Recommend Martial Arts Movies

I hope the next volume doesn't come out til the end of the year, I still haven't watched much of the Joseph Kuo box set.

House Of Traps was another one of the early bluray releases by 88 Films that might be out of print, so I'm guessing it could be a candidate. I see that the american version of 8 Diagram Pole Fighter has a Clements commentary, so lucky youse.

I guess Fu Sheng was maybe considered more charismatic but I've never especially dug him. I like how the translation of the Elegant Trails mini-doc described his face as "chonky".

Hapkido has been confirmed by Eureka. I appreciate this because I haven't seen any Angela Mao yet.

Mighty Peking Man pretty bad as a kaiju film too. Fully support non martial arts films in these Shaw sets in theory but the reality of it can be a let down...

Shawscope box is down to £100 in the Arrow sale at the mo'

https://www.arrowfilms.com/easter-sale-2022.list

Heroes of the East and Dirty Ho were easily my favourites because of the overt leap to comedy.

I really enjoyed Mighty Peking Man but that's hardly surprising. Weirdest part for me was it using the same musical cues as the early 70s British TV show Timeslip.

The Heroic Trio is playing at my local theatre tomorrow. It looks like my new favourite movie ever.

Music cues in Shaw Bros films are an interesting topic, what with using libraries instead of original composers. It's underdiscussed how something like Five Shaolin Masters gains a whole different vibe from having an Italian giallo-style soundtrack instead of the American orchestral stuff they tend to go for more.

Fully support non martial arts films in these Shaw sets in theory but the reality of it can be a let down...

― Daniel_Rf, Friday, April 15, 2022 10:50 AM (eight hours ago)

I think Boxer's Omen and Seeding Of A Ghost are terrific. The latter is genuinely nasty but apparently they had a few late 70s films that were just as heavy.

Read a bit in the Shawscope booklet that Chang Cheh didn't like his late 70s films

Seconded on Boxer's Omen, just wild shit!

I could see Cheh feeling that way - there's definitely a feeling of lower budget, more by-the-numbers production for a lot of them. I generally prefer those late '70s movies myself though

I'd need to see a wider selection of his earlier work and be clear that it was actually him directing, he seems to only be a supervising director on Shaolin Temple (Wu Ma doing the real directing) and I think I heard similar about Five Shaolin Masters (Lau Kar-leung?), those two being my favorites in the boxed set. It helped that those films were less studio bound.

I generally enjoyed most of the Shaw horror films. Even though I might not like them at all, I'd be very interested to see the musicals that made their earliest hits, that stuff seems really inaccessible right now but I guess a lot of it should be on HK discs with English subtitles, I had a dvd catalogue that came with an HK dvd of Buddha's Palm that had all sorts of genres, a ton of romance films.
And speaking of Buddha's Palm, stuff like that and Holy Flame Of The Martial World, Battle Wizard etc... really should get some reissues because that's one of the best sides of their later output.

Looking through that booklet, there's a lot of unfamiliar films labelled action/adventure with martial arts stars. Most genres are there.

Several years ago I saw screens and gifs from Kenneth Anger's Inauguration Of The Pleasure Dome and I was going "is that from Boxer's Omen?"

I'd need to see a wider selection of his earlier work and be clear that it was actually him directing, he seems to only be a supervising director on Shaolin Temple (Wu Ma doing the real directing) and I think I heard similar about Five Shaolin Masters (Lau Kar-leung?), those two being my favorites in the boxed set.

Both of those seem more interested in the Shaolin stuff and less in the homoerotic male friendship relationships that Cheh seems obsessed with, so makes sense he'd be less directly involved.

Another good account

Angel Terminators 2 is the better film, but Angel Terminators 1 has this holy-shit-I-hope-no-one-was-seriously-injured stunt pic.twitter.com/dTpw7QrKMf

— ChristianV (@GenreFilmAddict) April 10, 2022

Also posted a crazy clip from Ricochet with John Lithgow (never heard of it before)

Ricochet is a tremendous underrated movie but

underrated? are we... sure about that

Yes we are. Top tier 90's action film.

