Hand Combat 121
lascivious, drunks. Novels and plays usually associate each of the insouciant
saints with a given emblem: a flute, a flower basket, a gourd, a whisk, etc. The
martial artist mimics wielding the icon in his training routine, which, even
as it appears intoxicated, is perfectly sober. The “Drunken Eight-Immortals
Fist,” sometimes referred to as the “Drunken Fist,” is still practiced today. In
recent decades it has become internationally renowned through Jackie
Chan’s (Cheng Long) (b. 1954) theatrical rendition in his blockbuster movie
Drunken Master (Zui quan) (1978).^23 The style’s occurrence in Hand Combat
Classic and Xuanji’s Acupuncture Points might indicate that it has been prac-
ticed at the Shaolin Monastery since as early as the seventeenth century.
Another style depicted in the two manuals is the “Confounding Fist” (Mi-
quan), so named because its quick and unexpected moves “are impossible for
the eyes to follow.”^24 “Confounding Fist” is the likely ancestor of the modern
style known as “Confounding-Tra c k Fist” (Mizong quan), which similar name is
matched by an identical etymology. According to one twentieth-century expert,
the “Confounding-Track Fist” is so called “because its unique footwork deceives
the adversary’s eyes.”^25 In recent decades the modern style has become interna-
tionally famous because of a series of movies celebrating its legendary practitio-
ner Huo Yuanjia (1869–1909). Bruce Lee’s Fists of Fury (1972) and Li Lianjie’s
Fig. 25. Buddhist hand symbolism (mudrâs).