UKC

Just rewatched "Hero", fantastic film, had forgotten how good it was.

In reply to Denni:

Its a good one but my all time goto chop socky film is Drunken Master.

In reply to Clarence:

Shaolin Soccer.

In reply to stroppygob:

that is a good film,


to the op,
I will add ; Ip man.

In reply to Denni:

The Tai Chi Master (previously released as a half-decent dub and called Twin Warriors). For me (in the "Westener watching films intended for a Chinese audience with all the assumptions that this entails" context), it works better than anything else I've seen in the genre and I've seen a good few. It doesn't have unfinished plot strands like a lot of these films, and the final fight is a proper one-on-one between two characters who we've been watching throughout the film. Iron Monkey fails(*) on this last count alone. The Jet Li "Fong Sai Yuk" films fail(*) due to the "unfinished plot strands" problem.
The Tai Chi Master has some flaws but they are minor. It's been my favourite for 10 years.

* where I say "fail" I only mean "fail to be my no. 1". Those films are certainly in my top 10 if not top 5!

In reply to Denni:


Suffers from (amongst other "flaws") a total lack of unarmed fighting

In reply to gd303uk:



Fair enough if it is a personal favourite. I felt let down by it.

In reply to Denni:

Kung Fu Hustle,
I like my films to have a sense of fun. This is fun to watch.

In reply to Denni:

Favorite modern one is probably ong bak.

Favorite oldie is snake in the monkeys shoadow. The whole film is here on youtube!!

youtube.com/watch?v=7z8Qt11vokU&

In reply to Denni:

The Prodigal Son - I find a lot of the more modern high, high budget "Crouching Tiger" style films just too po-faced. Films with characters who spend most of their time kicking each other whilst flying should have a little levity.

I suspect a great film could be made by an inventive editor cutting together all the martial arts sections of the Kill Bill films - the Crazy 88 section in the restaurant, the sword fight in the snow, the training section from Kill Bill 2 etc.

Btw "the Raid" is on Film4 tonight at 10:55pm - like a film version of that old Bruce Lee computer game.... ascending a building, taking on all comers floor by floor.

In reply to thebigfriendlymoose:

"The Raid" is a good modern MA Flick.

Got to love the period drama that is 'Project A'. Full of humour and spiffing MA action.

2012's Wu Xia is also worth checking out. It is a CSI type MA flick.

In reply to Denni:

Kentucky Fried Movie.

Nothing else comes close.

CB

In reply to Denni:

I always thought "Shogun Assassin" was pretty cool and just plain weird.

M

In reply to MGC:

I was just about to say that the Lone Wolf and Cub films (the first two of which were edited together to make Shogun Assassin) are really good. Much slower paced than the edit, but there are some really good films amongst the six (and a couple that stink a bit).

For modern, flashy ones I still love Crouching Tiger. The rooftop/courtyard fight between Michelle Kwong and Zhang Ziyi had me whooping the first time I saw it.

In reply to cb294:

I take it you mean the enter the dragon spoof and not "catholic schoolgirls in trouble"?

In reply to doz generale:

"Not to Zürich.....".

Personally wouldn´t mind going, though. In fact, just applied for a job at UZH.

CB

In reply to Denni:

Technically speaking kung fu is a cantonese term and the golden age of HK cinema is better than this newer mainland stuff like CTHD.

In reply to Blue Straggler:

Have you seen A Touch of Zen? Sort of proto Crouching Tiger, relatively slow moving with a random psychedelic / mystic ending and some truly epic monks.

Also - Boxer from Shantung fails the "climactic one-on-one" criterion, but is great for nasty, nihilistic, revenge-driven violence.

Two Crippled Heroes is also worth checking out, if only for the "is this actually real?" factor...

In reply to Denni:

I like the 'arty' martial arts films. Kurosawa etc but also the contemporary stuff like "When the Last Sword is Drawn" and "The Hidden Blade".

Normal martial arts just makes me wish Bruce Lee lived longer.

I picked up a few tips (like what kind of wood is good for breaking with your foot etc) from this amazing video:

youtube.com/watch?v=Wnjb8Hx76u8&

In reply to Denni:

I'd agree with the suggestion of 'The Prodigal Son'. Was one of my favourites for years. I did also like the Fong Sai Yuk films, the Once Upon a Time in China series and of course Iron Monkey. Ninja in the Dragon's Den I enjoyed, if only for the awesome tune over the opening credits.

In reply to Denni:

youtube.com/watch?v=o6kBOYZmQzc&

If that doesn't whet the appetite...!

Legend of a Fighter is also a cut above in my opinion.

In reply to gd303uk:

Not nearly as hilarious, but not an utter waste of time is A Chinese Ghost Story (1987). Good luck.

