The Young Master

The Young Master (師弟出馬, 1980) is Jackie Chan's Hong Kong martial arts comedy you can watch online on iFILM. This was Chan's directorial debut for Golden Harvest, and already the fingerprints are clear: long uncut fight sequences, physical comedy worked into the choreography, and a leading man who was also the stunt coordinator and the guy taking the hits.

The story follows Lung, searching for his missing brother, who gets mistaken for a fugitive criminal. Police are closing in from one direction, hired muscle from another, and Lung has no way to prove he's the wrong man except by outfighting everyone long enough for the truth to surface. The fan duel midway through the film and the twenty-minute climactic fight — filmed over dozens of takes, almost no editing — are why Chan built his reputation on practicality over flash.

Forty-odd years later it still holds up as an example of what Hong Kong action cinema could do when the emphasis was on craft rather than effects. A good place to start if you've never seen Chan's early work. Stream The Young Master (1980) online on iFILM.