Such a frustrating disappointment

Entertaining from beginning to end, it maintains the spirit of the franchise while establishing it's own seal with a fun cast

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

A group of bandits kidnaps the governor's son and demands their imprisoned leader to be set free in exchange.Director King Hu said that he had deliberately chosen a ballet dancer for the lead female role, "rather than fighting. I'm very interested in Peking opera and particularly its movement and action effects, although I think it's difficult to express them adequately on stage, where the physical limitations are too great." King Hu was said to recognize that some of the fights are stylized as opposed to realistic but claimed that combat in his movies was "always keyed to the notion of dance." I had always thought "kung fu" movies were very much based around dancing. Is this unusual, or was it a new style? I am curious. What we see today is so choreographed I have a hard time imagining it any other way.

My score of 8 does not mean that the original COME DRINK WITH ME (DA ZUI XIA) deserves this score. This score is for the Genius Products DVD version. While on one hand I am very, very glad the film was not poorly dubbed into English but actually features a subtitled version, the titles are very, very bad. Oddly, the subbing appeared to get worse as the film progressed! I knew something was amiss when they kept referring to a female as 'he' and 'sir' but later in the film the subtitles often made even less sense--like the translation from Chinese to subtitles was being done by a poor computer program not a human being who truly understood the languages. Now this DVD is not all bad--at least the copy is as pristine as you can find--with a clean and crisp print. Thank goodness for something positive to say about the copy.As for the technical merits of the film, the martial arts action is not the best I've seen, but it is very, very good--and quite a bit better than the typical film of the genre. Most of the blows appear to actually connect and the sword action is very good as well. The people making the film actually knew kung fu and they are impressive to watch. This is NOT a film where blows obviously miss and there are lots of squashing celery and the typical slapping sounds for special effects.The story is pretty interesting and takes you by surprise here and there. The leader of a band of thieves is caught by the government and will be executed. However, the gang captures the son of the governor and plans on killing him unless they get their leader back in five days. In response, the government sends in a special agent who turns out to be the son's sister. She is extremely skilled and is planning on taking on the gang--not returning their evil leader. While this plot seems pretty straight-forward, there's much more to it. In the midst of all this wanders a beggar who is definitely much more than he appears to be. When the lady is injured, he steps forward to help and he turns out to be a much more potent fighter than anyone realized. While he does help her achieve justice, he also has another task at hand--to exact justice for the murder of his master.Overall, this is definitely one of the better films of the genre and is well worth seeing. However, if you can find a non-dubbed and non-Genius DVD (if that's possible), you may find the film is a bit better than an 8. I sure hope this is possible, as the film deserves a much better translation into English.

Having been very disappointed in King Hu's most famous film, A Touch of Zen, I was actually eager to see one of his other supposed masterpieces. I wanted to see if the guy just didn't work for me or what. Fortunately, his earlier film, Come Drink with Me, made for Shaw Brothers, impressed me a lot. I would still complain about the choppy editing during the kung fu sequences, which not only makes it difficult to understand what's going on, but also makes the martial arts magic less believable. But while there are a few brief scenes where I thought the editing was weak in such a way, there are three extended action sequences that are eye-popping and heart-stopping. Cheng Pei-Pei, best known now for her latter-day role in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, plays a powerful kung fu student trying to rescue her brother, who has been kidnapped by a gang of dissidents, led by the chalk-faced Hung Lieh Chen. He's one of the all-time great bad guys, and I love his cohorts, as well. The film is full of fantastic character design. Cheng teams up with Hua Yueh, a drunken beggar who is secretly a kung fu master. What really comes through is Hu's supreme visual sense. It definitely made me more interested in the man's works, and even in revisiting A Touch of Zen.

