martial arts movies

Lets discuss martial arts movies!

I for one love kung fu flicks, but unfortunately haven't seen too many of them. The majority of them that I have seen were on international TV, as I haven't found a place locally which sells any of it.

What impresses me the most is fancy foot work, like the crap Jackie Chan does in Snake in Eagles Shadow. To think that such acrobatics are actually a form of combat, it boggles my mind.

My favorite movies are either Once Upon a Time in China or Armour of God. I have bodgy VHS's of them that I taped off TV.

Arjue,For martial arts dvd, you need to look into ordering directly from HK. This way you get best pricing, and while I dont know what are the shipping rates for HK to Australia shipping, I'm sure it will be reasonable(especially with larger orders).

I love Martial Arts films. I have big HK film collection, with many great MA films. Jackie Chan, Jet Li, Sammo Hung, Yuen Biao, Donnie Yen and many other ones.

I do prefer more serious MA with less wire work, and more brutal fighting(Fist of the Legend was great at both, combining great fighting with some wire work), over more wire work enhanced entries(Swordsman series, Fong Sai Yuk, Hero) or some of lighter Jackie Chan's antics.

I love the use of weapons in MA films, swords especially.

Here some of my favorites:

Fist of Legend - One of Jet Li's best.

Bodyguard from Beijing - WHile not true MA film and hated by many, it still have great fight between Jet Li and Ngai Sing at the end.

Tai Chi Master - Another great Jet Li film.

Dragons Forever and Wheals on Meals

Above the Law(Righting Wrongs) (not Steven Seagal one :p)

Shaolin Trilogy - Early Jet Li

Kiss of the Dragon - US entry on the list, but Jet Li is great in this one.

Hero - WHile I didnt like it, it still a great film, and Jet Li fight VS Donnie Yen is worth mentioning.

CTHD - Some great fight sequences, especially weapon bout between Muchelle Yeoh and Zhang Zui(or whats her name is :p)

Drive - One of the best US made MA films, and Mark Dacasscos is excellent.

I will post more later :)

Let the discussion continue.

I've been meaning to see some of Jackie Chan's earlier, more over the top stuff like Project A, etc. Same goes with Jet Li.

The only kung fu movies I've see have been awful shit, like a bunch of the Wu-Tang movies, 5 Fingers of Death, The Five Deadly Venoms, etc.

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Kiss of the Dragon - US entry on the list, but Jet Li is great in this one.

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Boo!

Stay away from that junk.

I, too, love MA films, but it's generall hard to find consistent quality. U.S. releases are also either non-existent or shoddy, or just hard to find sometimes.

Fist of Legend (Jet Li): My favorite, and like Despair says, excellent use of wirework that isn't overdone or magical. The story is great too, and fits Li's "acting". Great fights and characters.

Iron Monkey (Donnie Yen): A more over-the top MA film, using wirework liberally, but it all works. Again, an entertaining story with great characters and stupendous martial arts (that corrupted monk is the best).

Legend of Drunken Master (Jackie Chan): Occasionally silly writing and dull moments can't take away from the amazingly staged fights, and unmatched choreography. Jacke Chan is the drunken master. The ~20 minute long grand finale is probably the best in MA films.

Twin Warriors (Tai Chi Master in HK) (Jet Li, Michelle Yeoh): Sometimes a little too goofy (okay, many times), but the story is good, and the action is SO over the top that you can't help but enjoy it.

Boo on you Reg, you like Matrix Reloaded after all ;)

Damn, I forgot to mention Drunken Master 2(or as it was release in US: Legend of Drunken Master). Great Jackie film, with REALLY good fighting and good old Jackie :p

OK here's my input...I love MA films and they are mostly the only films I watch, whether old-school or contemporary MA have influenced many industries and cross a lot of genres in HK cinema, so even if a film is very much comedic, it can still have great MA, that's why I love the HK film industry...

Here's some good ones (i'll try to list ones not mentioned before):

•Shaolin Soccer -- this newer comedy/sports/action film is not really MA, but it fuses ideas based in Shaolin fighting and uses soccer for the action -- this is actually one of my favorite HK films ever.

