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never watched a martial arts film ever

Started by madhair60, October 31, 2020, 12:40:03 AM

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madhair60

decided I'd quite like to as I saw this and thought it was properly great fun

https://youtu.be/khWcczhXgKQ

what should I watch

PlanktonSideburns


bgmnts

Unleashed is fun.

Definitely try Shaw Brothers for old school wuxia madness. Five Elements Ninja, Five Deadly Venoms, Crippled Avengers etc.

If you just want great action and don't care too much about the story, Bruce Lee films are good.

lazarou

The Thai stuff from the '00s is a mixed bag but with some absolute gems in there. The original Ong-Bak and my personal fave Chocolate being the two I'd recommend. They both have some jaw-dropping scenes but the closing fight in Chocolate is really something else, felt like I was watching stuntmen competing to see who was most likely to kill themselves. Thai martial arts movies almost universally have incredible stunts but be advised some of them can be punishingly bad as far as pacing goes. Those two are pretty solid though.

If you're looking for good western martial arts films these days Scott Adkins is your boy. Ninja 2: Shadow Of A Tear in particular, which is a straight-faced take on '80s "white ninja" films and easily the best of that odd little genre. Inherently silly as fuck but tremendously good.

HK stuff is obviously great, it's been years and years since I saw most of 'em but The Prodigal Son is a good 'un. My personal faves were the Moon Lee and Yukari Oshima films like Iron Angels and Angel Terminators 2 which you can probably find kicking around YouTube in some form, however I'd only recommend those for someone a bit further gone.

zomgmouse

Enter the Dragon, Police Story, The 36th Chamber of Shaolin are some good ones

phantom_power

Fist of Legend with Jet Li is fucking amazing. Some fantastic fights.

I would also recommend Shaolin Soccer and Kung Fu Hustle which both combine great fights with comedy and CGI really well.

Most early Jackie Chan, especially ones with Sammo Hung.

lazarou

And for more recent stuff there's the Ip Man series with Donnie Yen. They all have their moments but the first one in particular is fantastic.

greenman

Eastern Condors, the best of the 80's Golden Harvest actioners for me plus it has the cigar puffing baddie in that clip(Yueh Wah)as a giggling vet con general.

MojoJojo

God of Cookery is on YouTube and is a lot of fun. Arguably a comedy film made by a bunch of kung fu actors rather than a 'proper' kung fu film.

Chedney Honks

For something slightly different, I'd really recommend Lone Wolf and Cub. It's a kind of lurid Japanese take on 70s Hong Kong chop-socky and it's spectacular. It's about an exiled executioner in pursuit of revenge, except he also has to look after his baby son. Cue some A-Team shit with the kid's pram and sunburst red spraying all over the shop. Do you like your limbs, buddy? Well, pick em up and take em with you!



Otherwise, Ong Bak is an almighty achievement. I remember watching the dude do some flying knee on some stunt man's head and it rotated like the second hand on a winding clock. I must have watched that bit about thirty times to check he was OK. Heard he survived but got an octuple jointed neck.

kalowski

Shaw Brothers, especially Five Deadly Venoms and Crippled Avengers, are great.

Spiteface

Anything directed by Godfrey Ho.

Quote from: thecuriousorange on October 31, 2020, 01:43:17 AM
If you just want great action and don't care too much about the story, Bruce Lee films are good.

Can't go wrong there.

Although, I would say, don't bother with the actual released version of Game of Death. Just watch the incomplete stuff that I believe is an extra on the Bluray release.

Shit Good Nose

All good suggestions so far.  Except for:
Quote from: Spiteface on October 31, 2020, 02:05:37 PM
Anything directed by Godfrey Ho.

I don't know if that's a joke suggestion, but it's not really a good advertisement of the genre to a newcomer.  Out of his enormous body of work (getting on for 200 films), literally only a small handful are genuinely any good.  He was Hong Kong's answer to Uwe Boll, Charles Band, Joe D'Amato etc.

A further note of caution for the newcomer - once you've seen a Shaw Brothers film directed by Chang Cheh, you've pretty much seen all the ones directed by Chang Cheh. 

There's also two different main types of martial arts film - those which feature "proper" traditional combative and defensive martial arts, and those which come from the Chinese Opera.  The former - which is what a lot of the Shaw Brothers films are - have action which looks quite slow and not particularly impressive on camera unless you are familiar with the styles and forms on display.  The latter is the more acrobatic and frenetic stuff popularised by Golden Harvest, and where most of your Jackie Chan, Sammo Hung and Yuen Biao films sit, and the action is probably more entertaining for an action film fan as opposed to a martial arts aficionado.  Dragons Forever sits VERY firmly in this category.

If you're more into the spiritual and philosophical side of it, then King Hu - anything by King Hu - is a goldmine.

I think for total newbies, though, you'd struggle to find anything which is as easy to watch and entertaining as Jackie Chan's golden period (tail-end of the 70s up to the early 90s).

Famous Mortimer

Quote from: Spiteface on October 31, 2020, 02:05:37 PM
Anything directed by Godfrey Ho.

Maybe watch all the classics before you get to Ho, as I think you need to be in a good mood to enjoy his weirdo cut-and-paste efforts. Although I did see a few gems from early in his (script) career the other day: Golden Queen's Commando and Pink Force Commando, a riot of styles and eras and both very entertaining.


Famous Mortimer

Quote from: Shit Good Nose on October 31, 2020, 02:57:53 PM
Dragons Forever sits VERY firmly in this category.
Dragons Forever might be my favourite Jackie Chan movie, but be warned, viewer of this movie in 2020 - it's so sexist it makes normal sexist movies of the 1980s look like bell hooks adaptations. In fact, women get an incredibly short shrift in most of his classic movies.

chveik


Shit Good Nose

#17
Quote from: Famous Mortimer on October 31, 2020, 03:01:23 PM
Dragons Forever might be my favourite Jackie Chan movie, but be warned, viewer of this movie in 2020 - it's so sexist it makes normal sexist movies of the 1980s look like bell hooks adaptations. In fact, women get an incredibly short shrift in most East Asian movies.

