Recommend Martial Arts Movies

More modern:
Drunken Master II w/ Jackie Chan

Mad Monkey Kung Fu
Master Killer (AKA 36 Chambers of Shaolin)
Ninja Vs. Shaolin
Dirty Ho (NOT WHAT IT SOUNDS LIKE!)
Legendary Weapons of Kung Fu

Also be sure to check out his protoge Sammo Hung's (NOT WHAT IT SOUNDS LIKE!) Golden Harvest era comedies. Sammo is the fat dude that was in the dumb TV show 'Martial Law' and sidekicked for Jackie Chan a lot - as well as directing many of Jackie's movies. He's probably my fave ma movie star period, 'cause he looks like a chinese santa claus but moves with the nimbleness of a spider monkey and the force of a prison riot. Anyway, some of his best material, all of these with Yuen Biao*:

The Prodigal Son
The Victim
Knockabout
Eastern Condors
Close Encounters of the Spooky Kind

Also, although it doesn't have Yuen Biao in it, Pedicab Driver is great, and has what is probably Sammo's greatest fight scene ever - against Liu Chia Liang!

That should get you started.

* Yuen Biao is a smaller, nimbler yet guy who is a star in his own right. Jackie Chan, Yuen Biao and Sammo Hung made many movies together, all recommended, and attended the Peking Opera School together. Taken together, along with four other guys who are mostly character actors they were known as the Seven Little Fortunes.

ONG BAK!

Followup coming soon!

TOM YUM GOONG!

Promises to be the best violent movie ever made about noodle soup!

http://www.tomyumgoongmovie.com/

TRAILER ON SITE!

for the bean curd scene alone

plus:
Arhats In Fury
Tigers of Shaolin
Dragon Princess
Duel to the Death

all i ever seem to watch for kung-fu these days is a sonny chiba ten pack a few years back.

Fong Sai Yuk 1 & 2
The Swordsman 2
Fist of Legend
Tai Chi Master
New Legend of Shaolin
Once Upon At Time In China 1 & 2 & 3
Bodyguard From Beijing
The Black Mask

There a couple of earlier ones which are good, too, but I can't remember the titles off the top of my head.

Jackie Chan must sees:

Police Story
Drunken Master 1 & 2
Project A 1 & 2
Armour of God 1 & 2

Non-Jet, non-Jackie classiques:

Eastern Condors
Iron Monkey

Non-Jet, non-Jackie stuff, not very martial art-y but super worthwhile:

The Blade
Ashes of Time
Time and Tide
Full Contact
Heroic Trio
Naked Killer
Rikki O
Black Cat
Zu: Warriors From The Magic Mountain
Bride With White Hair

I will come back with some 70's/early 80's stuff later.

also, for american work, you could always go for Rapid Fire(Brandon Lee doing Wing Chun). It has Powers Boothe as a crusty policeman!

any Stephen Chow flicks.

Bruce Li's Deadly Strike - can only find this on vhs I think and the pan and scan is terrible, but I love it. kind of a chinese dirty dozen with cool villians starring Bruce Li(not in fake-Bruce mode though, he kicks ass here)

Shaolin vs. Lama(not Shaolin against Lama! which is terrible)

Master of the Flying Guillotine(as opposed to the inferior but still enjoyable Fatal Flying Guillotine) - the DVD edition comes with commentary, which is rare.

any of the films now marketed under "Wu Tang Collection" (Iron Man,
Ninja Checkmate, Invicible Armour, et al.). sometimes come with Wu videos!

I'll spare you some others I like, I have a high tolerance for this stuff so I might have a skewed vision of what's "good" at this point.

"Dragons Forever" and "Wheels on Meals" - both starring Jackie Chan, Yuen Biao, and Sammo Hung, and each climaxing with a punch out between Jackie Chan and real life kickboxing champ Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez. I can never decide which of them is my favorite kungfu fight onscreen.

ha, i saw this recently. its a love story about a boy & his elephant! theres one amazing scene where he rips through a vice den, i dont think its in one take but it fells like it is & goes on for about 10 minutes, he wastes about 100 people

One-Armed Swordsman and Return Of The One-Armed Swordsman (the third can be ignored, but might be worth a watch for completists' sake)

Magnificent Butcher - classic Yuen Woo Ping flick starring Sammo Hung and Yuen Biao. Amazing fight choreography and funny as hell.

