This is actually one of the better of the earlier Jackie Chan movies that I have had the fortune to watch. "The Young Master" is a nice and refreshing step in evolution in Jackie Chan's early movie career.
The storyline in "The Young Master" is easy to follow, and it has just the right amount of action and comedy to make it enjoyable without being downright silly, as some of the earlier movie suffered under.
However, there is a formula to the Hong Kong and Chinese movies that came out in the late 1970s and early 1980s, and "The Young Master" follows it straight to the point. An underdog has to fight against overwhelming odds, and his path is filled with perils, but also funny moments and situations. And at the very end, of course, there is a very long fight scene between the main character and the villain. Pretty straightforward and textbook step-by-step cinematography here.
What really works in this movie is that compared to the older movies, then the martial arts seems more fluid here and better choreographed, coming of as series of proper fighting, whereas the older movies were often painstakingly step-by-step choreographed and it was showing that the martial artists were following a strict schedule of what to do and where to throw punches or kicks.
As usual, then Jackie Chan manages to balance the scale between comedy and martial arts quite well, keeping the movie enjoyable and with just the right amount of slapstick comedy to make it funny.
For me, then this is the movie that marks the evolution of the Jackie Chan that we see on the screen today, and "The Young Master" is a definite must have in any collection of fans of Jackie Chan or fans of martial arts in general.
The storyline in "The Young Master" is easy to follow, and it has just the right amount of action and comedy to make it enjoyable without being downright silly, as some of the earlier movie suffered under.
However, there is a formula to the Hong Kong and Chinese movies that came out in the late 1970s and early 1980s, and "The Young Master" follows it straight to the point. An underdog has to fight against overwhelming odds, and his path is filled with perils, but also funny moments and situations. And at the very end, of course, there is a very long fight scene between the main character and the villain. Pretty straightforward and textbook step-by-step cinematography here.
What really works in this movie is that compared to the older movies, then the martial arts seems more fluid here and better choreographed, coming of as series of proper fighting, whereas the older movies were often painstakingly step-by-step choreographed and it was showing that the martial artists were following a strict schedule of what to do and where to throw punches or kicks.
As usual, then Jackie Chan manages to balance the scale between comedy and martial arts quite well, keeping the movie enjoyable and with just the right amount of slapstick comedy to make it funny.
For me, then this is the movie that marks the evolution of the Jackie Chan that we see on the screen today, and "The Young Master" is a definite must have in any collection of fans of Jackie Chan or fans of martial arts in general.