The Kung-Fu and Martial Arts Thread

Spike Marshall, My favorite Martial Arts films are...Bruce Lee's Enter The Dragon, The Shaw Bros' The Shaolin Handlock, Jet Li's Once Upon A Time In China 1-3, Sue Shihomi/Sonny Chiba's Sister Street Fighter 1-3, Sonny Chiba's Street Fighter, Chuck Norris An Eye For An Eye, Forced Vengeance, Azumi, Kill Bill, Supercop, Drunken Master 1and 2. My favorite action director (I am assuming for Martial Arts films) is Ryuhei Kitamura, for Azumi. My All time favorite action director is...John Woo. James Cameron is a close second.

Action directors: Sammo Hung, Lau Kar-Leung, Ching Siu-Tung, Yuen Woo-Ping, Cory Yuen

Kung fu films: THE PRODIGAL SON, THE 36TH CHAMBER OF SHAOLIN, HEROES OF THE EAST, DRUNKEN MASTER II, ONCE UPON A TIME IN CHINA II.

I've been working some Shaw Brothers into my netflix queue. I saw The Magic Blade recently, which I didn't like much. But before that I saw Heroes of the East which was pretty fantastic. It's the story of a man and his wife comparing their various styles of Kung Fu to determine the best style. Lots of fight variety; fairly standard plot. Fun movie.

I want an unfucked with Drunken Master II on R1 DVD so much it hurts.

Write or call Miramax/Buena Vista Home Entertainment and bitch about the fucked-with Blu-rays of DRUNKEN MASTER II and IRON MONKEY they're getting ready to come out with in a few months. It's appalling this still goes on.

Miramax Films
161 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10013
Phone:917-606-5500
Fax:917-606-5535

Buena Vista Home Entertainment e-mail.

One thing I love about Hong Kong cinema is how the martial arts are so omnipresent that they so often show up almost incidentally. There's some great action in Mr.Vampire but honestly kung-fu isn't even the first thing that comes to my mind when I think of that flick.

Other random faves:

Enter The Dragon
Close Encounters Of The Spooky Kind
Iron Monkey
Once Upon A Time In China triology (I actually have a particualr fondness for the third one - opening sequence is such a wonderfiul OH SHIT IT'S ON moment and probably my favourite rendition of the theme song)
Ong-Bak
Fearless

My taste in martial arts flicks was pretty heavily influenced by the asian movies threads on CHUD so I doubt I'm bringing anything new to the table here.

Sammo Hung's The Victim is one of the best kung-fu movies ever made, it has one of the most badass boss fights ever filmed. I'd also rank Warriors Two on the same level, there's an insane level of choregraphy going on in that film, Casanova Wong delivers one of the most unbelievable kicks ever committed to film, you also have Fung Hark On doing the creepiest goddamn mantis style but absolutely lethal.

Awesome, I was perusing Netflix earlier and wondering why the hell there wasn't one of these threads on CHUD yet (the B-Action Movie thread notwithstanding, of course).

BTF is beyond awesome, they spend 90 minutes trying to kill themselves for our benefit, even HK stuntmen look at that shit and go 'you guys are fucking insane'.

If 'Five Deadly Venoms' is under consideration, consider getting 'Kid with the Golden Arm' too. All of the Venom actors are in it (in different roles, of course), and there's actually more fighting as well. The production values aren't as high, but it's alot of fun with some fantastic fight scenes in it. Many clips from it are on youtube if you want to check it out. I love almost all of the Shaw Bros. films, but I find that most of them are pretty interchangeable.

The only real MUST see is '36th Chamber of ShaoLin', but I'll let Reggie explain the reasons why.

'Drunken Master II' is fantastic. That bad guy can pretty much kick the Moon in that final fight.

I own the first two, but is the third on par? Or just moments?

Consensus opinion says it isn't, and it's as Dragon Ma said, there's a lot of dragon dancing. But personally I enjoy the hell out of it - it has some of the best stunts in the series, plus Hung learning about this newfangled "cinema" thing and, well, if you're already fond of the characters I don't think there's anything they do wrong with them. I'd reccomend copping it, for closure if nothing else (the other OUATIC movies being less obviously sequels- diferent director, diferent actor, etc.)

Oops, sorry Spike. I'd like to stress at this point that people who post about asian cinema do not all look alike to me.

Great recommendations so far. I'd add Project A to the list. It's not only the best show of Chan's comedic chops, as far as I'm concerned, but it also has some AMAZING boss fights. Chan, Hung and Yuen Biao are probably my favorite team in the history of the world.

