UKC

Bring it on.
No stylised gunplay John Woo stuff, I mean hand-to-hand, swords, sticks etc.

Genuinely interested to see peoples' responses so if you could give a justification rather than just saying "it's the dog's bollocks", that'd be greatly appreciated.

In reply to Blue Straggler:
Kill Bill, great acting, good story and not just another Ninja fight.

In reply to Blue Straggler:

Enter the Narwhal.

This is all your fault you know :-D

In reply to Blue Straggler:
Not a great martial arts fan - but Kung Fu Hustle was quite different

In reply to David Hooper:

I'll second Kungfu Hustle, daft but fun.

Rumble in the Bronx - before jackie chan sold out to holywood!

In reply to Milesy:

Rumble in the Bronx WAS Jackie "selling out to Hollywood" (his 3rd attempt!) It is good though - the fight that starts amongst the pinball machines and somehow implicates an aluminium stepladder, is great (especially the outtakes where you see Jackie take the full force of a pinball machine on his head...)

But I don't think it's anywhere the top

In reply to Blue Straggler: OH - does Big Trouble In Little China count - I liked that one

In reply to Blue Straggler:

Bloodsport. One on one fighting based on a true story rather than one v fifety guys. Has all the best key ingredients:- training footage, funky eighties music, a great grand master to learn from, love, death and above all it's super cheesy. Is that everything a martial arts film should be?

SDB

In reply to ShinyDiscoBalls:

I'm not too familiar with the early Van Dammes, but is that the one where one of the competitors is just killing everyone, van Damme gets powder chucked in his eyes in his climactic fight, and he does his signature move (drop to splits and a double-fist punch to groin) again and again and again and again?

It's a classic, for sure (seriously).

Oddly enough I just bought the beyond-post-modern "JCVD" tonight

In reply to Blue Straggler:

That's the one pure class.

I think I love all action films from that era. They are crap really but a great way to pass a couple of hours.

SDB

In reply to ShinyDiscoBalls:
armour of god 2 operation condor

In reply to Blue Straggler:

The English Patient.

Or a Nikon D40.

Or a Giant TCR 1.0.

?

In reply to Blue Straggler: There are mostly terrible suggestions on this thread so far.

Fist of Legend, Shoulin Drunkard, Young Master, Lone Wolf movies (shogun assassin was derived from them), and any number of Yuen Woo Ping movies are miles better, in my opinion. Kill Bill, Kung Fu hustle have to be amoungst the worst. Thurman was laughable in Kill Bill.

In reply to beastofackworth: Aye well said

In reply to Blue Straggler:

seven samuari - has to be the best obviously

or Yojimbo - the basis for fistfull of dollars i think

Roshomon - seriously class whodunit with swords, not millions of swords but some

but a modern one nipping possibly piping them all for me is

Twilight Samurai - (strangler dont miss this one its great)
I loved this, this film just grabed me, this film places you right back in fudal japan, and not just the swordplay, although its class, this has great portrail on how their society worked, male / female relationships at the time, and obviously honour and responsibility.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0351817/

At the blood and gore end of things a great fun one is
Shogun Assassin

i think its all on youtube in smaller parts
here is the intro
youtube.com/watch?v=OmZGiL8OGdE&

In reply to Daithi O Murachu:

you lucky lucky lot

twilight samuari is also on youtube in 14 parts

youtube.com/watch?v=XtKTdNbEVOM&

but the copy may be a bit low on the brightness

In reply to Blue Straggler: I quite liked the fights in 'Dragon - the Bruce Lee story'.

In reply to Tam Stone:

Yuen Woo Ping was the martial-arts director for Kill Bill.

In reply to Blue Straggler:
Ong Bak,
Tony Jaa is brilliant and old school Muay Boran is fun, lots of fun!

In reply to Blue Straggler:

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000) has a good storyline and a few well-made fighting scenes.

Dragon Inn (1967, not the 1992 remake) is meant to be THE sword-fighting classic and a big hit in Asia at the time. I've not seen it myself though.

In reply to Blue Straggler:

Sorry I meant in regards to him not doing his own stunts etc in rush hour.

In reply to Blue Straggler:

Has nobody mentioned the Bruce Lee classics of Enter The Dragon, Way of the Dragon and The Big Boss?? Or early Jackie Chan is always good eg. Young Master, Drunken Master, Police Story or Operation Condor.

In reply to jamestheyip: A well known fact.

In reply to Tam Stone:

The Barefoot Kid has some excellent one vs many fight scenes and is very watchable.

