Review: x‘Drunken Tai Chi’ is a Kung Fu comedy which casts aside credibility in favour of entertaining slapstick and wacky set pieces. It’s a Yuen Clan comedy, and a lesser known addition to the ‘series’ which includes ‘Taoism Drunkard’, ‘Heroic Fight’, ‘Miracle Fighters’ and ‘Shaolin Drunkard’. This reviewer can’t get enough of these demented and endlessly inventive movies, and any fan of the other Yuen Clan comedies should not hesitate to check this one out.

This movie doesn’t set out to do anything but entertain, and it succeeds, again and again. The movie starts off with Donnie Yen taking on an opponent while performing tricks on a BMX (what time period is this set in?), and after a quick kung fu fight, he goes to work, where even shovelling salt is a kung fu showpiece! Minutes later, we meet a fat woman. If Kung Fu movies have taught us anything, it’s that fat women are funny, and this one is not only funny, but she can kick ass. Before you know it, Donnie is stopping trouble makers by wrapping them in fireworks and watching them hop around while exploding in a shower of sparks…We’re only 15 minutes into the movie, and it maintains this pace throughout, as the most banal of events are transformed into perfectly executed kung fu or slapstick set-pieces.

Donnie Yen, looking young and toothsome, is very charismatic and amiable as the well-meaning and mischievous protaganist, and his kung fu is typically impressive. Sunny Yuen does his usual growling and snarling routine, but is given a different edge for a change, due to the revelation that when he’s not growling and snarling at people he’s trying to kill, he’s a bit of a simpleton struggling to look after his young daughter. Yuen Cheung Yan shows up as a variant of the much loved buck-toothed monk, and very nearly upstages everyone, as we have come to expect.

Drunken Tai Chi is loads of fun. Watch it, or you will miss out on puppet shows, breakdancing, kidnapping, sparrow catching, and of course, a fair amount of martial arts action.