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

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

...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.

Shawscope Vol.3 announced.

https://www.arrowfilms.com/blu-ray/shawscope-vol.-3-limited-edition-blu-ray/15407476.htm

Also Arrow are doing Vol.2 for £60 as a tie in.

Vol 3 might be the best yet. Or at least most varied.

Tsui Hark’s The Blade (1995) is a masterpiece. Seeing it in a theatre was an absolutely transcendental experience

I'm kind of filled up on these now, can't see myself getting another boxed set like this. I did kind of want to see Intimate Confessions and (on the Shout Factory set) Bells Of Death.

Still haven't seen Miracle Fighters even though I've wanted that a long time. Happy to see Black Cat 2 and Sex & Zen getting released.

Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In was an over the top blast. A little weirdly syrupy but some excellent set pieces

Syrupyness is a big part of so many Hong Kong films from the golden era, I kinda expect it. Also the film is looking back at an old era at a time when Hong Kong is going through painful changes so I feel like there's some real pathos to the sentiment.

yeah and most of it suits the movie just fine. there's some mysticism as well with one of the big bads, which was a nice touch harkening back to old school martial arts, particularly villains like Pai Mei.

mostly I'm just happy to finally see one of these in the theater

they really don't use Sammo Hung much, fighting wise, until the end, (probably cos he's 72), but he gets a cool little fight sequence. a lot of the actors didn't know martial arts coming in (or only had a little training) and were taught them for the film.

naturally the most experienced of the younger bunch (Philip Ng) got the most badass shit to do lol

Black Cat 2 - This actually has more traditional martial arts than the first film. I was a bit concerned because Jade Leung is kind of sidelined for the first chunk of the film, because she's almost like a faulty robot that needs reprogramming. The sound in the fights seems a bit off. The action scenes are far more impressive here but I prefer the first film. I hope there's more Jade Leung blurays coming because she's really cool, difficult to explain her quality.

i bought the Chang Cheh box in the arrow sale and have watched the two Shaolin films so far and they look great for things from the mid 70s.

picked this one of the three because i thought it said The Five Deadly Venoms but looking at it closer it's just The Five Venoms. but it turns out it might be the same film after all. i guess we will see.

The Five Friendly Venoms

seeing this thread reminds me that i really need take some time out this weekend to watch Black Storm (打黑), with this elevator/lift fight (35.58 in if this link takes you to the beginning)

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

(it was the same film)

that's a hell of a fight scene for sure.

i was reading about the various edits of swordsman ii and learned that the most complete version, the taiwanese mandarin dub, was released on blu-ray in 2023... but only in germany, on media vision. of course it's impossible to track down in the states, even streaming afaik. well, i'll be on the lookout at least...

> Revive!
> Crippled Masters exploitative or not?
> ― jocelyn (Jocelyn), Friday, 27 January 2006 18:56

ha, it's a film that i think they'd have trouble getting approved today. or they could reframe it as a disability positive film.

(it's odd that they don't have deaf events at the paralympics. i guess it doesn't affect things as much as blindness or missing limbs)

ha, it's a film that i think they'd have trouble getting approved today. or they could reframe it as a disability positive film.

― koogs, Monday, April 28, 2025

crippled masters: inspiration porn or not?

oh, the one i watched was Crippled Avengers, the second Venoms film. possibly the same film.