It's a good week as both Dreadnaught and Knockabout were released, both have Yuen Biao and Leung Kar-Yan as a duo (and a similar plot point). This is my first time seeing Dreadnaught and it's quite varied, it feels like lots of different films from the era jammed into one. I still prefer Knockabout but Dreadnaught never drags as much. The dancing dragon scenes are a level above Jackie Chan's.

More cool announcements: Tiger Cage trilogy, Righting Wrongs and Flying Guillotine 2. Especially happy about Righting Wrongs.

On The Run too, a Yuen Biao thriller

Don't think I heard about this until today
https://variety.com/2022/film/actors/jimmy-wang-yu-dead-dies-one-armed-swordsman-1235228248/#!

Police Story 3 bluray coming.

Never heard of this one, on one of the best film accounts

Jing Tian commands the screen in Special Id’s best set-piece, a breakneck car chase-car brawl coordinated by stunt legend Bruce Law (aka remember The Raid 2’s car action; that was him). Just radiates that can’t-look-away superstar presence of peak Yeoh and Khan https://t.co/OXxmR1NxfF pic.twitter.com/nQnp3eTgM3

— ChristianV (@GenreFilmAddict) May 24, 2022

I'm kinda cynical about the last decade or so of Donnie Yen vehicles, especially the ones were he plays a cop, but let me know if it's worthwhile

Yes, Flashpoint and Dragon didn't do that much for me and I haven't seen the SPL films yet. I'm wary about any martial arts films after the mid 90s, the Raid films are the only ones I'm really enthusiastic about. I haven't seen Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon since around the time it came out but it has never been a favorite. A lot of the more acclaimed films look just competent but missing something. Sounds like rose tinted glasses because sometimes I really don't know what's missing. But then again I feel pretty meh about lots of 70s films after seeing so many but I still like them better. I just got Corey Yuen's Hero (1997) in the mail the other day and I'm very curious how it is.

If you're meh about '70s kung fu what's your platonic ideal? Early '90s?

I do think there's a consensus that Hong Kong cinema in general ain't what it used to be from the 70's to late 90's, and this is not just nostalgia, there's obvious material factors at play there.

I don't even disagree! For me it's that the genre trends shifted heavily to modern cops, guns and crime, so that really became dominant and I didn't like that as much - as well as the decline of Shaw Bros. in particular. That said, my favorite era is probably the late '60s to mid '70s.

the genre always kinda had limitations in that keeping things "full on Fu, no guns" meant keeping all of the movies to a confined time period, so I kind of enjoyed when the genre branched out to things like Police Story, where there was still fu but modernities as well.

but damned if my favorites aren't literally all Shaw Brothers Gordon Liu flicks lol

The 36th Chamber of Shaolin being my fav

I love wuxia first and fights second tbh

i want my fights to be like a good ballet. just as much fun watching someone acrobatically dodge punches without throwing one as it is him going full-on haymaker. probably why I like Liu so much.

looking for a way to stream "Special ID," I found it on free-with-ads Tubi, which appears to have a pretty deep catalog of martial arts movies, maybe more than Netflix, Prime, etc. ... are other free streaming services similar?

I mean I do like lots of 70s stuff, it's just that there's so much that's routine/pretty good but can't get enthusiastic about. I feel like a lot of kung fu comedies have a weak first act and redeem themselves by the end. Most of my favorite stuff is 80s to early 90s. Despite my strong fondness for period costume/countryside stuff I often somehow prefer the urban films.

I also don't care much for the gritty crime trend of the modern stuff, but... if that was in the early 90s there's a good chance I'd love it, there'd be tons of nice blue lighting at least. Like Crime Story with Jackie Chan.

And the scene is so much bigger than Hong Kong/Taiwan now.

Think the gritty crime stuff is on its way out too, no? Huge in the late 80's/early 90's with John Woo and Ringo Lam, kept alive by Johnnie To and the Milkyway guys but there's only so much grit you can create under a Chinese Hays Code.

I love Johnnie To but tbf most of his stuff/the gritty crime genre has barely has martial arts at all by the '00s.
I don't think there's any shortage of gritty HK crime though - seems to be a new one on Netflix or Hulu every month. Human trafficking/Taken type stuff, etc. Louis Koo still getting a lot of work!