Come Drink With Me is touted as arguably the greatest martial arts film, ever. In its day, this is the movie that broke a lot of grounds, thanks to meticulous direction and vision of King Hu.The story is simple though, telling of Golden Swallow's (Cheng Pei Pei) quest to rescue her brother, a government official, in a ransom case with a bunch of bandits. While her prowess is formidable, a little help is always appreciated when up against the masses, and little does she know that a beggar of sorts, called the Drunken Cat (Yueh Hua), turns out to be her guardian angel. While the Chinese title is obviously a reference to Yueh Hua's character, this movie is clearly Cheng Pei Pei's breakthrough in the martial arts genre.The martial arts here is distinctively different. For its time, it was a breakthrough, with its moving cameras, violence, splattering of blood, as well as fights done with adequate pauses and breaks, like a Western stand off at times, before lunging at each other. The movement, while fluid, is slow compared to these days, then again, having action done too fast would mean either stunt people taking over, or you can't see a thing. The style in this movie struck me as samurai styled swordplay, even though the weapon our heroine used was a pair of short swords rather than katanas. The weapons used too were real, lending a sense of realism when the combatants clash.There are still some opera influences in the movie, especially when it comes to the music, done with Chinese orchestra, and accentuates the scenes like a big opera. Playing in sync to the action on screen, it's an early base on which films like Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon adopted to great effect. The cinematography is great too, given the many exterior shots in backlots and elaborate sets, featuring classical locales like inns and temples. The introductory scene in the inn will take your breath away, never mind that some cheesy (for today) techniques of stop motion and the reversing of film were used.Cheng Pei Pei is a star in the movie, and she has managed to infuse her background in ballet and dance to the martial arts moves for the movie, bringing forth a very beautiful poise when executing her moves. Her eyes too were luminous and have a life of their own, and can stare daggers at her enemies. Yueh Hua though felt more carefree, given his role as a wandering beggar. And while there are hints of romance between their characters, don't hold your breaths on counting them developing it any further.A to-the-point story, and excellent martial arts. This is a definite must watch for all martial arts genre fans.IVL Code 3 DVD Extras:A departure from the other IVL releases I've watched so far, this DVD had a valuable commentary by Cheng Pei Pei herself, and daughter Marsha Yuen, presented by film producer Bey Logan, in English. It's quite hilarious listening to Logan try and identify some of the actors, but always getting them wrong and had to be corrected by Pei Pei, until he knew not to embarrass himself further and allowed Pei Pei to introduce them instead. Marsha however, had little to contribute, except to laugh loudly into the microphone.There are two Come Drink With Me trailers included, one the original which had its written script which you have to read running from right to left, and the quality is pretty degraded. The new remastered one is definitely clearer, and so were the trailers for other movies, some starring Pei Pei herself.You have the usual extras as well, like the few movie stills, one original poster, a one page one paragraph worth of production notes, as well as a short cast and crew biography and filmography. A pity thought that you can note some typos in the DVD menus and subtitles.The real gems of the extras, are the interview clips.The longest interview on the disc is with Cheng Pei Pei (18 mins 30s) done in English, where she compares martial arts movies then and now, shared some production nuggets such as the duration of shooting the fight scenes, on sexuality of those days, her working relationship with King Hu, provided insights into working under Shaw Bros. explained her ease with learning martial arts, and shared on her working experiences with Yueh Hua.Yueh Hua too has an interview included, though it was quite short, clocking at 4 mins 45s. He shares his thoughts on working with King Hu and Cheng Pei Pei, as well as revealing that he had real wine in that wine bottle prop to assist him in getting into character. However, the interview is conducted in Mandarin, with no subtitles provided.I'm surprised at the inclusion of an interview with Marsha Yuan (daughter of Cheng Pei Pei) in English, for 6 mins and 40s, as she shares her thoughts on the movie, her realization when growing up that her mom was famous, and the big revelation is that there is going to be a sequel she's gonna star in. Is there?The last two interviews are with film critic Paul Fonoroff and film producer Bey Logan, as both talk about Cheng Pei Pei and King Hu, clocking at 9 mins 50s, and 4 mins 40s respectively. The former interview is more insightful though, as he shares a little on the history of the rivalry between Shaw and Cathay in their heydays.The restored version in the DVD is pristine, save for one or two scenes in soft focus which seemed a little blur. Audio transfer is great too. The only pity is that it's not in Anamorphic Widescreen.