Martial Arts Movies

[Crenners]

A one-stop thread to collate and encourage martial arts film discussion and recommendations.

I've linked some previous threads featuring discussion below:

Great Martial Arts films: https://www.cookdandbombd.co.uk/forums/index.php?topic=67032.0

Never watched a martial arts film before: https://www.cookdandbombd.co.uk/forums/index.php?topic=83380.0

Jackie Chan: https://www.cookdandbombd.co.uk/forums/index.php?topic=84157.0

Shaw Brothers: https://www.cookdandbombd.co.uk/forums/index.php?topic=85007.0

[Crenners]

Eureka has a martial arts sale on, so all those great Jackie Chan Blu-rays are about a tenner each.

https://eurekavideo.co.uk/promotions/martial-arts-sale/

I picked up City Hunter, never seen that one and it's OOS at Amazon. Sounds fun enough. Also getting Legend of the Mountain, last Eureka King Hu I've not seen.

Every single one of those releases is worth getting, I'd say. Absolutely amazing selection.

[Magnum Valentino]

City Hunter is great craic except for the guy who gets cheered by a load of strangers after declaring his intention to rape the girl he fancies in a moment that's played for comedy.

[Goldentony]

yeah I had City Hunter in a three tape set thing for years I nicked off an uncle, bizarre choice of that, Island Of Fire and Master With Cracked Fingers in there. I was about 10 so had no interest in the others after about halfway thru. Here he is dressed as Guile and skateboarding round, and here he is on the other one and he's in JAIL FIGHTING FOR HIS FUCKING LIFE IN THE DARK. Off.

[Magnum Valentino]

https://eurekavideo.co.uk/promotions/martial-arts-sale/

I picked up City Hunter, never seen that one and it's OOS at Amazon. Sounds fun enough. Also getting Legend of the Mountain, last Eureka King Hu I've not seen.

Every single one of those releases is worth getting, I'd say. Absolutely amazing selection.

Any thoughts on the Sammo Hung triple-set? Tempted to go for it but I've only seen Sammo in supporting/equal-billing roles, and much as I like him I don't know if I'd buy him as someone to carry a film.

[Crenners]

Any thoughts on the Sammo Hung triple-set? Tempted to go for it but I've only seen Sammo in supporting/equal-billing roles, and much as I like him I don't know if I'd buy him as someone to carry a film.

Magnificent Butcher is great, Eastern Condors is good, The Iron-Fisted Monk is OK. I'll probably only ever watch MB again but I enjoyed them all once. For the price, I think it's worth it but none of these is essential compared to Spooky Encounters or Millionaire's Express, let alone the stuff with Jackie and Yuen Biao.

[greenman]

Eastern Condors I rate very highly personally, Sammo playing a mostly serious role and its also not quite as regimented as most 80's Golden Harvest, not so obviously divided between comedy sections and action sections. Really good kickboxing showdown and the end as well with Yueb Wah's giggling vet con general.

The other two maybe not the very very best of Sammo's traditional kung fu films but there still both very good, the action a cut above most of the rest from that era for me being quite a bit faster, one of my favourite Kung Fu fights in the middle of Mag Butcher between the students as well.

[Goldentony]

yeah Spooky Encounters deffo better than anything else in the triple set, but still rate EC as pretty essential ala greenman here. Sammo seems to do well no matter the period, but i've always preferred Jackies contemporary films to his trad martial arts stuff save for maybe Wooden Men and Dragon Lord.

[ImmaculateClump]

I used to love these when I was little, but haven't watched one for years.
I really liked a film called "the silent flute", though that was probably dogshit.
I can remember going to my dad "why is it called the silent flute? It makes a noise when he's swinging it about", and those China O'Brien films. Again probably toss, but I just watched the trailer for the first one and it's deliciously 80s, looks like it'd still be fun.

The voice over sounds like that "honest trailers" guy taking the piss :D

It was just whatever was on telly or available in the video rental shop so it's gonna be the shallowest of cuts from me, I'm afraid.
This was as close as we got to the speed and spectacle of the eastern stuff, though there were a few decent films got shown late night on channel 4 and bbc 2.

