Drunken Master 2 AKA Legend of Drunken Master

Legendary physician and martial artist Wong Fei-Hong has long been one of the staples of the Hong Kong cinema. First incarnated by Kwan Tak-Hing in a long-running series from the 1950s through early 1970s – for an older generation he was Fei-Hong – Jackie Chan then reinterpreted the character as a fun-loving, trouble-prone youngster in his second breaththrough film, 1978's Drunken Master.

The next chapter in the saga came in 1990 when visionary producer/director Tsui Hark and Jet Li reinvented Fei-Hung against the historical background of western imperialism as a proto-nationalist figure in the Once Upon a Time in China series – the first film was actually titled Wong Fei-Hung in its home market – in the run-up of the return to mainland rule.

Chan took note and responded with this belated sequel, directed by and co-starring ace martial artist Lau-Kar Leung, originally released in 1994 as – obviously enough – Drunken Master 2

40 at the time, Chan was really way too old to be reprising the part of the wayward son – especially when one considers that Ti Lung, playing his stern, patrician father was a scant eight years older and Anita Mui, as his feisty stepmother, fully nine years younger – but with the enthusiasm and energy of a man 15 years his junior soon dispels any doubts one might have.

More problematic is the attempt to combine the Chan and Li versions of Fei-Hung, in presenting a wayward youth against a backdrop of anti-colonial struggle.

The difficulty lies not so much in the perfunctory plot – Fei-Hong gets mixed up in a British plot to steal national treasures when his father's ginseng gets mixed up with the emperor's jade seal, providing plenty of opportunity for action, comedy and drama – as with what Dimension Pictures have done in their bid to retool the film – as Legend of the Drunken Master – for a mainstream western audience which only knows Chan through subsequent English-language ventures such as Shanghai Noon and Rush Hour.

The dubbing robs the characters and story of almost any subtleties they might once have had. Although Chan does his own you really do not want to hear Mui voiced like some girl in da hood, threatening to kick one guy's "ass" after he calls her a "bitch". Coupled with the substitution of Michael Wandmacher's new Chinese-style score for Wai Lap Wu's original, 'authentic' real thing – one also misses a rendition of "under the general's orders"? – this cannot but come across as somewhat ironic.

Still, with plenty of superior fight scenes that trump anything Chan has done in North America, from his beneath-train duel against Leung's, armed with spear and sword, to the final showdown with the British bad guys and their comprador henchmen amidst the steel mill that operates as front for their operations, it's perhaps a case of protesting too much.

Dimension's Region One DVD looks good enough, with a clean, bright and detailed 2.35:1 anamorphic transfer. The sound, despite the new 5.1 Dolby mix is less satisfactory on account of a discernible lack of synch in several of the fight sequences.

The extras comprise a selection of trailers for Dimension's Chan and Li product, and a interview with the man himself, who is pleased that his film has reached the American audience.