As a kid I was turned off by kung fu comedies and Jackie Chan - seemed so uncool compared to the Shaw's bloody revenge sagas - but as I got older I gain a new appreciation for them and in particular Jackie's death-defying choreography and stunts

RAG, agreed. but with so many options/streaming networks it's tough to figure out the good ones! Hell, I think there's a half dozen Uko Iwais films that came out after The Raid that I need to get around to

Can very much recommend 'The Night Comes For Us' if Iwais/Raid type stuff is your thing. Brutal and unrelenting.

Despite continuing with vinyl/cd, I barely buy any physical film media anymore and it's frustrating how much of the Chinese/Hong Kong stuff is missing from streaming services.

I watched the trailers for Wu Assassins tv series and the movie sequel Fistful Of Vengeance and just wasn't attracted but they have Uko Iwais and Juju Chan. Anyone seen them? Or Jiu Jitsu?

I repped for The Night Comes For Us when I saw it a couple of years back - brutal and brilliant, and I'd love more new martial arts films in that vein

I do wonder how much learning different job skills there is these days, like how so many notable people in the 70s-90s done quite a few jobs in front and behind the camera. Even Lo Lieh, Gorldon Liu and Yuen Biao directed a bunch of films.

There's a limited bonus disc on Skinny Tiger, Fatty Dragon with the documentary I Am The White Tiger about Mark Houghton. I've been thinking about it a lot, never knew anything about him previously but he became the disciple of Lau Kar-Leung and teaches his daughter alongside his own daughter Charlene Houghton. He made a promise to Lau to continue the teachings and keep the film business going. He also talks about times people have tried to kill him.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c2KVlN0UIyE

I'm always caving in and spending too long on twitter but it amazes me just how many great looking action films were coming out from Hong Kong and Japan in the 90s that I've never heard of that fans tweet about. Takashi Ishii died recently and I never really knew anything about him and never saw any of his films but they look lovely.

Just watched Joseph Kuo's The Old Master, which is almost charmingly shoddy and unglamorous looking, the total opposite of modern polished martial arts films. The lead actor uses a fighting double for the majority of the fights and it's as awkwardly done as you'd imagine. I think it's the only film in the Cinematic Vengeance box which is set in modern day (unless the Shaolin films surprise me).

I'm not sure if I remarked before about how in the Chang Cheh films Crippled Avengers and Brave Archer, someone gets their eyes gouged out but the actors still show their clearly intact open eyes for the rest of the film, so we're pretty much asked to ignore it. It's not easy to work around for fast and complex fight scenes but nothing is done to disguise it at all.

Watched another Joseph Kuo film Shaolin Kung Fu (title is both utterly generic and really doesn't fit much of the film). I'm not sure what to think of how people use the word "manipulative" to describe art or films that make me really angry at cartoon villains, but this one goes all-in to push your buttons by showing total scumbags preying on the weak and so much horrible injustice that the ending feels not nearly brutal enough. The martial arts aren't particularly fancy but it kept up the tension, I was sweating.

Hero (1997) - Corey Yuen's remake of Boxer From Shantung is fun and extremely over the top, but it's a bit messy and sometimes it looks like it was edited by a child. Might be the first time I liked a martial arts film much better than the person writing the sleeve notes.

Hah, that's funny. Still a solid movie though and a decent update of the original film. They took out the grimier stuff towards the end of Boxer

Just saw King Hu's Raining In The Mountain on MUBI and it ruled.

Currently luxuriating in the Sammo Hung oeuvre and loving every ridiculous, incorrect and hilarious minute of what I’ve seen.

I recommend “Dragons Forever” if only for the amazing final fight. Jackie Chan’s great in this as a kung fu lawyer, btw. And a great, goofy villain.

*Plus there’s a killer goofy villain.

Ned - have you seen Legend Of The Mountain? I think that's even better but it probably has even less martial arts. I don't think either has that much though.

Jay Vee - I'm really pleased how much of Hung's films were prioritized on bluray early on, Moon Warriors still hasn't come yet but it's one I often forget is directed by him. Don't know how many notable films there are left by him.

Ned - have you seen Legend Of The Mountain?

Yup, some while back.