DanielRoffle, Actually, Tsiu Hark came back to direct OUATIC 5, while Jet Li returned in #6 with Sammo Hung directing, the worst film in the series. It was eeriely similar to the episode of Star Trek, where Kirk thought he was...Kiroc a Native American. Just like Captain Kirk, Wong Fu Hong gets a head injury where he thinks he is a Native American. It is a horrible way to end such a good series.

Yeah, but to me if it doesn't have both Li and Hark, it ain't OUATIC. So that's why I draw a line after the third one.

RETURN OF THE DRAGON and GAME OF DEATH deserve a mention. In my opinion, both better than ENTER THE DRAGON.

Duke's right about Sonny Chiba's STREETFIGHTER.

THE YOUNG MASTER is underated Jackie.

Any love for the first DRUNKEN MASTER?

PROJECT A & ARMOUR OF GOD are supercool.

Recall MIRACLES being funny, but wasn't the stuntwork top notch as well?

Is DRUNKEN MASTER II the definitive Jackie Chan?

The clocktower fall fucked him up, but I think it was his fall from the tree in Armour of God that broke his back.

EDIT: also, if you don't mind your martial arts flicks with less martial arts in them, you can't go wrong with The Story of Riki Oh.

I think Drunken Master II is probably the best place to start when trying to introduce someone to HK action cinema. Its a rare combination of old school meeting new school.

Of course the much publicized "firing" of Lar Kau Leung by Jackie does put a veil of uncertainty over the entire film in that we aren't really sure who choreographed what. My gut tells me the entire ending was all Jackie as was the scene when he fights Ho Sung Pak's crew after they stole the necklace.

But it covers the core of HK action films. For so long they all were about ancient china and its heroes. this is a wong fei hung movie, of which there are countless. But you get Jackie's modern sensibilities added to it. The Ax-Gang fight scene is still a scene that drops my jaw everytime I see it.

As far as choreography, I gotta say with all respect to Woo Ping, Sammo Hung will forever be the top guy. His filmography is ridiculous, everything he is involved in is gold. I think the fact that he still can do it today e.g. Ip Man makes him a living legend and the best choreographer in the business.

Clocktower fall scared the shit outta him, and was a nasty spill, but besides being sore for days he was fine.

in armor of god, when filming the opening where he steals the sword from that african tribe, he jumped to grab a tree branch and it broke causing him to fall about 10 feet and hit his head against a rock on the ground. He needed emergent neurosurgery to fix a depressed skull fracture, which would have killed him had he not been lucky enough to be miles away from one of the foremost experts on neurosurgery trauma in the world.

Glad to see a thread for one of my favorite film genres.

Gotta agree with the Sammo Hung love on here. His action is so inventive and fun, Close Encounters of the Spooky Kind being a big favorite of mine.

My favorite kung fu film is easily Dirty Ho. I've never grown tired of watching this movie. The final confrontation between Lo Lieh and Wang Yu w/ an assist by Gordon Liu is one of my favorite scenes.

36th Chamber of the Shaolin should go without saying. It's just a classic.

The Flying Guillotine (not Master of) is, in my opinion, nearly perfect. Great pacing, violent and inventive. Has most of the things I love in the genre.

The One Armed Swordsman series is another favorite, especially the unofficial remake, The Blade. I wish Jimmy Wang Yu would have made more films with the Shaw brothers.

Also, just to second or third the recommendation for Born to Fight. I can't think of anyone who hasn't loved that movie after having shown it to them.

Plus, you know, that title.

While skimming the boards haven't noticed any love for donnie yen, his last three films were pretty good(SPL, Flashpoint, IP Man)

Dragon Tiger Gate was alright, but at that point I was starting to hate the fantasy kung fu genre , SPL was a nice breath of fresh air, and that fight in that small alleyway is 3 minutes of awesome, extremely well done

Spike Marshall, Did you see Wu Jing's Legendary Assassin? It is quite the old school martial arts film, despite the fact it was made in 2008.

Spike Marshall, It was released in Hong Kong, and I got it from yesasia.com.

