film Corporation, founded by Ng See-Yuen as he left Shaw Brothers to create this competitor and build a third studio behind Golden Harvest and Shaw Brothers
• A brief BRIEF history of Brucesploitation where actors who had a passing resemblance to Bruce Lee were passed off as him appearing in a posthumous feature
• Connections to Zu: Warriors from the Magic Mountain
• Connections to Jean Claude Van Damme, Michelle Yeoh, and Cynthia Rothrock
• A dive into the life and career of Jackie Chan, from his beginnings in the Peking opera, to his early film roles, on through his breakout to stardom in Asia, his run-in with the Triad, his attempts to gain fame in Hollywood (finally captured when Rumble in the Bronx and Rush Hour broke through in a major way), and even his later career and current persona
• A dive into the life and career of the film's director Yuen Woo-ping, having worked with Jackie Chan, Jet Li, Chow Yun-Fat and more, from his beginning working with his father on to his own Hollywood success working on the Matrix trilogy of films as well as Kill Bill, Kung Fu Hustle and later work with War Kong-Wai
• How Woo-ping worked on the Once Upon a Time in China series, helped launch the career of Donnie Yen (Star Wars: Rogue One and John Wick Chapter 4)
• The real-life cultural inspiration for this movie, an a discussion of Wong Fei-hun, a well-known Chinese folk hero and real-life master of martial arts, who worked with the Ten Tigers of Canton to create a style still taught in Chinese martial arts schools today
• The importance of Wong Fei-hun to China and Chinese film with over 100 films featuring the character and having been played by actors such as Gordon Liu, Jet Li, Donnie Yen, Sammo Hung, Eddie Peng, and Vincent Zhao
• An introduction to the Beggar So character, So Chuan, and his status as one of the Ten Tigers of Canton
• How Yuen Siu-tien became known as THE most famous person to play Beggar So, and is Yuen Woo-ping's father
• A brief history of Drunken Master's home video releases
• A discussion of the film's many imitators and homages, including those found in Naruto, the works of Edgar Wright, and Mortal Kombat
• ...and more, including some general pop culture, trivia, and editorializing, as usual

Join us as we continue to uncover the cultural meanings, publication facts, inspirations and more behind the wildly popular Dragon Ball franchise....or in this case, the Drunken Master Franchise....for our special Dragon Ball-o-Ween event!

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