STUDIO: Dragon Dynasty
RELEASE DATE: May 27, 2008
STARRING: Cheng Pei-Pei, Yueh Hua, Chen Hung-Lieh, Yeung Chi-Hing, and Lee Wan-Chung
WRITTEN BY: King Hu and Yi Cheung
DIRECTED BY: King Hu
FEATURES: Audio Commentary By Cheng Pei Pei and Bey Logan
Interviews
"The King and I"
"A Classic Remembered"
Trailers

In terms of groundbreaking martial arts films, it really doesn’t get any better than Come Drink with Me. Prior to breaking out with American audiences in Ang Lee’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Asian fight queen Cheng Pei Pei got her early start in the 1960s in legendary director King Hu’s classic Shaw Brothers film Come Drink with Me, a Ming Dynasty set tale about a deadly female secret agent named Golden Swallow who’s sent to rescue a general’s son from a clan of bandits who have taken the offspring captive in order to get back their leader. With the help of a hard-drinking musical martial arts mentor appropriately named Drunken Cat, Golden Swallow and her new aid kick bandit butt en route to a final action-packed sword-wielding showdown that commands cinematic respect. However, while Come Drink with Me might now seem like a cheesy martial arts film to some, it certainly wasn’t in 1966.

The interesting thing about the now classic film is that Cheng Pei Pei was only 16 years old when she was first introduced to the fight world through Come Drink with Me. When looking back at the 1960s, it was a time when women in America were fighting their own revolution. To think that across the seas, a young teenage girl was taking the lead as a legitimate martial arts action hero is truly groundbreaking. Although Come Drink with Me set a new standard with its revolutionary use of wire-work, which opened up a whole new world of possibilities for fight sequences, it’s sense of style and its physicality still feels fresh over 40 years later. To think that such intricate use of wirework was being used in Hong Kong cinema 30 years before Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is mind-blowing. Throw in a few musical numbers and comedy and you have a martial arts action movie that, in many ways from a modern perspective, feels like a super low budget pitch of Fiddler on the Roof meets Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Relatively speaking, Crouching Tiger set a new standard in America only eight years ago, so you can just imagine what Come Drink with Me felt like in the ‘60s.

Although Come Drink with Me has turned up on DVD before, Dragon Dynasty delivers what can only be described as the definitive version of the film on the home entertainment market. The video print from Celestial Pictures, although visibly aging, has obviously been cleaned up as much as possible while the audio in English 5.1 and Mandarin Mono offers the best acoustic experience to date. For an influential film that’s now over 40 years old, Come Drink with Me feels new all over again. If you haven’t seen the film, this DVD might be the best intro to the film you could ever hope for, especially if you have the right home theater set-up.

Once again, like all of the previously released titles in its catalogue, Dragon Dynasty goes the extra mile in the way of extras, serving up a double-barreled feature commentary with actress Cheng Pei Pei and Hong Kong cinema expert Bey Logan, a tribute to director King Hu from acclaimed martial arts director Tsui Hark (Double Dragon, The Missing, The Eye 3), an exclusive interview with Chen Pei Pei called “Come Speak with Me”, a retrospective reflection of the film with Bey Logan titled “”A Classic Remembered”, and exclusive interview with actor Yueh Hua who played Fan “Drunken Cat” Ta Pei.

The special features are very much a celebration of the film and its legacy and they pay a deserving tribute through fairly meaty segments. While each interview runs an average of 15 to 20 minutes, the Cheng Pei Pei, Bey Logan commentary offers the best entertainment value, as they cover several angles of the film from a reflective standpoint through to production and its place in history. The inclusion of Logan certainly enhances the diversity of the track to give fans a truly deep feature commentary. Although director King Hu passed away 11 years ago, the fact that Cheng Pei Pei and Yueh Hua turned up to celebrate the film so many years later on DVD is something true fans should appreciate.

Once again, Dragon Dynasty outdoes itself in terms of quality to deliver yet another stellar DVD release. Come Drink with Me is simply one of the best martial arts films ever made, period. Given its impact on the genre and on the global film world at large, this is a must-own DVD for true martial arts action fans. Like I mentioned at the outset of this review, in terms of groundbreaking martial arts films, it really doesn’t get any better than Come Drink with Me.