Movies Like Dance of the Drunk Mantis
If you loved Dance of the Drunk Mantis's Action and Comedy storytelling, these films deliver a similar experience — carefully selected for tone, themes, and emotional depth. Each pick includes where to watch it right now.
★ Top Picks

Drunken Master
After getting into trouble, a mischievous young man is sent to train under a brutal, but slovenly old beggar, who teaches him the secret of the Drunken Fist.

The Legend of Drunken Master
Returning home with his father after a shopping expedition, Wong Fei-Hong is unwittingly caught up in the battle between foreigners who wish to export ancient Chinese artifacts and loyalists who don't want the pieces to leave the country. Fei-Hong must fight against the foreigners using his Drunken Boxing style, and overcome his father's antagonism as well.

Snake in the Eagle's Shadow
Everyone abuses and humiliates a downtrodden orphan until he befriends an old man, who turns out to be the last master of the snake fist fighting style. Jackie becomes the old man's student and finds himself in battle with the master of the eagle's claw style, who has vowed to destroy the snake fist clan.

Gallants
Master Law awakes from a 30-year coma without memories, but his martial arts skills are intact. His renowned kung fu academy is now a teahouse, and greedy developers are trying to steamroll it to make way for condos

Dragon Lord
Dragon and his madcap pal Cowboy spend their days getting into mischief, frustrating the elders, chasing girls, and competing in the village sport. When Dragon overhears a fiendish plot by smugglers to sell China's national treasures overseas, the pair leap into action. Also, Cowboy's wealthy father is kidnapped by the villainous and lethal Big Boss, and the scene is set for a furious martial arts showdown.

Knockabout
After being cheated out of some money, two small time crooks convince a martial arts expert to take them on as students.

Embattled
The eldest son of a ruthlessly tough MMA champion must fight his way out of the abusive cycle his father has continued.

House of Fury
Teddy Yu is a former secret agent turned chiropractor who thought he left his past behind. He teaches martial arts to his two kids. However, his past catches up to him as a rogue agent demands to know the whereabouts of an agent known as Dragon. Now, father and children must team up to stop the rogue agent and his goons.
More Movies Like Dance of the Drunk Mantis

The Prodigal Son
A rich man's son believes himself to be the best kung fu fighter in Canton. Unfortunately, his father, anxious for his son's safety, bribes all his opponents to lose. After a humiliating defeat at the hands of an actor in a traveling theatre company, the son resolves to find a better teacher.

Mad Monkey Kung Fu
A disgraced former Kung Fu expert makes a living as a merchant with the help of a hot headed friend. When the men are harassed by gangsters, the merchant decided to teach his friend monkey boxing so they can defend their business.

Love on Delivery
Ho Kam-An is a lovestruck dim sum delivery boy who falls for a beautiful judo student. After being humiliated by her boyfriend, Ho Kam-An seeks the services of an aging master who teaches him a half-assed style of kung fu, "Karate Kid"-style.

The Big Brawl
A young Asian American martial artist is forced to participate in a brutal formal street-fight competition.

Dragon Tiger Gate
Three young martial arts masters emerge from the back streets of Hong Kong to help the powerless fight injustice.

The Magnificent Butcher
A plump butcher student of Wong Fei Hung, Lam Sai-Wing gets into trouble with a rival kung-fu school known as Five Dragons. He is accused of raping the Head of that school's goddaughter and killing his son. Now Ko, the Head of Five Dragons, wants revenge.

Rush Hour 3
After a botched assassination attempt, the mismatched duo finds themselves in Paris, struggling to retrieve a precious list of names, as the murderous crime syndicate's henchmen try their best to stop them. Once more, Lee and Carter must fight their way through dangerous gangsters; however, this time, the past has come back to haunt Lee. Will the boys get the job done once and for all?

Die Hart
Kevin Hart - playing a version of himself - is on a death-defying quest to become an action star. And with a little help from John Travolta, Nathalie Emmanuel, and Josh Hartnett - he just might pull it off.

Rush Hour 2
It's vacation time for Carter as he finds himself alongside Lee in Hong Kong wishing for more excitement. While Carter wants to party and meet the ladies, Lee is out to track down a Triad gang lord who may be responsible for killing two men at the American Embassy. Things get complicated as the pair stumble onto a counterfeiting plot. The boys are soon up to their necks in fist fights and life-threatening situations. A trip back to the U.S. may provide the answers about the bombing, the counterfeiting, and the true allegiance of sexy customs agent Isabella.

Ninja: Shadow of a Tear
Fight everyone and trust no one: it's the code of survival practiced by martial-arts master Casey Bowman after his life of domestic bliss is shattered by a savage act of violence. Vowing revenge, the fearless American stealthily tracks the killer from Osaka to Bangkok to Rangoon with the help of a wise and crafty sensei. His only clues: a series of victims whose necks bear the distinctive mark of strangulation by barbed wire. Fighting to avenge as well as to survive, Casey must sharpen his razor-like responses and take his battle skills to the next level, even using deep meditation to fake his own death. His target: the sinister drug lord Goro, who is flooding the streets with deadly meth cooked at his remote jungle factory. To prepare for his ultimate confrontation, Casey must finally become an invisible warrior worthy of the name Ninja. But just when his prey is cornered, an unexpected twist shows Casey that his battle is only beginning: he truly can trust no one.

The Machine
Bert Kreischer faces a familial crisis and the arrival of his estranged father when the ghost of his booze-soaked past arrives: a murderous mobster hellbent on kidnapping Bert back to the motherland to atone for his crimes. Together, he and his father must retrace the steps of his younger self in the midst of a war between a sociopathic crime family while they attempt to find common ground.
Why These Movies Are Similar
These recommendations share core qualities with Dance of the Drunk Mantis (1979): Action and Comedy themes, similar narrative structure, and comparable emotional depth. NoBadPicks uses a combination of TMDB collaborative filtering, genre matching, and AI analysis to surface films most likely to resonate with fans of Dance of the Drunk Mantis.
See full details for Dance of the Drunk Mantis (1979)
