The original Drunken Master!
Come Drink with Me is a 1966 Shaw Brothers Wuxia film directed by King Hu Jinquan, produced by Shaw Brothers, starring Cheng Pei-Pei in her Star-Making Role. Widely considered as one of the best Hong Kong films ever made, the film was selected as Hong Kong's entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 39th Academy Awards, and is also in Steven Jay Schneider's 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die.
Cheng Pei-pei, then aged 18 and a dancer, was cast as Golden Swallow, a swordswoman on a mission to rescue her brother (Lo Lieh), who was abducted by a bandit gang led by the powerful villain known as Jade Face. But when Jade Face's master, a former Shaolin monk turned to the dark side called Abbott Liao Kong intervenes, Golden Swallow finds help from the most unexpected source of all - a drunken, rambling idiot Fan Da-pei (Yueh Hua), who calls himself the Drunken Cat.
Cheng will reprise her role as Golden Swallow in its sequel, Golden Swallow, although the follow-up would focus less on Cheng and more on an entirely new character instead.
The film contains examples of the following tropes:
- Action Girl: Golden Swallow, the first of many, many action heroine roles portrayed by Cheng Pei-pei.
- All Monks Know Kung-Fu: The ultimate Big Bad is Abbott Liao Kung, a former Shaolin monk turned to the side of evil. He’s also the leader of the bandits and most powerful opponent in the entire movie.
- Amazon Brigade: In the final prisoner exchange battle, just as the Imperial soldiers are getting their asses kicked rather badly, Golden Swallow’s acolytes, a band of all-female warriors, quickly reveals themselves and ambushes the bandits. They also count as Men of Sherwood (Women?) compared to the Imperials, putting up a better fight against bandits, killing several enemies while suffering relatively minor casualties.
- An Arm and a Leg: During the kidnapping attempt on Golden Swallow’s brother, an unlucky guard gets his arm whacked off by a burly bandit mook.
- Badass in Distress: Golden Swallow, after being momentarily poisoned by Jade Faced Tiger, where she had to be rescued by Drunken Cat in a Big Damn Heroes moment.
- Bald of Evil: Abbott Liao Kung, a monk and secretly the leader of the bandit legion. He’s also Drunken Cat’s Arch-Enemy.
- Cane Fu: All the Drunken Cat needs to kick ass is his trusty short staff, which allows him to take out half a dozen bandits in a Single-Stroke Battle and kill Abbott Liao Kung by impalement through the chest in the final battle]. It helps that it's his master's sacred cane.
- Dance Battler: Golden Swallow’s fighting moves are based on ballet moves, with a lot of spinning and skipping around between her enemies. It helps that Cheng Pei-pei used to be a dancer before starting her career as an actress.
- Drunken Master: Drunken Cat might be the Ur-Example for wuxia cinema in general, pre-dating Drunken Master by 12 years.
- Dual Wield: Golden Swallow, who uses two long, thin knives in her fight at the temple.
- Eye Scream: During a secret meeting between Jade Face and Abbott Liao Kung in the Shaolin temple, a child monk quietly eavesdrops on their meeting. Jade Face catches the boy in his act and instinctively hurls one of his poisoned needles right into the boy’s eye, causing severe pain and agony until a bandit delivers a Mercy Kill.
- I Owe You My Life: Sort of. It's thanks to Liao Kong that Drunken Cat was taken in by a kung fu master, so he spares him after their first fight. Their second fight, however, is a fight to the death.
- Nobody Touches the Hair: During the temple battle, Golden Swallow maintains her cool for most of the fight, until Jade Face runs his sword a little too close to her, slicing up the ribbons holding her hair in place.
- No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: Abbott Liao Kong to Drunken Cat. He prevailed on his master to take Drunken Cat as a pupil, but grew envious as Drunken Cat proved better than him and received their master's cane. So he murdered their master and framed Drunken Cat…
- Obfuscating Stupidity: Drunken Cat, who spends half of the movie behaving like a rambling drunkard and idiot, until several bandits tries to kill him, at which point he swiftly reveals his true powers and takes them out before they realized they’ve severely underestimated the drunk before them.
- Redshirt Army: A rather literal example; the Imperial guards who are assigned to escort the general’s son in the opening scene are all clad in red, and they are killed off rather quickly by the invading bandit horde.
- The Reveal: Liao Kung, one of the bandit lord’s right-hand men, trained alongside Drunken Cat under the same master after Kung saved Cat’s life at a young age. He covets the bamboo staff under Drunken Cat’s possession that once belonged to their master.
- Right Out of My Clothes: During the temple visit, Golden Swallow enters wearing a long dress that covers most of her body. As she approaches the altar, several bandit mooks suddenly shows up and surrounds her, at which point she whips out her short swords concealed in her sleeves and slips right out of her dress into her usual attire for fighting enemies.
- Roaring Rampage of Rescue: The final battle is a prisoner exchange where Golden Swallow personally leads her own army to save her captured brother.
- Single-Stroke Battle: Part of Drunken Cat’s Establishing Character Moment; for the first half of the movie audiences sees him as an idiotic drunk who’s never seen without his wine bottle and frequently talks in a slur, but when a small band of bandits after Golden Swallow crosses path with him just as he’s trying to heal her, Drunken Cat effortlessly defeats them all with a combination of Cane Fu and Deadly Dodging.
- Slippery Skid: Drunken Cat manage to save Golden Swallow from Jade Face’s sword-strike by throwing a half-eaten rice cake at Jade Face’s foot, causing him to step on it and slip, allowing Golden Swallow to quickly get up and make a run for it.
- Tomboy with a Girly Streak: Golden Swallow may be an ass-kicking heroine who takes names with ease, but she’s also willing to wear dresses and adorn her hair with flowers if necessary.
- Unkempt Beauty: Golden Swallow, after the temple battle where she fights Jade Face directly and had her hair messed up in the process. Some DVD re-releases would portray her during this scene
. - Worthy Opponent: Abbott Liao Kung and Drunken Cat. The film ends with both of them fighting each other, mano-on-mano, and ends with Drunken Cat killing his opponent.