Visually, Hero is extraordinary.

Although it's generally cheesy as hell and the 80s clothes and music will make you want to vomit, I think Rapid Fire was actually Brandon Lee's best film and has some really inventive fight choreography.

In reply to Blue Straggler: For me, Brotherhood of the Wolf. All the good bits of a Hollywood blockbuster with non of the bullshit. Just don't try watching it in English!

Even the slightly dodgy ending doesn't stop it being one of my all time favourites.

In reply to Daithi O Murachu:

If you like Twilight Samurai you'll probably like When The Last Sword is Drawn set in the same era and made about the same time.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0359692/

and may be Sword of Doom much older but about the same era in Japanese history

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0060277/

Jason

In reply to jasonC abroad:

thanks have them both DLing right now

In reply to jasonC abroad:

yes thanks it was very good loved it, and very like last samurai in sentiment

I looked up tghe history of he film on wiki and as it does that led me to another film "The ballad of Narayama", not a sword fest but the same setting and period again. lookign foward to enjoying Swords of doom, have to say the title put the missus off watching that tonight, she can "endure" that one with me tomorrow

once again thansk for a very fine tip

In reply to Blue Straggler: police story, armour of god...early chan stuff, but not too early like drunken master..lol

Thanks for some interesting replies in there, I'll have to check out some of the more esoteric stuff. Too tired to reply sensibly right now. At the moment for me it remains The Tai Chi Master (Jet Li, early 1990s). Straightforward story, clear character development and understandable motivations, a cracking pace and energy to it, and seriously some of the greatest action set-pieces ever (I STILL think the "expulsion from the temple" is the greatest single action scene in ANY genre of film)

But there's so much that I haven't seen!

In reply to Blue Straggler:
Iron Monkey. One of Donnie Yen's early big hits. His fights in Once upon a time in China 2 with Jet Li are awesome too. Ninja in the dragon's Den is a curiosity for the discerning viewer. Fist of Legend, the Jet Li remake is outstanding. Some of the best hand to hand I've seen on film, but bone crunchingly brutal. Strong stomach required. The Legend of Fong Sai Yuk series is pretty cool too. Some very nice wire work and prop/scenery-based fight scenes.

In reply to ChrisBrooke: Dear God, how could I forget. My favourite and probably the best I've seen: The Prodigal Son. I know you wanted reasons, but please just watch this. Based on Wing Chun styles. Great story, drama and action. Still old school but could be seen as a precursor to the likes of Crouching tiger, hero, flying daggers etc.

In reply to ChrisBrooke:

Cheers Chris, I've seen all those apart from the Ninja one...in fact I own most of them. For my money The Tai Chi Master still beats them, but they are still great.

Iron Monkey makes Crouching Tiger look like The Last of the Summer Wine But yes CTHD takes a lot of visual ideas from it (e.g. roof running at night). Problem? Confusion about who the main protagonist is, and a climax with two good guys vs. one bad guy, whose existence we were ignorant of until very late in the film. i.e. it doesn't follow a sensible story arc. Maybe a cultural thing? I know that the intended audiences were expected to be familiar with a lot of the background.

The Prodigal Son is very highly revered, I have the DVD, will watch it again soon to see if it beats The Tai Chi Master.

As far as I can tell, Hero was made for a Chinese audience but Flying Daggers was intended for the west (indeed all the CG and the brilliant and underrated sound work, were done by western companies). CTHD was of course basically an American film made for the west. Not saying that you are doing this, but I don't like seeing them held up as the pinnacles of the genre.

Back to Prodigal Son...I recently watched another pairing of Yuen Biao and Sammo Hung - Eastern Condors! Not so much chop-socky as there is a lot of gunplay, but it's a hoot. Shamelessly plundering The Dirty Dozen's premise and loads of other scenes from classic films (The Deer Hunter...), but a funny coincidence that I saw it so recently and it is not a million miles from The Expendables, which has gunplay and hand-to-hand.

In reply to Blue Straggler:
Street Fighter.


<Runs>

In reply to Reach>Talent:

Which version?

In reply to Blue Straggler:
Van Damme and Minogue

In reply to Reach>Talent:

Raul Julia and Simon Callow!

In reply to Blue Straggler:

Gung-fu:
Drunken Master - Jackie Chan's finest and some great drunken style scenes
Snake in the Eagle's Shadow - JC again, good film for bad martial artists
Shaolin Temple 1-4 - The inspiration for a thousand car-park-jutsu fights

Chanbara:
Lone Wolf series - the Iaido is a good standard for a film, the manga is better though
Miyamoto Musashi - the three-film series of his life, Toshiro Mifune's best films
Zatoichi - either the original or Takeshi Kitano's remake, both are excellent although the digital blood in the latter gives it a kind of cartoon quality. I could say how they challenge perceptions of disability but it's basically a blind man who chops bits off gangsters. What's not to like?

