Recommend Martial Arts Movies

Iron Fists And Kung Fu Kicks - Better than the other martial arts film documentaries I've seen so far (that's not saying much, some of them were godawful). Grady Hendrix is in it and he seems almost strangely passionate. I feel slightly guilty at enjoying the stories about the risks taken while filming.

I hate it when these documentaries spend so much time talking about how Hong Kong influenced american films but this additionally follows other kinds of influence (work out videos, dance, youtube, african films).

I wish it clearly labeled all the film clips it shows, especially when there are alternate film titles.

Although it did fire me up and make me want to see everything, I think there should be a tv series on this or even something that goes deeper into chinese film/tv history in general. Because the pure Hong Kong comedies are often referenced but rarely seen by western viewers and there's a whole lot of other things that probably should be discussed.

Police Story 3: Supercop - Really wish this was in the Eureka boxed set. Apparently it can be difficult to find a good version of this, there are a few mistitled or similarly titled films that people buy by accident. I got the Umbrella edition.
The train/helecopter/motorbike scenes with Michelle Yeoh are amazing.

Butterfly & Sword - Michelle Yeoh, Donnie Yen and a few other stars of the era (actually those two are still big stars). Some of the better wirework I've seen. Sadly the ending in my dvd version was cut off in an extremely clumsy fashion. Someone thought the ending was too sad! They should have cut a few seconds earlier.

Wing Chun - Michelle Yeoh and Donnie Yen again. Solid.

Flying Dagger - Jing Wong filmed this same year as Holy Weapon with much of the same cast. Fun to see Maggie Cheung ripping through a tree while screaming like a cat. Pretty costumes.

Kung Fu Cult Master - Imdb says that Jing Wong and Sammo Hung directed this together but Hung had no official credit onscreen.
This clearly was supposed to have sequels but they were cancelled (the translation of the Jin Yong novel should be coming out soon, so I can maybe find out if the incest-baiting wasn't just in my head. But he revises his novels a lot.) The old man embedded in the rolling stone ball is interesting.

Biggest flaw is how obviously sped up much of the film is, even dialogue scenes look like they are on fast forward. The lushness of the visuals makes it all the more awkward, if it was more cheap and nasty looking, it might have had a chance of working. A stunning blunder for such a big film.

Fate Of Lee Khan - As with other King Hu films, the buildup takes a very long time. This might be more inn-bound than Dragon Inn (someone in the features very aptly compared it to Fawlty Towers!), but the last third is excellent. I'm ranking this just after Legend Of The Mountain.
Only real flaw is that allies seem to just stand around watching each other fight when they most need assistance.

Fingers crossed that Eureka releases The Valiant Ones and Painted Skin.

Miracles/ Mr Canton & Lady Rose - Jackie Chan's 1930s HK gangster film. This is incredibly long, the international cut shaves off 20 minutes and it's kind of understandable.
I wasn't wowed by it but someone in the features makes a quite convincing argument that it shows Chan as a particularly strong director and ideally should have led to better things for him and maybe there was a huge missed opportunity.

The Protector - Jackie Chan teamed with James Glickenhaus in the hopes of doing something more serious and becoming a star in America.
I watched the HK version with added fights but after seeing the comparison feature, I realized that the american version would have been a better idea, as the non-dubbed dialogue gives the actors far more presence and it's more stylistically coherent. Glickenhaus' direction is deliberately slow and almost Michael Mann-ish at times.

Interview with Glickenhaus is great, he doesn't pull his punches about his dislike for the HK version and he talks at length how Golden Harvest didn't support Chan's ambitions and Chan possibly didn't put the right work into becoming a global star.
Some other good interviews about the american and hong kong crews working together.

Crime Story - Yet again Jackie Chan teamed up with a harder edged director in hopes of doing something more serious and fell out with Kirk Wong because he was ultimately too perverse for Jackie. Some deleted scenes are still vaulted. Why? It seems like this is part of Jackie's image control.
As seen in the documentary mentioned above, some buildings were blown up without permission; there's a genuine sense of danger in these scenes.
Like a more stylish, down to earth and dirty version of Police Story.

I watched David West's commentaries to Dragon Missile and Spiritual Boxer. I'm always in discussion with myself how much time and money I want to put into Chinese martial arts films but I'm really enjoying just learning about them, filling in the gaps, recognizing more and more actors, learning which actors were previously martial artists and who learned on the job.

