The Shaolin Drunken Monk
1982 film

The Shaolin Drunken Monk is a 1981 kung fu film directed by Au Yeung Chun and Lau Ka-Liang, and produced by Ocean Shores.
Plot
After a kung-fu master is killed by his students and his wife forced into suicide, their son (Lao Chung) must run for his life. Eventually, Lao discovers a hermit who has history in Shaolin and drunken kung-fu and is taught kung-fu. To avenge his parents, Lao kidnaps the daughter of one of the men who betrayed his father in hope of luring him out. Through the process of defeating his minions Lao befriends a one-handed fighter out for similar revenge, and the daughter falls in love with Lao. Lao and the one-handed man team-up in a final battle to the death. When the fight is over the daughter commits suicide in grievance of her father's past deeds, death & Lao's role in them both.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “The Shaolin Drunken Monk” is 1982 film. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Shaolin, Drunken and Monk, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “1982 film” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
Attribution, date and provenance are strongest when supported by the original work, a catalogue record and documented transmission. The source revision retrieved here is dated Dec 29, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q7763658. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1981.
Titles can refer to several editions, objects or performances, making precise identification essential before interpretation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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Three-step research path
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- Expand the search: follow The Shaolin Drunken Monk primary sources, The Shaolin Drunken Monk archive and Shaolin research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
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Questions for further research
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This entry incorporates text from “The Shaolin Drunken Monk” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.