•Well Jackie Chan is the reason I got into HK films, so I would be crazy not to mention his films here -- take your pick and you'll find something good for the most part in all of his HK films (even the poor ones), my favorites are the ones he directed himself -- Police Story, Project A, Miracles, and DM2 (veteran Lau Kar Leung did some of the direction on some of the fights and you can tell the ones Chan did and didn't, Chan did the ending fight BTW). Special mention goes to Thundebolt for Sammo Hung's absolutely amazing fight scenes in this one...screw the rest of the film, those fights are some of the coolest I've ever seen in a Jackie film...

•KOD -- yes I second this film and absolutely love Corey Yuen Kwai's choreography, from Righting Wrongs w/Yuen Biao to KOD, to Transporter, to So Close (finally got this one Despair and Naked Killer is on it's way too--sorry unrelated rambling) -- I don't much care for Yuen Wo Ping outside of OUATIC, Fist of Legend, and a few others, because I love the brutal, hand-held camera work that Corey uses...

•Eastern Condors -- this film is tight -- even if you only get it to watch the ending fight, you won't be disappointed. Everyone is in this one. Biao, Sammo, Lam Ching Ying, Sammo's former wife Joyce Mina Godenzi, -- this film is brutal and beautiful...I'd say among Sammo's best choreography.

•Knock Off and Double Team -- ok after you're done laughing, I'll tell you why I love these films. They are by Tsui Hark and Sammo Hung was involved in the choreography (I think on DT) and these films are inventive as hell with the camera (even more so in KO)...they are fun and make Van Damme into a decent fighter...these films feel like 100% HK films...not Hollywood and that's I like them...

•here's an old-school one you can find most place -- Gordon Liu's 8-Diagram Pole Fighter (aka Invincible Pole Fighter) -- old-school at it's finest and directed by Lau Kar Leung -- dark and bloody and with tons of Shaolin fighting...

•Circus Kid -- I only have the VCD of this one but you can get it from Yesasia.com for 5 bucks and it's a great Yuen Biao film...he plays a circus acrobat so there is tons of fighting and acrobatics and also features JC's former body guard Ken Lo and even noted film critic/writer Bey Logan is in this one...

That's all for now...I'll post more later...

Dolemite's funky Kung-Fu list:

Fearless Fighters- lots of talking for a kung fu movie, and the fighting is pretty bad, but the dubbing is awesome (they say some really wacky shit) and the characters are nuts. With guys running around called "The Almighty Imperial Lightning Whip", "The Solar Ray" and "The Loner, also known as One Man Army" (famous for his Deadly Twin Sword, hell, they even play theme music whenever he draws it), you know this is going to be a great movie.

Born Invincible- about a guy that studies an acient form of kung fu that leaves him with snow white hair and a high pitched voice, but also makes him unable to be hurt or stabbed or anything, except for one weak point that can be moved at will. It's awesome seeing him fight guys that keep trying to stab or punch every inch of his body trying to find the weak spot.

Champ Against Champ- A guy loses his leg in battle, so he gets a steel replacement leg and learns the "18 Deadly Kicks". The movie has a neat gimmick I've never seen in a kung fu flick before- sometimes when the main character hits someone, it switches to a point-of-view shot of the guy flying about 50 or 60 feet away from the camera. Coolness!

The Story of Ricky- Ah, this is classic! Not much for elaborate kung-fu fights, but it's gory as hell! Ricky's in jail for killing someone. He been praticing a martial art that just makes him stronger and stronger, to the point that he can put his fist through the torso of an enemy like he's punching bloody tissue paper. He's like a live-action version of the Fist of the Northstar guy.

All of Bruce Lee's movies are the definition of what Martial Arts is all about.

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Originally posted by Megatron
All of Bruce Lee's movies are the definition of what Martial Arts is all about.

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Actually his films are pretty poor IMO...some even done by shoddy director Lo Wei who later tried to use Chan as the next Bruce Lee...

I mean, they are decent and show some exceptional fighting, like the showdown between Lee and Chuck Norris in Way of the Dragon, but as films, they basically show what Bruce Lee could be capable of, but because he died, we never got to see...I liken them to Chan's early stuff where he was still feeling out his film style, though Enter the Dragon really shows how he wanted to infuse the philosophy of martial arts into his films...

Any Jet Li flick.