Recommend Martial Arts Movies

I was having a lot of misgivings about it but I taken the plunge on the Shawscope and Cinematic Vengeance boxed sets. I'll just try and pace myself on it and hope there's lots of shirtless men.

I do worry about how collectory this stuff is becoming. Some of the 88 Films releases seem overly fancy. A slipcase almost always seems like a waste to me, do we really need posters, cards and booklets with thick paper? Most of the time all of these images and content could have been fit into a booklet with thinner paper inside the bluray cases.
I always ask this question about book publishers doing expensive collectors editions, is all this necessary to keep these releases coming?

On the bright side, only a few years ago I was complaining about how little old martial arts films were getting released/watched and now 3 film labels are righting that situation and bringing it to a new audience.

https://arrowfilms.com/product-detail/shawscope-volume-one-limited-edition-blu-ray/FCD2076

https://eurekavideo.co.uk/movie/cinematic-vengeance-limited-edition-box-set-2000-copies/

Thank you for supporting the cause! I can't bring myself to drop that much money on 'em...

A couple of weeks ago I was convinced I couldn't be bothered, but the promise of twisting muscles and getting used to the idea that I can spread the viewing over months or years to suit my moods, then I felt better about it. I've let some books sit for 15 years so why not let some films wait a few years?

I do worry about how collectory this stuff is becoming.

Think it's been pretty collectory from the get-go. I don't care about posters, cards, etc either - just junk that I feel a slight guilt in throwing away - but there's clearly a subset of fans that do.

I think a certain amount of collector bait in the packaging is wise, in the form of design uniformity. But Robotrix and Erotic Ghost Story getting their prices bumped up by this extra stuff feels like a bad sign.

Thread regulars should check out this twitter account: https://twitter.com/FortunesFits

so I started watching Killer Clans and was enjoying it but had to pause, and came here to search if anybody else had posted about it, and I find my post from 5 years ago when I watched it. which I completely forgot.

My brother sent me this chainsaw fight from Tiger On The Beat
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nJ3nUEIKdqA

That was fun. Gordon Liu! (makes sense, it's a Lau Kar Leung movie)

Legendary Weapons Of China bluray coming. Glad I held out on this.

Saw that one years ago, love it

This article by Grady Hendrix is quite a history lesson: https://mubi.com/notebook/posts/the-deuce-notebook-chess-boxing-mad-monkeys-and-the-kung-fu-apocalypse

I'm looking forward to These Fists Break Bricks: How Kung Fu Movies Swept America and Changed the World, by Hendrix and Chris Poggiali ... 432 pages, tons of illustrations, out September 15.

^Great article, thanks!

I didn't realize that Yuen Biao plays two of the corpses in Encounters Of The Spooky Kind.

Duel To The Death is rad - hadn't heard much about it before so went in with low expectations but I'd rate it above a lot of more canonized efforts from the era. Lots of insanity involving special effect enhanced ninjas, but also perhaps the most convincing anti-violence wuxia I've seen? Interesting that even though it is much more charitable towards the Japanese than most HK efforts, stuff like Fist Of Fury still had Japanese actors but this is an all Hong Kong cast.

Totally, Duel to the Death rules. A little overlooked, for sure

With the more features, commentaries and writing I've went through, it's clear by at least the late 80s how much they were trying to satisfy japanese audiences and businesses and more japanese actors were coming in who wanted to be in HK films. Think of the HK adaptations of manga in the 90s too.

I thought this revive would be about the video in the North Korea thread

Didn't realize that even at the height of their powers, Bruce and Jackie still used doubles for certain moves, like tricky gymnastics.

Like Young Master and Dragon Lord with Hwang In-shik, Snake In The Eagle's Shadow also has a korean villain: Hwang Jang-lee. Always loved his look in this film.

I've been racking my brain trying to think of martial arts films without heroes and I can't think of any.

Doublepack of Warriors Two/Prodigal Son coming

In a recent commentary I was fascinated by how Cantonese swearing onscreen is more controversial than any amount of sex or violence in HK. Despite how commonly used the curse words are, they can shoot up a rating like nothing else.

Robotrix - I had never heard of this before the 88Films bluray was announced but I seem to be forever finding out about hong kong films that have a big reputation that have never come to my attention before. Now it's fully uncut, the dvd version from almost a decade ago was still heavily censored and the current american amazon prime version is also heavily cut and the film is pretty nasty in places but all this long history of censorship still surprises me. It's as much action comedy as it is a Category III shocker. There's a great scene of a guy using a suitcase to rip another man's head off!

I do wish the two robot girls killed the bad guy at the end because surely it's their film (similar disappointment with Erotic Ghost Story), and wish Aoyama had kept all her memories. There's a lot to be said about Cat III films being alternately progressive and regressive but I guess action heroines were pretty normal in HK films and it maybe didn't seem as big a deal to have supporting male actors save the day.

Hard to explain why this film has occupied my mind so much, I'm sure many would consider it disposable but somehow the sexy action heroine genre means so much more to me now than it did when I was 13. That type of comics, games and anime rarely has any substance or quality, the heroines are usually faceless; this is hardly a deep movie but seeing two glamour models who can act, have some character and can do decent fights (admittedly with lots of doubles) is a rare pleasure. And maybe part of the pleasure is just imagining potential films like this (can Nicolas Winding Refn please do a psychedelic sword and sorcery film with Christina Hendricks rescuing Timothee Chalamet?). Really happy to discover Chikako Aoyama, interesting film cv, as well as trashy genre films she's been in an Oshima film and some other art house films.