Wu Jing is completely new to me, SPL was the only thing I've seen him in, Any recommedations? Btw that fight with Hung is very good at the end, I think the hate comes from the fact that it's right after the alleyway fight and the fact that it doesn't live up to that fight

The Texas-filmed (Tsui Hark went to film school in Austin) ONCE UPON A TIME IN CHINA AND AMERICA is a bad movie but it's a fun, very well photographed, frequently bizarre bad movie that's always struck me as charming in its goofiness. It's an ill-fitting entry into the franchise, but if you think of of it as a marginally more serious CLAWS OF STEEL/LAST HERO IN CHINA sequel instead, most of its flaws magically become virtues - and with Sammo directing, of course the action scenes are very good. It's almost a textbook definition of a guilty pleasure. Just make sure you watch the sync-sound Mandarin & English version if possible.

Some similarities to the later SHANGHAI NOON betray this film's origins as a Jackie Chan/Tsui Hark Wong Fei-Hung movie which got reworked when Li and Tsui patched up their differences to make BLACK MASK. Jackie wasn't particularly happy about getting screwed out of his western, which is why the first thing he did with his newfound post-RUSH HOUR Hollywood clout was to produce SHANGHAI NOON.

Making of.

Spike Marshall, You are welcome. I did see...Seven Swords and it was not one of Tsiu Hark's better films. I did like Time And Tide though, that was a cool martial arts film.

Gracias Senor

I wasn't too crazy about SPL. I thought Wu jing was quite menacing, and the alley fight was awesome, but like Spike said the final fight between Sammo and Donnie fell kinda flat for me.

Now Flashpoint...WOW. That one blew me away. The final fight scene in that was INTENSE. Excellent choreography there.

Finally, Ip Man...beautiful, brilliant, brutal. What a movie! A true old school movie. Everything about it was entertaining. I really loved every minute of it.

Yen/Yip really have had quite the renaissance when it comes to HK martial arts. I (alone with Spike) have been saying those two have been single handedly keeping the HK martial arts film scene afloat. Im not interested in seeing pop stars do action movies. yen/yip are giving the Thai a run for their money.

EDIT: forgot to add my 2 cents about Legendary Assassin. Pretty good stuff. I think Wu Jing has a good eye for action. A small scale movie, but it kinda suffered a little bit from "Jet Li" syndrome where a bunch of guys just rush at Jing and he feels no pain and just kicks everyone's ass far too easily.

And, I know we have touched on it, but let me just re-iterate that what the Thai are doing right now is simply amazing. I thought Pana Rittikari and Prachya Pinkaew may have gotten lucky with Tony Jaa and Ong Bak, but they kept upping the ante. Now Tom Yum goong is amazing, but Ong Bak 2 was even better. And inbetween they did Born to fight and have a comparable star in Dan Chupong (also in the serviceable Dynamite Warrior)...and lets not forget about Chocolate...JEEJA kicks some serious ASS. Im really looking forward to her next movie "Rising Phoenix". And then Pinkaew is working on that kids action film, whose name is escaping me right now, but the trailer looked fantastic.

They are really doing an excellent job of developing talent around Tony Jaa. I can't wait for the inevitable team-up movie of all 3 of these guys.

SEVEN SWORDS didn't make much of an impression, which makes it a huge step up from LEGEND OF ZU or BLACK MASK 2. I've been meaning to revisit it as people who like it seem to like it a whole lot.

Sadly, in an article concerning his surprisingly enjoyable, somewhat Frank Tashlin-esque ALL ABOUT WOMEN, Tsui Hark addresses the issue of the extended SEVEN SWORDS and it doesn't sound promising. Good news: from the looks of it, he learned his lesson and will, starting with ALL ABOUT WOMEN, be completing the extended version and then editing that down.

Seven Swords was gorgeous and looked suitably epic in a "lots of money thrown at the screen" way, but I came away with the notion that there's more to the story either than I managed to absorb or that Tsui Hark managed to fit on screen/keep in the final cut. An understandeable difficulty when translating epic literature to cinema, of course, but a lot of the secondary character's character arcs just sort of got lost in the muddle. Agreed with Fleed that Time & Tide is far superior - now there's an underrated movie.

The Tsui Hark commentary track on TIME AND TIDE is really interesting - according to it, the film's fractured style is derived in part from it being, like SEVEN SWORDS and ALL ABOUT WOMEN, yet another super-long Tsui Hark epic edited down to regular feature length. And the narrator at the beginning is Tsui himself. I'd definitely agree TIME AND TIDE is underrated. It's proven to be far more influential than it was successful.

That's the one, Spike.

All this way and no mention of Heroes of the East? If you are looking for straight kung-fu in a film, look no further. Every match is top notch and the film is filled with people that are great.