Fixed.

Also lots of poking fun at people with disabilities and the odd bit of racism.


Basically if you're superwoke and don't accept the "it was a different time" deal (not to mention a different country and completely different culture), then you're best off avoiding most stuff made during the "golden age" of martial arts films (I say that as a genuine warning and not as an eye-rolling throwaway comment).


El Unicornio, mang

Redbelt (2008) is quite good, written and directed by David Mamet (a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu practitioner) so more of a realistic portrayal of the martial arts world. Chiwetel Ejiofor the main guy.

QDRPHNC

#20
Legend of Drunken Master or Ip Man are good places to start. I'd link you to that scene in Ip Man, but it's really best to experience it in context. Absolute brilliant bastard of a scene tho.

Spiteface

Quote from: Shit Good Nose on October 31, 2020, 02:57:53 PM
All good suggestions so far.  Except for:
I don't know if that's a joke suggestion, but it's not really a good advertisement of the genre to a newcomer.

Yeah, just to clarify, I was taking the piss regarding Godfrey Ho. Ninja Terminator is good for a laugh, though. As is THE BEST FIGHT SCENE OF ALL TIME:

https://youtu.be/uxkr4wS7XqY

I need more martial arts movies in my diet. With some of the Tokusatsu I watch, it's odd I don't watch more of those films..

Shit Good Nose

Quote from: Spiteface on October 31, 2020, 06:12:33 PM
Yeah, just to clarify, I was taking the piss regarding Godfrey Ho.

I thought that might be the case, but wanted to give the warning lest madhair furiously go out and spend his life savings on his available catalogue.

greenman

Quote from: Shit Good Nose on October 31, 2020, 03:10:16 PM
Fixed.

Also lots of poking fun at people with disabilities and the odd bit of racism.

Basically if you're superwoke and don't accept the "it was a different time" deal (not to mention a different country and completely different culture), then you're best off avoiding most stuff made during the "golden age" of martial arts films (I say that as a genuine warning and not as an eye-rolling throwaway comment).

To be fair by the end of the 80's in Hong Kong you were seeing a bit of a shift, the likes of Cynthia Khan were getting action hero roles without it being some kind of sexploitation. Really though most of the Chan/Sammo Golden Harvest films is equivalent to Bollywood as mass entertainment, just with kicking people in the face and falling off of scaffolding replacing song and dance, the level of unPCness you'd expect

Shit Good Nose

Quote from: greenman on October 31, 2020, 06:38:49 PM
To be fair by the end of the 80's in Hong Kong you were seeing a bit of a shift, the likes of Cynthia Khan were getting action hero roles without it being some kind of sexploitation. Really though most of the Chan/Sammo Golden Harvest films is equivalent to Bollywood as mass entertainment, just with kicking people in the face and falling off of scaffolding replacing song and dance, the level of unPCness you'd expect

I was thinking more the casual rapes that happen in a LOT of Sammo Hung films (of that lot, I think only Magnificent Butcher has made it over here unscathed [although it's still optically modified]).......


It's a strange fish, though, the East Asian industry at that time - go back to the mid to late 60s through to the early 70s in Hong Kong, Taiwan and Japan you had a load of films that had a strong female protagonist (and one that was often the lead character), but by the time you get to about 1973 it does a complete u-turn and it's the age of the weak helpless shrieking woman who falls over and twists her ankle and/or is there for eye candy.  I would argue that it went on WAY after that as well, and the likes of Cynthia Khan and Michelle Yeoh were blips, particularly when all the cat3 films started coming through in the late 80s and carrying right up to the end of the 90s, most of which made 80s Hollywood action films look like progressive feminist movies.

Chedney Honks

This fuckin idiot never returns to a thread he starts

greenman

Quote from: Shit Good Nose on October 31, 2020, 06:49:29 PM
I was thinking more the casual rapes that happen in a LOT of Sammo Hung films (of that lot, I think only Magnificent Butcher has made it over here unscathed [although it's still optically modified]).......

It's a strange fish, though, the East Asian industry at that time - go back to the mid to late 60s through to the early 70s in Hong Kong, Taiwan and Japan you had a load of films that had a strong female protagonist (and one that was often the lead character), but by the time you get to about 1973 it does a complete u-turn and it's the age of the weak helpless shrieking woman who falls over and twists her ankle and/or is there for eye candy.  I would argue that it went on WAY after that as well, and the likes of Cynthia Khan and Michelle Yeoh were blips, particularly when all the cat3 films started coming through in the late 80s and carrying right up to the end of the 90s, most of which made 80s Hollywood action films look like progressive feminist movies.

I'm guessing a big factor is in the 50's and 60's you had a lot more interest in martial arts from the artier side of cinema which arguably declined in the 70's and 80's meaning more of a shift towards pulp. You do I think though by the late 90's you were starting to see some reverse of that ion HK, people like Hark and Woo if perhaps not making art cinema were at least a bit more inclined in that direction and less prone to making films with those kinds of elements.

Jerzy Bondov

The Night Comes For Us, mate. I've watched it three times. Obscene levels of violence.

Catalogue Trousers

The truly demented prison-revenge-superhuman-martial-artists-disembowelling-each-other epic, Riki-Oh (The Story Of Ricky), is well worth seeing if you're in the mood for gory, goofy, no-holds-barred fun.

Also, for pure so-shit-it-becomes-oddly-entertaining, try Fist Of Vengeance from the early 70s, starring the legendary Kung Bun.