Martial arts made up such a big part of my childhood, we were always playing stuff like renegade and bad dudes vs dragonninja and double dragon, and we made up this game in the schoolyard called "train fighter", which involved walking up and down the longjump runway pretending we were walking on the top of train carriages and kicking the shit out of each other.

Now and then bridges would come and we would shout "high bridge!" and you had to duck, or "low bridge" and you had to jump and if you got confused and ducked when you were meant to jump, you were out.
The big finale was two lads left, trying to push each other the train.
Fantastic.
The bane of my life was overly concerned dinnernannies forever getting in the way of our fun.

We also had a game we called "street ball" which involved a basketball and lots of karate.

My older friend who lived down the street was into judo so he got me into that, but I was too wimpy in the end, turns out I just liked the sort of ballet of it and the playfighting.

I can remember seeing that old wossy show about Jackie Chan and being bowled over. We never saw nothing like that in the video shop, though a few of his films did get shown on the telly later on.

Did I grow out of the simple pleasure of watching somebody getting hoofed in the chops? That would be a sad state of affairs. I'll have to watch something from this thread at some point.

[Goldentony]

China O'Brien isnt a classic or anything but Cynthia Rothrock is in a few greats. She's in two I think I just mentioned in the other thread?? Above The Law and Yes, Madam, both AMAZING. She's also in Undefeatable which i've got a lot of time for and became famous as having one of the worst fight scenes of all time on Youtube

[Famous Mortimer]

"Undefeatable" is amazing, as is "Righting Wrongs" (aka Above The Law) and the one I watched the other night, "Angel Of Fury" (aka Triple Cross). Plus, she's great in "No Retreat, No Surrender 2" and "Guardian Angel". And "24 Hours To Midnight" is a bit of a so-bad-it's-good gem.

[BeardFaceMan]

OK, here's the challenge - best martial arts films that aren't from Asia? I'll allow the Hollywood work of your Jet Li's and Jackie Chan's to make it a bit easier (although not much, let's be honest).

[Crenners]

I used to love these when I was little, but haven't watched one for years.

Great post, interesting and fun stuff and thanks for the Wossy doc. I'd heard about it but never seen it, will have a watch later.

Similar to you, I watched loads as a kid but I didn't know what I was watching. My auntie's boyfriend would get old school stuff from the video shop and I loved it when I went round there or stayed over. It's only over the last year or two I've got into some of the Shaw Brothers stuff and more old school KF flicks that I realise that's what I was watching as a kid.

There's something incredibly comforting about the atmosphere of those films and I really enjoy the focus on different techniques. That 7 Grandmasters I posted about recently is virtually a demo disc for all these kung fu styles and it reminds me of like a fighting game almost, just seeing what happens when you pit one style against something very different.

The Jackie stuff I didn't really get into until way later, maybe early/mid-20s when I met a really good mate who was a massive fan and recommended me a load of films. I love a lot of Jackie and Sammo and Yuen Biao and would recommend pretty much any of the big name films but overall I am less fond of the contemporary settings (or 40 years ago settings) than the braids and robes and rival schools stuff.

If I were to recommend one film, it would be Duel to the Death (1982). It's neither Shaw Bros nor Jackie and pals, but it's possibly my favourite martial arts movie and I only saw it for the first time this year. Unbelievable swordplay, choreography and atmosphere and a rollicking, fun plot. It's also got some really endearing characters, solid soundtrack and no dated humour. I'm actually going to watch it again today!

[BeardFaceMan]

Great post, interesting and fun stuff and thanks for the Wossy doc. I'd heard about it but never seen it, will have a watch later.

I think it was posted on one of the other martial arts threads here, but there's a greatly expanded version of that Incredibly Strange Film Show about Chan floating about, all remastered and with extra punching and stuff.

https://vimeo.com/430153988

[Crenners]

I think it was posted on one of the other martial arts threads here, but there's a greatly expanded version of that Incredibly Strange Film Show about Chan floating about, all remastered and with extra punching and stuff.

https://vimeo.com/430153988

Nice one, cheers. Over two hours worth! Looks like a great watch.