West mentioned the freeze frame endings both times and although they are initially confounding I think they are often the best kind of endings. I generally dislike endings that settle down and tuck you into bed.
Bringing back more abrupt endings might be a risk but people might come around to them. I think Killer Joe had one of the best endings of relatively recent times.
I wonder how Peter Jackson's Return Of The King might have been if it had ended with a freeze frame of Golem falling in mid-air.

I'm not a big fan of Spiritual Boxer but somehow the brief scene of Lau Kar-Leung shouting and posturing with his top off made my week. I've never seen him like that.

More forthcoming UK disc releases: Throw Down, Clan Of The White Lotus and Operation Condor.

8 Diagram Pole Fighter - I had some misgivings about this to start with. It's often treated as the last great Shaw studio film but the fake plain at the start (why couldn't they have used a real one?) makes the battle look like a reenactment and the two heroes who spend much of the first half lashing out in anger and madness get really annoying. But the very high complexity of the end fight, the bamboo cart used like a cannon and the dental devastation redeems everything.
The studio was so confident about the film that there's some text at the end saying something like "an undeniably good film". This is relying heavily on the second half.

The final fight scene in "8 Diagram Pole Fighter" is thoroughly insane.

I keep meaning to see that one.
Saw Martial Club recently; not one of the best overall, but the final fight scene is spectacular. Also, Kara Hui A+ as always.

This is a pretty good guide to Shaw blurays around the world.
https://www.36styles.com/kungfufandom/index.php?/topic/22567-shaw-brothers-on-blu-ray/

Germany is doing quite a lot but it's strange how little common ground there is between countries.

The Eureka bluray of Wheels On Meals is pretty great for interviews (and the film better than I remembered, I totally forgot most of it somehow), especially with the american martial artists. Benny The Jet was so energized and inspiring.

There's a super long podcast about martial arts with Tarantino
https://pca.st/gc7rtv9w
List of films discussed
https://letterboxd.com/juanmotoa/list/pure-cinema-podcast-kung-fu-cinema/

Was quite annoyed he was so positive that Kao Pao-shu/Gao Baoshu was THE ONLY female martial arts director. I'd be surprised if she and Pearl Chang were the only two.

Wikipedia says Dark Lady Of Kung Fu is a sequel to Wolf Devil Woman so I might check that out soon.

I don't suppose that's transcribed anywhere, because I am not gonna invest 2 and a half hours into that

I wouldn't recommend it that much. Quentin spends at least the first 15 minutes talking about people he interviewed early on (no martial arts people) and his voice is really echoey (I thought the technical things like that wouldn't be an issue for him).

Most interesting for me was how he rates Lo Lieh as the best martial arts actor, he thinks Jimmy Wang Yu was a really great director and talks about double and triple bill combinations that get an audience excited. It's very fixated on the early 70s, that seems to be his preference.

Didn't know Lee Yi Min starred in a Kamen Rider knockoff called Super Rider, but not so sure it is a complete knockoff because Toei are listed as the co-producers.

QT wrote a long article about Jimmy Wang Yu if you're more interested in that:
https://thenewbev.com/tarantinos-reviews/wang-yu-superstar-super-director/

I read a bit of it but I mostly taken away his main recommendations, which he also talked about in the podcast. Most of the films he talks about are on the Wu-Tang Collection on youtube, which seems sorta legit (they're on amazon prime) but I can't imagine they own the rights to them all or that they're public domain. I'm sure there's some Golden Harvest films in there.

Kind of taken me by surprise that Wang Yu is rated as such a great director because I've never before heard anyone say anything positive about him. Everything is about how badly he treated people, being accused of murder or that he didn't cut the mustard as a martial arts performer (Tarantino disputes this last part but admits his kicks weren't very good).

a timely thread. i only know the most famous martial arts movies and would like to know more. i watched the jet li 'fist of legend' tonight with my kids and they liked it.

we're going to watch 'wing chun' tomorrow (my third time seeing it)

I've got a ton of stuff lined up and I'm kind of impatient to order more but want to wait til things are a bit safer.

i don't think Wang Yu is - this is Tarantino talking him up because of his lack of fame, imo

Zu Warriors From The Magic Mountain - I was happy to buy this again because it's one of my favorite films ever. I still don't completely understand it (a lot of that is due to fast dialogue, and I only have so much patience for rewinding to re-read it all).

