Taoism Drunkard — one in a short line of magic-themed wirefests from Yuen Woo Ping’s clan — has been called one of the wildest martial-arts movies ever made. And for good reason: It is!
There are bad guys who put their enemies on a boiling-hot slide, a guy who has spikes pop out of his elbows and kneecaps, an old alcoholic who drives around haphazardly in a buck-toothed car, a ruler looking for young boys to pleasure him, a rotund woman who looks to be Asia’s Wendie Jo Sperber with hair drawn up in Shrek ears, gratuitous breakdancing, poison that turns women wrinkly and haggard and, perhaps most famously, an enormous Pac-Man-like bowling ball thing — aka “the Watermelon Monster” — with very sharp teeth who likes to pop out of a box and fight people.
If you’re scratching your head and thinking, “How does all that come together?,” you’ve hit upon Taoism Drunkard’s major flaw: There is no story to it, making it a bit long in the tooth. It makes the Yuens’ similar (and highly recommended) Shaolin Drunkard look positively lucid. Still, it’s nuts-ass-crazy with a lot of anything-goes inventiveness (and not just in the fight scenes), and that has to count for something.
Plus, lotsa mistranslated subtitles!
• “Astronomic bastard, you have no conscience.”
• “With you know what is swollen face & nose.”
• “Want me to rub the arse again.”
• “Let me relax tonight and sleep on your bosom… very afraid of the wake up time.”
• “Remember, I want cherry boys.”
• “I give my face & mouth a wash & to urinate.”
• “Damn it, banana addict again.”
• “Perversive old man, goes back.”
• “They are her bastards? Does it really give birth to them.”
• “I want my virgin chicken.”
• “I am fallen down to death.”
• “Saliva, nose mucus, I am give you 20% discount more.”
• “Don’t beat, don’t beat, I am Mountain Dog.”
• “Don’t hurry, I am using abdominal language to joke with you.”
• “That’s why I need to have a permanent rice coupon.” —Rod Lott
His sanity eroded by his time spent caged like an animal in a P.O.W. camp, Hanson is a disheveled, mumbling mess of a human being, which causes problems when the local small-town bigwig (Ben Johnson) sends a deputy to ask him some questions about his MIA son. Hanson has no interest in talking to anyone, but the deputy and his gang of redneck yokels refuse to take no for an answer. Unfortunately for them, what the disturbed vet may lack in social graces he more than makes up for in kicking ass!
What really surprised me about Splitz was how much I was charmed by it. That’s not to say it’s a good movie — it’s far too hamstrung by the competing sensibilities of its four credited screenwriters to work as a successful whole — but I found it full of enough charming characters and worthwhile moments to allow me to patiently get through the scenes that were obviously written by whichever of the four writers was a hack-tastic moron.
Next, a bullied youth takes revenge on his tormenters via that old black magic, followed by a campfire tale that name-drops a slew of scary movies as it pays homage to the more “spirited” ones. The campers experience real terror, but hey, at least they’re not made to “