Jackie Chan: Emergence of a Superstar Criterion Collection Review: Between Drunken Master and Project A

The Criterion first admitted Jackie Chan with the landmark Police Story. Then they added some of his other early martial arts comedies to the channel. Now those six films are officially part of the physical collection too. These are the movies he made after Drunken Master but before Project A solidified his style.

Half a Loaf of Kung Fu still looks a bit rough but it beats the old VHS tapes.  It’s a bit loose and broad. He’d discovered comedy but this one isn’t honed.

Spiritual Kung Fu looks even better than Shaw Bros. movies. It’s almost 4k just on Blu-ray. Already it’s a more focused martial arts comedy with Chan doing bits in one temple and with ghosts.

It is fun to see Jackie Chan in a traditional old school Kung Fu movie with the quality of a Shaw Bros. It doesn’t hamstring him into serious mode or go too far with silliness, and ghosts give it a distinct hook.

Fearless Hyena falls in between quality wise. It’s clearer than Loaf but not quite as sharp as Spiritual, but of course still awesome to see any Hong Kong movie in Criterion quality. It’s Chan’s directorial debut and he’s developing Kung Fu comedy but, he’s not Yuen Woo-ping. It’ll be a few more films before Chan fully develops his own style.

Fearless Hyena 2 is here for the sake of completion. It’s cobbled together with incomplete footage, outtakes (in some cases the same footage from part 1) and workarounds, but looks as sharp in HD as the first.

The Young Master sees Chan experimenting with more stunt sequences along with martial arts comedy and also looks great.

My Lucky Stars is of course a Lucky Stars movie with Chan in a cameo, but his parts are the closest to a Police Story movie in this set. It also looks great as the only modern-day movie in the set. The yellow of the carnival rights and Sammo Hung’s sweatsuit is bright.

Young Master and Lucky Stars include NG takes, or “no good” takes. They’re still pretty impressive. Most are close enough to the finished take that they wouldn’t make a blooper reel. Wires are visible in some of Young Master’s shots but that never stopped Hong Kong movies from including.

My Lucky Stars has more stunt bloopers. Chan slipping on a carnival ride, Michiko Nichiwaki missing choreography and vehicular stunts gone wrong are more like outtake material if the film included them in the end credits.

Frank Djeng gives new commentary on Fearless Hyena and Young Master as detailed as his Shout! Studios tracks. He is full of background on each performer and the production techniques of the era. For Hyena he also points out Peking Opera elements in the fight scenes. For Young Master, he gives background on lion dances and points out under cranking technique tells (the extras in the background are at higher speed).

Archival interviews with Chan, Hung and Nichiwaki are also informative, and Grady Hendrix’s 10 minute overview of Chan’s career from the Criterion Channel is also valuable context. Shout out to the cartoon renderings of Jackie in his various bumbling personas on the menu screens.