(not the same film)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Crippled_Masters

and probably more worthy seeing as the actors themselves were disabled and not just wearing the world's least convincing prostethic makeup (iron arms, iron legs)

Was mentioned in the Boutique thread but deserves notice here: Shout! Factory starting up the rollout of the Golden Princess library in 4K:

HONG KONG CINEMA CLASSICS | UPCOMING DIGITAL RELEASES
Action fans and martial arts and movie enthusiasts will relish these definitive releases of Hong Kong cinema masterpieces, available for digital download and on-demand across major digital entertainment platforms in the U.S. Presented by Shout! Studios, the first titles to be made available digitally in 4K include:

June 24, 2025 John Woo’s HARD BOILED in 4K (starring Chow Yun-Fat, Tony Leung Chiu-wai).

June 24, 2025 Ringo Lam’s CITY ON FIRE in 4K (starring Chow Yun-Fat, Sun Yueh, Danny Lee).

July 8, 2025 John Woo’s A BETTER TOMORROW in 4K (starring Leslie Cheung, Chow Yun-Fat), A BETTER TOMORROW II in 4K (starring Leslie Cheung, Chow Yun-Fat), and A BETTER TOMORROW III in 4K (starring Chow Yun-Fat, Tony Leung Ka-fai).

July 22, 2025 Tsui Hark’s PEKING OPERA BLUES in 4K (starring Brigitte Lin, Sally Yeh, Cherie Chung).

July 22, 2025 John Woo’s THE KILLER in 4K (starring Chow Yun-Fat, Danny Lee).

August 5, 2025 Tony Ching’s A CHINESE GHOST STORY (starring Leslie Cheung, Joey Wang),A CHINESE GHOST STORY II (starring Leslie Cheung, Joey Wang), and A CHINESE GHOST STORY III (starring Tony Leung Chiu-wai, Joey Wang).

August 19, 2025 John Woo’s BULLET IN THE HEAD in 4K (starring Tony Leung Chiu-wai).

HONG KONG CINEMA CLASSICS | UPCOMING PHYSICAL MEDIA RELEASES

Collectors and loyal movie fans will rejoice over the first titles to be made available for physical media from HONG KONG CINEMA CLASSICS™. Each highly collectible edition boasts an exciting movie presentation and will contain insightful bonus features, which are currently in progress and will be announced at a later date.

July 29, 2025 THE JET LI COLLECTION (4K UHD + Blu-ray): FIST OF LEGEND, TAI CHI MASTER, FONG SAI YUK, FONG SAI YUK II, and THE BODYGUARD FROM BEIJING. (HKCC #1-5)

August 26, 2025 Ringo Lam’s CITY ON FIRE 4K UHD+ Blu-ray (HKCC # 6)

September 23, 2025 Tsui Hark’s PEKING OPERA BLUES 4K UHD+ Blu-ray (HKCC #7)

Shucks.

lol ok i guess that answers my question about The Swordsman II. It's not on that initial list but it is on the longlist of titles Shout! Factory got the rights to in January. I missed that announcement because I was distracted with something or other, can't recall what though.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-u5wlUez1KA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nbYvqpf7A6M

Cine Asia has the first one on disc in the uk, I have a feeling that I won't like these because everything looks so fake but I am still quite impressed by the spectacle

Maybe sequels to League Of Gods?

Shawscope Vol.4 looks nuts.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DcB7Lnu8wcg

Surprised that I've seen 9 of these. The new Sammo Hung box looks fun, I haven't seen them and don't even remember seeing them on his imdb.

Rosa with Yuen Biao is also new to me

I wish Peacock King and Saga Of The Phoenix were bundled together because they really ought to be. I guess some labels overdo the boxed sets but 88 Films underdoes them at times.

Fingers crossed for Kid From Tibet.

I'm pretty sure I've seen "Yes, Madam" but not the others in the "Line of Duty" series, so popped in "Royal Warriors" (which is retroactively the "first" in the series, though it was filmed second and there's no continuity, anyway) last night. Wow, great movie! Surprisingly gritty, but much better made/filmed than I expected, and some of the stunts (esp. involving explosions and car chases) seemed downright dangerous. I have that 4-movie 88 Films blu-ray set, which was a bargain at, what, $35?

