Recommend Martial Arts Movies

(Actually, I think Kung Fu is more interesting to watch.)

"They've just never felt the sting of Japanese fists!"

Pluck the Needle from the Bottom of the Sea!

Jade Lady Works the Loom's Shuttle!

Snake Creeping on the Ground!

(fwiw, these really are some faves of mine)

Anyway, for sheer spectacle - if not coherence or depth - I gotta recommend it.

If it's true that after the balletic fighting and heroic, tragic gore the main charm of these things is the extravagantly terrible dubbing, this might be an alltime winner.

Also, do not see "No Blood, No Tears."

I watched "Dynamite Warrior" last night, do not repeat my mistake. It tries to combine "Ong Bak" and "Kungfu Hustle" but fails to replicate any of the virtues of either, while also failing to bring in any original virtues of its own. The choreography sucks, the fx are weak, the jokes are dull, and the plot is too convoluted to follow or care about. There are several germs of good ideas in here, but none are developed in an interesting way at all.

I heard something about Tony Jaa being cast as a villain in the next Bond picture, though. That would be something worth seeing.

am i the only one who doesn't like Ong Bak much? i think its admirable that he avoided wire fu but too much of the action was one-sided and the story was much much dumber than usual. i liked some of the visuals but there's much better.

my choices:

king boxer (aka five fingers of death)
tai chi master
The Big Boss
Fists of Fury
Game of Death (despite the horrible crap they did w/ the Lee standins)
The 36th Chamber of Shaolin/Return to the 36th Chamber
five deadly venoms
enter the dragon
crouching tiger, hidden dragon
fearless
hero
bloodsport

legend of the wolf!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WnaQgQwGa4

i would advise against watching the entire movie though, its ~2/3rds filler, 1/3rd non-stop beat-em-up showdown. the donnie yen / wilson yip collabs are v nice too imo.

yay, my Fist of the White Lotus dvd arrived.

the Octagon is on Showtime right now

the out-loud echoing whispered thoughts of Chuck are delicious

NINJA Ninja ninja

hard to decide what recreational drug would be the best one on which to watch this movie - they'd all have their advantages

Just watched:

Crippled Avengers--I know the alternate title is "Return of the Five Deadly Venoms", but I for the life of me can't tell why, as it doesn't seem to have any noticeable link to that movie that I could see. I was enjoying what I saw of it then got sleepy and had to turn it off -- I hate when that happens!

Heroes of the East--A lot of fun. It felt more like a documentary on the differences/similtarities between Japanese/Chinese martial arts, but it was still a lot of fun.

Fist of the White Lotus--So incredibly BORING. Bought it as it had the famous Pai Mei character, AND, Gordon Liu, but after a fantastic opening this went nowhere fast. I mean it had good martial arts but the training sequences were meh.

The Mystery of Chessboxing--I bought it because of the Wu connection. And I didn't like it. The storyline wasn't terribly interesting and they threw the Ghostface Killer in your face with no real explanation within seconds of the movie's opening, which was quite confusing.

The Kid with the Golden Arm--Loved this. Not only did it have great fighting sequences, I enjoyed the storyline, the unique concept of the four different styles. Although I clearly got a bootleg and the entire movie is available with subtitles on Youtube (in much higher quality than what I got).

Also arrived/arriving in the mail:

Bloodsport (saw this when I was 8 -- regardless of whether Dux is a liar or not, can't wait to see this again)
Disciples of the Master Killer (aka Disciples of the 36th Chamber)
8-Diagram Pole Fighter

Disciples of the Master Killer: Clearly the worst in the series, and not a very good film at all. Gordon Liu barely appears until the second half, and the story is a pointless waste. An insubordinate kid who is no better at the end than he was at the beginning?

The last 20 minutes are fairly exciting, but I was so exhausted from boredom from the first 70 minutes that it didn't matter. Oh well.

Five Element Ninjas is highly recommended by me. holy fuck.

oh and finally got around to seeing Police Story with Jackie Chan. by far the most entertaining thing of his I've seen.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Mkl9rtttog
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-gTkUcXGF_Q

"Duel of the Iron Fist" or the duel now playing in widescreen on youtube. David Chiang is fucking cutting motherfuckers.

