This film made me into a proper fan of Chan. What a wonderfully choreographed film.

The fights took months and months to perfect, and you can tell. Some of the action literally took my breath away.

The film's comedy borders on the Shakespearean, with mistaken identity, circumstance, and chance encounters blending to form the backbone of a superbly conceived storyline.

The sole criticism I have of the movie, is that you don't realise it is a comedy until about half an hour into it. Up to that point, it takes itself a tad too seriously, and even tries to strum the heart strings with a weepy scene where Chan thanks his Master for looking after him since he was found as a street orphan in childhood. When you get past all that, however, you're looking at possibly the greatest action film of all time.

The classical fighting style in Chan's movies took a back seat after this, with the advent of movies like Project A and Police Story. Chan returned to this style with Young Master in Love (Dragon Lord) a couple of years later, but that was more of a sports movie than a kung-fu fest.

In 1994, Jackie released Legend of Drunken Master, which followed in the same vain as Drunken Master (1979),and in many ways was superior. It's just such a shame that, "Jackie don't make 'em like he used to....."

This is actually one of the better of the earlier Jackie Chan movies that I have had the fortune to watch. "The Young Master" is a nice and refreshing step in evolution in Jackie Chan's early movie career.

The storyline in "The Young Master" is easy to follow, and it has just the right amount of action and comedy to make it enjoyable without being downright silly, as some of the earlier movie suffered under.

However, there is a formula to the Hong Kong and Chinese movies that came out in the late 1970s and early 1980s, and "The Young Master" follows it straight to the point. An underdog has to fight against overwhelming odds, and his path is filled with perils, but also funny moments and situations. And at the very end, of course, there is a very long fight scene between the main character and the villain. Pretty straightforward and textbook step-by-step cinematography here.

What really works in this movie is that compared to the older movies, then the martial arts seems more fluid here and better choreographed, coming of as series of proper fighting, whereas the older movies were often painstakingly step-by-step choreographed and it was showing that the martial artists were following a strict schedule of what to do and where to throw punches or kicks.

As usual, then Jackie Chan manages to balance the scale between comedy and martial arts quite well, keeping the movie enjoyable and with just the right amount of slapstick comedy to make it funny.

For me, then this is the movie that marks the evolution of the Jackie Chan that we see on the screen today, and "The Young Master" is a definite must have in any collection of fans of Jackie Chan or fans of martial arts in general.

This period film from Jackie Chan benefits from his skills as an accomplished martial artist as well as his burgeoning talent as a director. Unsurprisingly, the various action sequences which play throughout are expertly handled with the utmost skill. Technically, the production values are pretty basic and there are none of the locations or special effects that turned up later in Chan movies. Instead, this is another of his small-scale epics which is packed with all kinds of action and not a lot else. The fights are well-staged and generally good, and become frenetic and exciting in places such as the finale. Be warned, Chan's trademark for dangerous stunts is in short supply here and there's only one moment - the wall-climbing - that looks to be genuinely scary.

Chan stars as an unlucky (what else) student of a martial arts school who is dismayed to learn that one of his best buddies has teamed up with a dastardly gang of thugs and robbers. What follows are scenes which involve him getting mixed up with a rival policeman and his children with lots of slapstick antics and martial arts mixed in. The finale involves a long, extended fight between Chan and the chief bad guy which never becomes boring. The acting is surprisingly good all round and there are the usual over-the-top theatrics (Tien Feng as an exasperated martial arts master) and bizarre characters, like the guy with glasses and sticky-out ears. Watch out for Yuen Biao in an early co-starring role with Jackie. Chan mugs for all his worth as usual but makes up for it in the fights. Not one of Jackie's all-time classics, but a definite must for Chan fans and worth a look for everyone else.