Rotten Tomatoes
Cancel Movies Tv shows FanStore News Showtimes

The Young Master

Play trailer Poster for The Young Master PG-13 1980 1h 33m Adventure Play Trailer Watchlist
Watchlist Tomatometer Popcornmeter
Tomatometer 3 Reviews 79% Popcornmeter 5,000+ Ratings
A kung-fu fighter (Jackie Chan) is mistaken for a fugitive while searching for his runaway brother.
Watch on Fandango at Home Buy Now

Where to Watch

The Young Master

Critics Reviews

View All (3) Critics Reviews
Rudie Obias Battleship Pretension The Young Master is a marked improvement from The Fearless Hyena movies with smoother pacing from story beats to action... Dec 2, 2023 Full Review Panos Kotzathanasis Asian Movie Pulse "The Young Master" is one of the films that built the myth of Jackie Chan, and a great introduction to his cinema. Apr 25, 2021 Full Review Emanuel Levy EmanuelLevy.Com Rated: 3/5 Aug 21, 2005 Full Review Read all reviews

Audience Reviews

View All (148) audience reviews
Nol P I rarely do not like a movie as I am picky on what I tune into to watch to save time! Is this Jackie's worst film ever? I typically like him but this movie had terrible direction and was all over the PLACE! I quit on this one after 60% in! I could not tolerate it anymore! Just rough to the max. 1 star at very best to give. Rated 1 out of 5 stars 09/09/24 Full Review Brent A 40% rating ... A slightly below average Jackie Chan film in my opinion. Rated 2 out of 5 stars 05/01/24 Full Review Carlos T Minha opinião: Este é um dos últimos trabalhode Jackie com o estilo de filme de Kung-Fu a moda antiga. Onde em um ano chegavam a fazer quase 1 filme por mês. Utilizavam os mesmo atores e coadvantes de um filme para outro e até com roteiros parecidos. Deste período o mais famoso de Jackie foi Drunke Master. E este momento de transição com filmes atuais a época e onde ganha além das lutas muita comédia. Com os parceiros Sammo Hung, Yuen Biao, Richard Ng, Eric Tsang, nesta época de Detonando em Barcelona e Projeto A. Depois vem uma nova fase com Police Story que é mais um marco em sua vida. Depois vem vários filmes em Holywood com parcerias com atores americanos, Chris Tucker, Owen Wilson, Schwazwneger, Johnny Knoxville, Burt Reynolds, Roger Moore. E várias atrizes; Michele Yeon, Maggie Cheung, Brigitte Lin, Lola Forner, MAdeline Carroll, Françoise Yep, Jennifer Love, Chrlie Yeung, Kumiko Goto, ... Neste filme Jackie faz o estilo do inicio de sua carreira, considero este filme também bem feito, pelo baixo orçamento e com o roteiro e enredo pobres onde aqui a boa atuação e boa luta teria de prevalecer para fazer sucesso. Com uma boa dose de humor que tras o filme consegue executar um bom serviço. Onde tem um matador que esta a procura de sua presa. E quem aparece para atrapalhar, Jackie. Vale apena assistir? Sim Nota: 7 Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars 08/03/23 Full Review Joel C As usual true entertainment. Jackie's Mickey Mouse Kung Fu style and Charlie Chaplin Martial Arts creates comedy and impressive show of strength and agility. The Leader of the antagonist gang is incredible with aggressive timing and power that out shines Jackie. Of course Jackie's true power is resilience and the ability to adapt. Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars 04/27/21 Full Review Audience Member A very funny Jackie Chan Kung fu movie. You can see the start of the Jackie style taking shape in this film but it still has that 70’s Shaw brothers Kung fu stylized choreography. All in all an entertaining film. Rated 3 out of 5 stars 02/24/19 Full Review Audience Member Considered one of the better entries into Jackie Chan's early collection of kung-fu films, The Young Master sounded like it promised old-fashioned martial arts fun. Low-budget Kung Fu films are a huge market in their native land, so there is a huge quantity of competition that a production like The Young Master is going to face. As a means of becoming memorable, such a film must offer something to separate itself from the crowd. The Young Master has the potential to achieve much more due to the presence of notorious star Jackie Chan, but that proves to be wishful thinking in the end. The Young Master easily falls into the same category as countless other low-budget Kung Fu films of the era. The problem however is that it fails to take an individualistic stand. The film has the better and worse elements of the majority of generic films that it matches up to, but the problem is that it lacks any kind of special distinction. There is no kind of clever hook in The Young Master, no distinctive style of comic relief or differential fighting style exhibited, it is merely the same basic story and decent martial arts choreography burdened by the many flaws that befall essentially every film of the same basic style. For one thing, the feature is no great visual experience. One common trope among low-budget Kung-Fu films is a flaw which burdens them all: poor resolution. The Young Master is