This is a bad video copy of the trailer, go halfway through to the knife fights.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=moRBZVZKn3U

this is part two of just some fighting here. intrigue and violence etc.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZRwgb0fyWDI&feature=related

Um can I just say The flag of Iron is badass?

The end fight has some jawdropping choreography.

I'll rep for Ip Man too.

Trailer for Tsui Hark's latest: http://trailers.apple.com/trailers/independent/detectivedee/

looks bonkers!

CROUCHING TIGER MEETS SHERLOCK HOMES!

Also I think there is a sequence where a deer gets flying kicked.

can anybody recommend some Shaw Brothers movies not previously named itt. there's so many of them...

not sure if it is your cup of tea but i enjoyed a bunch of chu yuan's wuxia stuff, e.g. the sentimental swordsman, which stars di long as alcoholic guy who wanders the country and is chased around by people trying to do away with him for some mysterious reason

also some of the later ones have some really entertainingly bizarre sequences-- bloody parrot, portrait in crystal, demon of the lute

also remember soul of the sword being good...one of those ones that presents an ambivalent take on the whole chasing glories in the martial world thing

Can anyone ID this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fc99HcPgKmk

duel to the death.

I wonder if The Raid series and Merantau are going to have any influence on the industry? I'd prefer there was some stylistic variety if there was a renaissance.

I had a phase that lasted maybe a year but I haven't returned much to the genre...

Zu Warriors From The Magic Mountain
Knockout
Spooky Encounters (the sequel has some great moments too)
Boxers Omen
Iceman Cometh (hilarious and underrated)
Drunken Master 2 (for fight scenes only)
Snake In The Eagles Shadow
Buddha's Palm (Shaw version)
Chinese Ghost Story 1-2-3
Merantau
The Raid
Rumble In The Bronx
Master Of The Flying Guillotine

I wouldn't recommend it as a whole but Ip Man has some great fights. But even most of my recommended films have significant flaws.

Raid 2 was badass too

raid 2 had soooo much 'crime movie' stuff that I really did not find very compelling. but whenever the action started up, man, all was forgiven.

Can any of the heads or here help me out?
Years ago (mid 90s?) I saw a kung fu flick (a hisorical setting) where the hero had a secret technique, but every time he used it, he got more feminine... it was mostly played for laughs, and by the end of the film his part was played by a woman...
Can't remember the name... any ideas?

at first i thought it was Clan of the White Lotus, but Gordon Liu's character was never played by a female at the end

...that's not it, but that's a good one..

ppl on a different forum suggest Swordsman II?

....don't think that's it either... I think I would've remembered if it had Jet Li in it... looks like a good one though...

is it this one?

http://tarstarkas.net/2014/06/fight-for-survival-review/

"In this film, Polly’s character Shih Pu Chuan sets out to recover 10 books stolen from the Shaolin Temple, each volume teaching one kung fu technique, and each technique has been mastered by the respective theif of that volume. But, if you only learn one of the kung fu skills, your body soon begins to modify itself based on that kung fu skill. Thus, the guy who learns to extend his arms has permanent long arms. The guy who stretched his legs looks like he’s walking around on stilts. The woman who stole the Positive Kung Fu book turns into a man, and the guy who stole the Negative Kung Fu book turns into a woman."

Not it, but that sounds worth a watch...

Let's keep them coming folks, we're mapping out a subgenre here!

...yeah, I had no idea there'd be this many (or any) near misses...

can't believe that wasn't it tbh i thought i'd nailed it, yes this is obv a genre

....anyone seen this "Fist of the Condor" flick from Chile?

Korean Film Council just dropped this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pg6_yPMn9Js

ah well. it's Returned a Single-legged Man: 2, Korean martial arts cinema from the 70's.

So Close would have been a lot better if it wasn't striving to be so modern, it's a very post-Matrix film and (songs aside) the soundtrack is completely generic action movie stuff. Still kind of liked it, I had never seen Karen Mok in anything before, she is in an action trio with Shu Qi and Zhao Wei.

I don't tend to enjoy what little I sample of chinese pop stars but has anyone here heard much Karen Mok? She seems to be insanely popular, one of her concerts set a world record that I don't understand.