I was surprised to hear this was initially a flop. Now it seems like the main cinematic foundation for every chinese fantasy blockbuster. depending on how specific you want to be about approaches to wuxia, this can be considered the first of a certain kind of wuxia and I haven't seen or heard of anything bettering it.
The costumes and designs are wonderful (I think Brigette Lin has as many as 3 different costumes/hairstyles and they're all great) and the wirework scenes at least seem to me a lot more complex than almost any other film I can think of.

Interesting things from the Tony Rayns commentary:
Talking about Stanley Kwan's documentary on gender flipping in chinese film, I'd love to see this.
I didn't know that this was an adaptation (don't know why I was surprised because most fantasy leaning wuxia films seem to be adaptations of books), he says that Tsui Hark only did a very loose adaptation and wasn't interested in following what the novels were actually about. Rayns says the book series by Huanzhulouzhu is 64 books but I seen one listing saying 8 books; perhaps there's a core series and various spinoffs? Only the prequel is available in english and I'm hoping the recent Jin Yong and Gu Long translations make this series a possibility in english print.

The bonus interviews included are very long so the Eureka version has a lot that the Hong Kong Legends bluray didn't.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ku3kF6xZdeQ

Deadful Melody - A Story about a magic lyre which isn't particularly well told; Yuen Biao doesn't make notable use of his talents and Brigitte Lin completely steals the film from him (they were both in Zu Warriors From The Magic Mountain too). The villains are colorful (in the most literal sense) and all the best scenes are the ones with the lyre (and the big drum and hammer at the end), often creating explosions from Lin's rapid playing; it's worth seeing just for these few good things.

The Optimum dvd has an annoyingly small screen size (why was this so common back then?)

Story is based on a Ni Kuang novel. I'm surprised how often and where his name pops up. There's another Wisely film in production. Check his credits and biographies.

"a Chinese author whose life began unpromisingly as a teenage drop-out, before his swift rise through the ranks of the Communist Party security police. Accused of counter-revolutionary activities, he fled to Hong Kong in 1957 and embraced anti-Communist fiction with all the zeal of a convert
...
In public punditry, Ni presented a grim view of the future. Based on his own experience, he predicted that China's rising middle class would not become a catalyst for democracy, but merely a fresh crop of potential Communist stooges. Fearful for the consequences of the 1997 Handover for dissenting voices, he left for San Francisco in 1992, only to return in 2006, claiming neither he nor his wife could ever fit in. Hong Kong remained his home thereafter, but his antipathy for the Communist regime did not slacken in later years. In a 2009 interview, he provocatively announced that he was less afraid of China during the purges of the Mao era, since the worst possible danger to the world would be presented by a predatory capitalist system run by a dictatorial elite."

http://www.sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/ni_kuang
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ni_Kuang
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0393250/?ref_=ttfc_fc_wr4

I knew that name sounded familiar... he's done a bazillion Shaw movies

This trailer shows some of the cool bits
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F542CJFAIwE

I'm starting to use this thread to remember which Shaw films I've actually seen.

Some nice posters here
https://drelium.wordpress.com/2014/04/05/my-fan-arts/
I maybe like this one best because it has a 16-bit vibe
https://drelium.files.wordpress.com/2014/04/gwgex3_tsang2.jpg

how is Birth Of The Dragon? it's been on film4 recently.

Zu Warriors goes on the wishlist, i think.

Birth of the Dragon?
iirc that's the movie that's supposedly about Bruce Lee but makes it about some random white guy

Eureka just announced Mr Vampire. I've never liked it much (Encounters Of The Spooky Kind is superior) but I'm looking forward to the features.

Something else from Tony Rayns Zu commentary: he talks a bit about Mou Tun-fei, best known for the infamous Men Behind The Sun. Rayns says two of his earliest films are two of the nastiest sexploitation films, I think both were banned and his last film was never released (I think it was much like Men Behind The Sun). There's an interview/documentary about him on youtube.

How dare, I love Mr.Vampire! Honour the hopping vampires!

The hopping vampire in Encounters Of The Spooky Kind is superior, one of the best movie monsters ever.

I really gotta find a good copy of that

The sequel isn't as good but has some hilarious bits.

If I was a trillionaire I'd try to get Sammo to make a third film in the series.

I've heard that Mr Vampire 3 is quite good but most of the hopping corpse films are supposed to be total dross.