[Goldentony]

just finished Duel To The Death and aye, spectacular. Certain i've got the old R3 DVD somewhere because it took the parachuting ninjas to make me realise i'd seen it recently. Be nice to replace a few of those in 2022. Got through that and Chinese Boxer aswell Seen Chinese Boxer before but not for a long time. Pretty much perfect other than the mad digital opening titles! very odd. Still plenty of people just getting fucked in with hands of HATRED wife asking why he wont stop mans just REVENGE bang bang bang

[BeardFaceMan]

Nice one, cheers. Over two hours worth! Looks like a great watch.

It really is. You get the doc and then about 90 minutes of JC greatest hits fight scenes, all ripped from the blu-rays by the look of them. It's talked about a bit here - https://trailersfromhell.com/podcast/jonathan-ross/

[greenman]

Not gotten a HD release as far as I know but one of my favourite Sammo films is The Victim

OK, here's the challenge - best martial arts films that aren't from Asia? I'll allow the Hollywood work of your Jet Li's and Jackie Chan's to make it a bit easier (although not much, let's be honest).

Really though its probably going to be a lot of more recent stuff isnt it? Hollywood's gradually shipped in a lot of asian fight choreography over the last couple of decades, most obviously John Wick(or Atomic Blonde) but a lot of other stuff like Kingsmen, Scott Pilgrim, The Winter SOlider, etc had some very good fight scenes in them.

[BeardFaceMan]

There was a bit of a trend for them in the 80s with your American Ninjas and what have you. No idea if those films stand up now, I yummed them up as a kid though. I suppose the likes of Kickboxer and Bloodsport count too.

I know there have been people like Scott Adkins kicking peoples faces off in the name of Blighty but thats in Hollywood or Asian films, have there been any good British martial arts films?

[zomgmouse]

There was a bit of a trend for them in the 80s with your American Ninjas and what have you. No idea if those films stand up now, I yummed them up as a kid though. I suppose the likes of Kickboxer and Bloodsport count too.

I was going to mention Bloodsport too.

I know there have been people like Scott Adkins kicking peoples faces off in the name of Blighty but thats in Hollywood or Asian films, have there been any good British martial arts films?

do the films Scott Adkins made in Britain count? the ones directed by Jesse V. Johnson (e.g. Avengement, the only one of these I've seen)

[Famous Mortimer]

"Ninja" and "Ninja: Shadow Of A Tear" are perhaps the purest Adkins, just full on stunt-fests with some incredible close-quarters fighting. But he's great in lots of things - the "Universal Soldier" installment he was in, for example (that series got really good when they brought it back). He made a WWE film which was set in London, which was pretty good too.

I just watched:

Sworn To Justice

What might appear to be standard mid-90s Rothrock is anything but. It's got enough plot for three movies, a courtroom drama / crooked cop / vigilante / romance mashup, packed full of decent fight scenes. Plus, you could tell me Rothrock, who also produced, hired the love interest because she fancied him and I'd believe you. Their love scenes seem unusually enthusiastic for her.

Oh, and she's a psychic. No explanation given.

Some relatively big names show up in cameos, too. Walter Koenig, who appears to have forgotten how to do his own accent, is her former psychology professor who tests her for psychic powers, and Brad Dourif is the court defendant who's trying to plead insanity, and is in it for maybe a minute.

It looks like Rothrock had a boob job, was in incredible shape and was either proud of it or attempting to get work in erotic thrillers, as she's in skimpy underwear for an unusually long time, and either her or her very similar-looking body double showed some side-boob. I only mention it because it's unusual for her - she almost never did love scenes, certainly not where they go on for this long. It was just nice to not see her have to feign interest in whatever doughy or unappealing leading man she normally had foisted on her.