All the Yes Madam sequels improve on the original imo but Royal Warriors is the best one.

yes, madam! is certainly a flawed film but the highs are very high! the last fight is an absolute all-timer!

in the line of duty 4 rules

I've seen a few people say that one, 4, is the best. That's how you know it's a good series, everyone has a different favorite of the four.

I listened to the commentary on Royal Warriors, and he notes that the tone and even the editing and fights of this one is very different from Yes, Madam. Much more serious, no quips, lots of multi-move fights in one shot vs several moves edited together in quick succession. Plus of course it has a final ridiculous battle involving a tank and a chainsaw wielding Rambo looking baddie.

Royal Warriors rules indeed! I just got the box set myself, haven't seen III or IV, excited for those.

"In the Line of Duty 3" was ok, a good time capsule with some good stunts. I've been listening to the commentary tracks on all of these, and he makes some useful observations re: the influence of western action movies at the time (like Lethal Weapon), the shift away from comic relief toward often brutal violence and, esp. post John Woo, the increased introduction of guns and gunplay (in the "gun fu" sense) that more or less persists as standard to this day. It would be nice if more of these films had stronger plots to help pass the time between set pieces, but the draggy diversions and digressions are part of the charm, I suppose.

Iirc it was the commentary on "Armor of God" where the person talking spent a good deal of time complaining how dull and boring the movie could be between the action, often when it's trying to be "serious" as a mystery or thriller or as opposed to a stunt-filled thrill ride. "The Raid" really set (or reset) the standard for contemporary minimal plot/non-stop action. And then the John Wick movies in turn essentially made the plot and mythology a goofy running joke, which heightened the fun under the guise of raising the stakes.

do the commentaries mention anything about scripts could generally be pretty thin during the classic HK action era? I've been curious about how widespread that was, particularly on the lower budget side of things.

I saw johnnie to do a Q&A once and he talked a bit about how during the early days at milkyway they were often improvising around when and where they could shoot given various constrains and would then piece it all together when they wrapped, eg the mall shoutout in the mission is in the movie because they found out they could shoot at the location that evening after it closed. cynthia rockrock has said some things along those lines about her stuff from that time too. (I mean, you can _really_ feel it with yes, madam's bizarre structure...)

They haven't really talked about the scripts too much, but there is an aspect of catch as catch can addressed. As in, clearly they found this awesome warehouse and decided to use it, or you can see all these crowds gathering and watching, because it must have been the only time they had access to the strip of road. On the other hand, they point out changing light conditions during some of the action sequences, implying they were there for hours and hours and hours, all night, getting it right. To their credit, the commentaries don't shy away from pointing out continuity errors, or obvious stunt people, or visible padding, it is all part of the fun. I suspect a lot of these shoots were pretty seat of your pants, though some of the more intricate choreography of course couldn't exactly be improvised.

thank you!

and re: choreography - rothrock also called this out as a major difference working on low budget action in HK vs the US in some of her interviews that i listened to. she said everyone on the choreo side in HK were true pros, and although accidents did happen, they were relatively rare and they were doing wild stuff all day every day. whereas in the US, although a lot her colleagues were trained fighters, that isn’t the same thing as knowing how to pull off sick stunts and elaborate choreography. these things weren’t necessary even someone’s job, and consequently, people would get hurt doing some very basic stuff that you would never expect to be dangerous since people understandably didn’t know what they were doing.

The fourth one was I think my favorite, and as I understand it I'm not alone in that opinion. One nice thing about it is especially after the third installment. they more or less drop the guns and revert back to kicking and punching. The other is that it's nice to see Donnie Yen in action. Michelle Yeoh and Cynthia Khan, they are good, but they are trained dancers who have adapted to martial arts. But Donnie Yen, that dude is so physically nuts, so fast.

yea donnie yen is like a force of nature, so sick!!

also, your favorite so far… you’re not out of the woods quite yet!
https://boxd.it/hziwy

tho it would be extremely funny if yes madam 18 was anyone’s fave

Wow, there are more!? I dunno, man.

They should just rename every movie "In the Line of Duty x."

haha yeah, I've only watched through the 5th one myself. it was fine but I don't think you'll be missing out on much.