> Birth of the Dragon?
> iirc that's the movie that's supposedly about Bruce Lee but makes it about some random white guy

i see what you mean. i'd only seen the first 2 minutes and that was all subtitled, but 5 minutes in it's already all about the white guy and how the temple was against bruce lee because he was half-white, let alone teaching white guys.

Bride With The White Hair getting a Eureka bluray. It doesn't include the sequel (I've never heard that it's a step down). My Tartan dvd copy is shockingly bad for such a good label.

Someone from Eureka says there's hopefully going to be a Michelle Yeoh box set.

I had a fairly long list of Wu Tang Collection (youtube channel) films to watch but I ended up only watching one of them because most of them seem to have multiple problems. Older martial arts fans might say I'm a brat spoiled by the last 15 years of mostly reliably good disc versions (some of the earliest dvds are terrible) but I say why bother when there's a steady stream of remasters coming out?
The problems included bad picture quality, wrong aspect ratio, english dubbing and worst of all: screen cropping. Some fans actually seek out english dubs but wrong aspect ratios and screen cropping just destroy films.

The one that was scratchy but watchable was Crystal Fist/Jade Claw. It's not particularly distinct, I'm guessing the fights are the only reason anyone remembers it but I wouldn't really recommend it.

Kinda funny to see Eureka be the best label hands down in rereleasing Hong Kong cinema stuff but still sniffily witholding the Masters Of Cinema distinction even for releases directed by Tsui Hark or Jackie Chan when Criterion at this point has caved in and does a Bruce Lee boxset.

Drunken Master was in their Masters Of Cinema series, which is funny because it's really not one of his best films and as far as I know, Bruce Lee's films aren't often considered the best in the genre (apart from himself of course).

I think all the King Hu reissues have been in the Masters Of Cinema series and most of them fit comfortably enough in the genre.

I think it's wonderful that both Eureka and 88 Films are both sort of doing this together (much of the releases have the same reissue credits), but why has Arrow released so few martial arts films? They really ought to get in on it.

How did I miss this thread before now? Catnip!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TaH_u3VlGjg

Great thread, btw, glad it's on my radar now.

Yeah they include King Hu but his stuff is more self-consciously "classy" than yer average Hong Kong actioner. All great stuff, don't get me wrong.

88 Films sorely lacking in extras featuring Nicky Wire in a banana suit.

King Hu is definitely more refined but I never thought there was anything self-conscious about it. And I never felt that the Chinese arthouse directors who do martial arts stuff needed to distance themselves and they always use the same actors that everyone else does. King Hu was an architect of the genre in the early days when the language was being properly established so I'm not sure it would occur to him to want to psychological distance himself from Chang Cheh or whoever else.

Kinda disagree on that one, at least A Touch of Zen feels like it's shooting for way higher than the average pic at the time. Of course, it's amazing, so who cares I guess

It has higher aspirations but I never saw any evidence that any of those kind of directors were pretending to be working in a wholly different tradition or that they hadn't seen the regular martial arts films. Touch Of Zen and Legend Of The Mountain have different priorities most of the time but Come Drink With Me and Fate Of Lee Khan are fairly straight forward.

I was surprised to find out that in italy, guys like Lucio Fulci could hang out with the arthouse directors.

But I did see Hsiao-Hsien Hou say that he thought super elaborate fights were annoying and that he wanted The Assassin to have a samurai film simplicity.

Comics writer Joshua Dysart made this list about Hong Kong cinema in general and I found the comments at the bottom really interesting discussion about the fate of the industry.
https://letterboxd.com/joshuadysart/list/the-annotated-story-of-hong-kong-cinema/detail/

Great list there! Very interesting.

Man, I'd love to see some of those Shaw Bros 'James Bond' knock offs, can't seem to find them after a surface search, need to dig deeper I guess.

Best awkward english title: A Punch To Revenge

Never even heard of this one, but I'm sure I'll buy it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kku4szSBGx8

Aw, was hoping that would be a different "The Master", with Chen Kuan-Tai.

It does look fun though!

Holy Flame Of The Martial World - This barely ever stops moving, not easy to keep up with; quite similar to Buddha's Palm but slightly less overt fantasy (still wild). Features lots of magic beams, magic swords, reanimated imported corpses, warriors that come out of paintings, hand animated neon ghosts, a technique called "ghostly laughter" that maddens and blows opponents away (some people are able to defend themselves by rolling up their ears as if they had muscles to do so).
It's good fun.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ke-9n2xcUiY

Agreed! was lucky enough to catch a screening of that a while back. very goofy