This looks like it was being set up for a franchise, and it's a shame it never materialised; much like the one she did with Stacy Keach which was a TV movie / pilot. She did three "Tiger Claws" movies where she was the irrelevant sidekick to charisma vacuum Jalal Merhi, but only one of these. Shame.

[greenman]

Not been given more than a DVD release yet as far as I'm aware but Sammo's most underrated film is I think The Victim from 1980. Production isnt up to the levels of some golden harvest(being made by a one off production company I'm guessing explains the lack of release, not picked up in big rights packages) stuff but the action itself maybe the best traditional kung fu I'v seen next to Prodigal Son, very fast and intricate plus has quite a lot of lucha pro wrestling stuff mixed in.

[Crenners]

Another recent belting release from Eureka is the Yuen Biao two-fer of Warriors Two & The Prodigal Son, both focusing on the wing chun style of kung fu. It's very boxy and compact, with a lot of focus on turning blocks into attacks so it's not especially flashy but it feels really exciting and it's thrilling to try to read the attacks.

I used to practise hung ga which is a sturdier, more impactful form where blocks are intended as attacks and the aim is to put the opponent down quickly and emphatically, but there's plenty in the movements of wing chun which feels very familiar. I'm not sure how much of a crowd pleaser these films are but they're right up my street and really make me want to get back into kung fu.

The LE is almost certainly going to sell out quickly, as is the trend now with these Eureka releases, but I'd definitely recommend picking it up if you're intrigued. Also, the English dub for Lam Ching-ying's Peking Opera performer/wing chun expert is incredible, he sounds like Frank Spencer. Funny as fuck.

[zomgmouse]

Last night I watched The Flying Guillotine, thought it was pretty good if a bit slow and an odd narrative structure. Are any of the "sequels"/related films worth watching?

[Famous Mortimer]

Northern Kicks, Southern Fists

It's like the most standard kung-fu film you could possibly imagine.

[zomgmouse]

The Fate of Lee Khan. Like Dragon Inn, this is mostly set in an inn full of assassination plots and betrayal and wait staff with exceptional fight skills. King Hu has a real knack for filming movement and colour and it's all infused with a wonderful combination of tension and humour - and you can see at almost exactly the halfway point when things turn from predominantly the latter to predominantly the former as the eponymous Lee Khan appears in the inn. Really liked this.

[Goldentony]

Last night I watched The Flying Guillotine, thought it was pretty good if a bit slow and an odd narrative structure. Are any of the "sequels"/related films worth watching?

Master Of The Flying Guillotine is one of my favourites of all time, love love love love love etc love it. Highly recommended.

[zomgmouse]

Master Of The Flying Guillotine is one of my favourites of all time, love love love love love etc love it. Highly recommended.

Ah excellent this is exactly what I wanted to know, thank you!

It is a sequel to Wang's 1971 film One Armed Boxer, and thus the film is also known as One-Armed Boxer 2 and The One Armed Boxer vs. the Flying Guillotine.

Even better!!!

Quentin Tarantino has cited the film as "one of my favorite movies of all time."

AHHHH I SEE GOLDENTONY OR SHOULD I SAY QUENTENTINO FINALLY YOU HAVE BEEN UNMASKED

[Goldentony]

don't expect much in the way of film continuity there but do expect Neu, Tangerine Dream and a load of other mad shit

[notjosh]

Another recent belting release from Eureka is the Yuen Biao two-fer of Warriors Two & The Prodigal Son, both focusing on the wing chun style of kung fu. It's very boxy and compact, with a lot of focus on turning blocks into attacks so it's not especially flashy but it feels really exciting and it's thrilling to try to read the attacks.

I used to practise hung ga which is a sturdier, more impactful form where blocks are intended as attacks and the aim is to put the opponent down quickly and emphatically, but there's plenty in the movements of wing chun which feels very familiar. I'm not sure how much of a crowd pleaser these films are but they're right up my street and really make me want to get back into kung fu.

I've recently started Wing Chun so will check these out, cheers. It certainly doesn't seem the most dramatic of martial arts - no spinning kicks or anything exciting like that - but I like the focus on simplicity and economy of movement.