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!"

are these martial arts films? I suppose. I've sung 2's praises before but the long scene where everyone pretends to be in slow motion is Buster Keaton-worthy.

they mentioned there's some dour hopping vampire film from the 00's (I think?) that's not any good but does have the novelty factor of having a lot of the iconic actors from the series play down on their luck slobs in an apartment complex.

― Daniel_Rf, Tuesday, 24 October 2023 10:25 (yesterday)

That's Rigor Mortis and its generally considered good, I enjoyed it, a bit cgi heavy but not boring, worth a try for sure. The guy with the glasses from Mr Vampire 1 and 4 is in it and he hadn't been in movies since the early 90s. Kara Wai is good in it too.

I expected that the Mr Vampire box set would have one of the two The Gods Must Be Crazy crossovers, but neither is there. One of the stranger crossovers I've heard of, The Gods Must Be Crazy series was a big hit in Hong Kong, I tried the first film and I didn't get far, I found it extremely patronizing.

Guy with the glasses is Anthony Chan Yau, he directed a film called My Americanized Wife, I've always found HK films quite funny when they portray Chinese people from America or England.
https://image.tmdb.org/t/p/w500/9L3hkB0vor8Yk8yGDTRFhuSd0dP.jpg

lol amazed both by the fact you thought they'd include a The Gods Must Be Crazy crossover and your generous assesment of it as "extremely patronizing"; just a total garbage franchise, omnipresent for a few years in my childhood.

I thought that was the 4th and 5th film in the series. I watched like 20mins of The Gods Must Be Crazy before I turned it off. That might be the earliest I've abandoned a film that I sought out (on streaming admittedly). I had never heard of it until I read an hk horror film guide.

I confused TGMBC with the George Burns "Oh, God" movies and was very confused for five minutes

i gotta say i really loved watching this essay... anybody have any recommendations along these lines?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-tQUzZTVCw

Inspector Wears Skirts was kind of okay but the poetry line "why do my hairy legs always walk towards you?" was inspired. Kara Wai looks glorious with that hair.

I didn't even finish Beach Of The War Gods but was amused how the trailer boasts about having an all-male cast. I thought the novelty value of male action heroes would have worn off by the early 70s.

Beach Of The War Gods rules. Hilariously ends with our intrepid heroes doing a war crime.

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.

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?