In reply to Blue Straggler:

prodigal son
iron monkey
magnificent butcher
blade (chinese, not the crappy vampire movie)
encounters of a spooky kind*
*anything from that period with sammo hung is generally very good
most shaw brothers productions

reasoning: in most of these films the natural choreography of the fighters is whats exciting rather than just relying on special effects, choppy filming or camera angle

dont agree with the criticism of kung fu hustle above though, it is a good fun movie, although special effects driven i think it is a good example of that type of movie, plus the story is really funny, but it's far from a pure kung fu movie

In reply to EasyAndy:

What do you think of something like Zu Warriors from Magic Mountain? I think it's a great fun film but wouldn't class it as a martial arts film as it is mostly effects work and magic lightning etc.

In reply to Blue Straggler: havent seen it, just watched a clip on youtube and it looks brilliant! will try and track it down

but yeah looks very over the top, once saw an old hindi horror film that looked kind of similar, you had to keep reminding yourself that you weren't actually hallucinating

In reply to EasyAndy:

Wow it's a real classic and very famous. There is a good DVD out that includes this ludicrous tacked-on prologue and epilogue that was made for the US market and goes on for FAR too long! YOu should be able to pick it up pretty cheaply. It's an essential part of a collection!

In reply to Blue Straggler: Meanwhile, on a specialist martial arts forum, someone is discussing the best grit climbing route

In reply to Blue Straggler:

my collection of kung fu movies is pretty lame, we used to have an indepedent video shop near us that had a whole wall dedicated to kung fu films, so i ended up watching Loads but only what they had. Missing that shop badly

dont suppose you know what hindi film i am talking about do you? as far as i could tell (maybe i was hallucinating as my memory of it seems really poor) it was about a midget/child/witch that lived at the bottom of a lake, and interfered in the lives of the main characters - very psychadelic and weird

In reply to EasyAndy:

Afraid not!
Sorry, I didn't mean to diss your collection there!

In reply to Blue Straggler:

Just bought "Fist of Fury" to see if I can get over my whole "I don't get Bruce Lee" thing...it was only £1 on DVD

In reply to Blue Straggler: that's probably one of my faves of his, what's not to like about bruce lee? was in some classic movies and is an amazingly entertaining fighter on screen.

In reply to EasyAndy:

All the slo-mo and the silly "waaaa-EEEEEHHH" noises and posturing/preening and just taking himself so so seriously. In fairness I have only seen Enter the Dragon and it is probably quite unfair to judge him on that. I don't doubt his prowess, I just didn't find his screen work to be that good.
I am going to watch Fist of Fury very soon though

In reply to Blue Straggler:

Done. I still don't get it

In reply to Tam Stone:

That's a bit unfair, if you are measuring her by her martial arts...given that she was a 33-year-old American with no martial arts background, carrying the burden of a huge "make or break" project for a director who also had no background in production in this genre, and she'd given birth 4 months before principal photography...I thought she was awesome (and her performance in Vol. 2 was a great piece of acting)

In reply to Blue Straggler:

Or the worst...

http://www.voodoovillage.co.uk/2008/03/two-crippled-heroesthe-crippled-mast...

In reply to Daithi O Murachu:
In reply to Blue Straggler:

In reply to Blue Straggler:

seven samuari - has to be the best obviously

or Yojimbo - the basis for fistfull of dollars i think

Roshomon - seriously class whodunit with swords, not millions of swords but some

but a modern one nipping possibly piping them all for me is

Twilight Samurai - (strangler dont miss this one its great)
I loved this, this film just grabed me, this film places you right back in fudal japan, and not just the swordplay, although its class, this has great portrail on how their society worked, male / female relationships at the time, and obviously honour and responsibility.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0351817/

At the blood and gore end of things a great fun one is

You missed out Sanjuro and also Read Beard. I love chanbara as a whole.

Kung fu wise Ip Man seriously rules.

Mart.

In reply to workblowschunks:
>

And Dashiel Hammett's novel "Red Harvest" was the basis for Yojimbo...

In reply to Blue Straggler: A didn't know that, i'll check it out thanks.

In reply to Blue Straggler: What d ya think of Beat Takeishis version of Zatoichi?