The HK Girls With Guns genre really needs to take off on bluray because I've never seen any of them and they look really cool and there's plenty of them. The quarry fight scene reminded of clips I've seen of japanese superheroine gang films and I might need them too.

Really hope there's much more Cat III films coming but the commentary guys say even today, a bunch of them wouldn't get past censors.

I guess action heroines were pretty normal in HK films and it maybe didn't seem as big a deal to have supporting male actors save the day.

Which other films does this happen in? I just assumed all the Yeoh, Rockrock, Khan, Moon Lee etc... starring films would have them winning the final fights.

My Young Auntie and Lady is the Boss both featured this (thanks LKL)

I can't recall if in Lady Is The Boss if the story just moves away from Kara or if she is subdued and can't fight the last one. Still haven't seen My Young Auntie.

There's a lot of really intriguing Cat III films discussed in the commentaries, I wonder if they'd be hesitant to release something at all if they couldn't get it uncut. There's some actresses who flat out deny they were in some of these films when they obviously were.

I didn't buy the Riki-Oh bluray because I don't know how much more I could get from the initial spectacle. There's a whopping 4 commentaries.

It's cool that Ken Russell's son was the co-founder of Eastern Heroes. But I'm not totally sure what it was, seems to be a VHS era label, a shop and a magazine?

Maya Fukuda. Don't know if she's been in any martial arts films but profile says she's an actress

お仕事を終えて帰国された川本さん @kawa0060 のお稽古参加させて頂きました🦾
久しぶりにお会いできて嬉しかったです♪
テーマをもっての練習とっても勉強になる💭トレーニングも基礎も立ち回りも集中して出来て最高に楽しかったです
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— 福田茉耶（ふくだまや）11/28（日）K'SスタジオグラビアントップチームGTT撮影会ゲスト出演 (@mchan1201) November 6, 2021

how is the Cinematic Vengeance box Robert? it looks very tempting

I just got it mailed a few days ago and haven't watched anything yet and I've got piles of other stuff which I keep adding to. I'll probably watch at least one this week.

Skinny Tiger Fatty Dragon was just announced too

海外の棒術チャンピオン。ちなみに16歳。 pic.twitter.com/EFMrlW7XJa

— 岩井洋一(柔術新聞&ジャズギター) (@busujiujitsu) August 30, 2021

I got the Shawscope box today. Thankfully this is one of those times where the packaging is so nice that I feel I'm getting my money's worth out of it. A lot of collectors items are ripoffs but I really like this.

Started with Chinatown Kid. It feels atypical for Chang Cheh but there are fatal stomach injuries later on.

I didn't have high expectations for One Armed Boxer but it's quite audacious and hard hitting for the time. Wang Yu put a lot of energy into the films he directed himself, it seems. It's so impatient with the hero's recovery that it just has a quick photo montage. I like this a lot better than One Armed Swordsman. The main bad guy is such a little bitch for hiding behind imported fighters. The tibetan monk losing his mind at offense from the sharp toothed japanese man is funny.

Loved One Armed Boxer, the pan-asian gallery of evil martial artists is a hoot.

One Armed Boxer 1 & 2 are the absolute best, don't at me

Didn't know there was a second one. Can't stop thinking about stories about Wang Yu as a person, I'd like to know more, maybe I'll get it in the commentaries. Seems a lot of people don't rate him as a martial artist but he really goes for the over the top fun

second one has multiple titles involving the Flying Guillotine, it's even battier and more direct than the first one imo

Master Of The Flying Guillotine, I didn't know it's a sequel but yeah it's batty. Seemed a much lower budget but maybe it was just a shitty picture copy I had

it might be, never thought of that. set pieces are better than the first tho, the fights on top of the stakes in the ground and the final face off with the guillotine lad are brilliant

Dreadnaught and Knockabout announced for april. Always wanted to see the former and the latter is a favorite

Watched Chinese Boxer and Boxer From Shantung. Interesting how I just recently watched One Armed Boxer and Chinatown Kid because they really are just remakes of the directors' (Jimmy Wang Yu and Chang Cheh) earlier films. Like Snake In The Eagle's Shadow and Drunken Master.

Just saw Boxer from Shantung, as well (just started on the Shawscope set). Very badass. A dude beat a dude to death with the corpse of another dude that he just beat to death.

So much stuff coming (and I've noticed more of them are A/B regions)... Hero (Yuen Biao), Martial Club, Seventh Curse, Killer Meteors, Half A Loaf Of Kung Fu, Human Lanterns, Shaolin Mantis, Odd Couple, Monkey Kung Fu

Done this test again and I got 43 of 101, but I own a few I've yet to watch
https://www.listchallenges.com/list-of-hong-kong-legends-films-released-on-dvd

Only 14 for me! :(

a whopping 8 :/

Just watched Black Cat bluray (more or less a remake of La Femme Nikita), Jade Leung is completely new to me, I liked it enough that I want to see the sequel (it's abut killing Boris Yeltsin), don't know if it's likely to come out or if it's not considered strong enough. Hope this isn't the only Leung film we'll get over here on disc. She's in New Kung Fu Cult Master this year, trailers smothered in cgi of course, so I'm not that eager.