not an exception to this issues and so the film looks rough and has a monochromatic colour scheme which seems to have a grim edge of sepia to it. It's bad enough that the potentially appealing scenery of the film has its life and colour removed as a result of this. Yet the action is not too much of a visual experience either. Many shots in the action scenes make use of slow-motion which proves to benefit them as it makes things that are occurring significantly more clear. The choreography doesn't churn out any specific techniques or fights that stand out in memory, but it is decent and the slow-motion ensures that it is captured as best as possible within its limitations. However, it does not match Jackie Chan's iconic style of fighting. In contrast to a martial artist such as Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan's technique is to fight at a fast rate yet take a momentary pause after each technique as if he is presenting his fights as a kata. The slow-motion in The Young Master proves to work against the action scenes in multiple ways, and it ultimately leaves the viewer to be stuck with more time in front of the screen. Considering that the action should be the one thing that makes The Young Master worth watching, the fact that it has this many problems even though it has Jackie Chan to headline it really takes the film into an extremely low standard of territory, beyond the limitations it was already facing to begin with. The way that the intended drama of The Young Master translates into its English-language dubbing makes the pretentious nature of it seem all the more ridiculous and as a result everything is a lot funnier. The attempts by the film to take itself seriously simply get in the way of The Young Master's potential to be a fun action experience and drags the film on for a lot longer than is necessary. The story is clearly a very generic one which the dialogue is not capable of saving, but that hardly matters since the film doesn't intend to be an insightful exploration of martial arts. It's just another half-assed feature which lightly touches upon familiar themes explored in essentially every Kung Fu film. And like the action, the script works against Jackie Chan's natural performance style because he has a talent for performing in Kung Fu films which he gives a humourous edge to, yet he is forced to take this one completely seriously despite the fact that there is nothing all that intelligent or challenging about The Young Master. The only humour in the film comes from the quality of the dubbing which is surely something that the filmmakers had not intended. It turns the melodrama of the film into ludicrous camp which effectively adds ridiculously over-the-top comic relief to the film. It would almost make the feature slightly more entertaining if it wasn't such a problematic production in the first place, but it just doesn't have the power to do that. The Young Master is not so bad it's good, it's just such a generic and cheap production that fails to capitalize on the talents of its star and falls into cliche story points and production flaws everywhere. Really, the problems in The Young Master centre around the fact that it does nothing to live up to the credibility of its main star, Jackie Chan. The accomplished martial artist many credit as filling the void left by the untimely death of Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan has the legacy of starring in many kung fu films such as Snake in the Eagle's Shadow (1978) and Drunken Master (1978). Both these films predate The Young Master by two years and provide a powerful showcase for the true talents of Jackie Chan, but the difference is that he is in the director's chair this time. His debut as a director was the preceding year with The Fearless Hyena (1979), a mediocre story made unforgettable by its distinctive style of action which included a fight scene executed entirely with chop sticks. The Young Master is a step down for him because it is far more conventional and lacking in any of the man's distinctive charms. By the point of The Young Master, Jackie Chan is yet to define his path as a film director. The Young Master offers a lack of distinction among a crowd of low-budget Kung Fu films: poor quality resolution, generic choreography, a weak story which takes itself too seriously and minimal use of Jackie Chan's distinctive charms. Rated 0.5 out of 5 stars 01/27/23 Full Review Read all reviews
The Young Master

My Rating

Read More Read Less POST RATING WRITE A REVIEW EDIT REVIEW

Cast & Crew

Movie Info

Synopsis A kung-fu fighter (Jackie Chan) is mistaken for a fugitive while searching for his runaway brother.
Director
Jackie Chan
Producer
Raymond Chow Man-Wai, Leonard Ho
Screenwriter
Jackie Chan, King-Sang Tang, Tin-Chi Lau, Tung Lo
Production Co
Golden Harvest Company
Rating
PG-13
Genre
Adventure
Original Language
Chinese
Release Date (Streaming)
Jan 16, 2017
Runtime
1h 33m
Most Popular at Home Now