In reply to Ramblin dave:




I have seen none of the above, I don't profess to be a real aficionado! I have heard great things about A Touch of Zen elsewhere too, though. It's on a long list....
Nice to see someone else has "one-on-one" criterion.

A leftfield suggestion which totally fails to meet this criterion, incidentally, is "So Close". Three leading ladies, none particularly martial-arts-trained, but directed by Corey Yuen with his usual excellent choreography and editing team, it all comes together really well.

In reply to thebigfriendlymoose:

The Raid was really good with seriously impressive hand to hand fight choreography. It was almost a shame when the cheif bad guy fighter was killed by cheating. Its also the first non 'art house' movie I've seen from Indonesia.

In reply to Denni:

The Matrix

In reply to Offwidth:

Gotta say "Fist of Legend" is one of my favourites. Here on youtube: youtube.com/watch?v=Tx-XMhpuTi0&
jet li is the man

In reply to Offwidth:

Glad you liked the Raid - it had an interesting origin - the director, Gareth Evans, is a Welshman almost fell into martial arts film making by mistake. He went to live in Indonesia to live with his wife and made a living doing free-lance video work (his only previous film work was welsh language educational stuff for a university). Was commissioned for a documentary on the native martial art and the rest is history.

In reply to Offwidth:

I thought The Raid was pretty tedious. Being half-Indonesian I might have been expected to have been biased in its favour, but it just went on and on. Yes, impressive fights, but no variety and no art to it really.

French film La Horde, not sold as a "fighting" film as such, did a similar thing more interestingly.

In reply to thebigfriendlymoose:

Thanks for that info, I did always wonder about the genesis of the film

In reply to Blue Straggler:

Bah humbug. Plenty of much better funded MA films are a lot worse in those respects. On the positive side I thought it was fresh and inventive and as I said beautifully choreographed (up with the Chan movies) on the negative side I'm personally not so keen on films with that level of extreme graphic violence. Given the generally positive reviews, irrespective of the highly damaging BS thumbs down, I think its almost certain to gain cult status.

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_raid_redemption/

In reply to Offwidth:

It gained cult status 3 years ago so your assertion is a bit of a given!
I happily went and paid money for the DVD, on the say so of a good number of people on this forum. I was disappointed. Am I meant to lie and say "yeah it was ace"?! Budget doesn't come into it, you seem to have a bee in your bonnet about that. I have criticised high budget films and I have praised low budget films many times over.

Did anybody mention Chocolate, btw? Much better than Ong-Bak.

In reply to Blue Straggler:

Nah... 3 year old films can't have proper cult status yet

In reply to Offwidth:

I agree on that, but it was slyly MARKETED as a "cult" film.

(OT: see also, films marketed before their release as "the sleeper hit of the summer")

In reply to Blue Straggler:

Does that mean they are so boring you nod off?

In reply to Dorq:
If you liked "When the Last Sword is Drawn" try (if you haven't) "The Twilight Samuari" released about the same time, and about the same era in Japanese history and also "Zatoichi".

Jason

In reply to Denni:

Kung Fu Panda - they're all eqully daft

In reply to jasonC abroad:

Yes, I used to have that one. Lent it out to someone. Zotoichi was ok.

I once rented the entire set of the Kung Fu series with David Carradine, just for old times' sake.

Rutger Hauer, shortly after his Hitcher movie, played a blind guy with a samurai sword. Or maybe I imagined it.

In reply to Dorq:



Yup, Blind Fury, 1989, directed by Philip Noyce and co-starring...er....was it Lisa Eichhorn?
<checks>

Ah Lisa Blount. Close!

In reply to Blue Straggler:

That was it.

First person (not counting this) to mention Steven Segal gets a wedgie!

In reply to Denni:

Master of the Flying Guillotine is a classic.

In reply to Denni:

Agree HERO is awesome. CTHD is also up there. Personally, HITMAN (which I think qualifies?) is the best.

In reply to Padraig:

HITMAN? Timothy Olyphant with shaved head video game adaptation?

One film I'd recommend for sheer weirdness and with a wee bit of martial arts is 'Oldboy'.

It has one of the most twisted plots ever.

In reply to Denni:

JCVD

The fact that Belgium's finest is more or less playing himself probably explains why his acting earned a fair amount of praise.

In reply to Tom Valentine:

It doesn't stand up to a second viewing, sadly. All that's really good about it are the pastiche opening scene, cynical dialogue with the agent about how the low budget stuff is packaged as a bundle, and the famous, genius, generous "breaking down the fourth wall" scene.

In reply to Blue Straggler:

I only watched it once and was very impressed with it.
As I recall, you reckon The English Patient doesn't stand up to a second viewing .......... next you'll probably be telling me I shouldn't have watched Tombstone 11 times.
Well I haven't quite got Doc's lines off by heart yet so a few more viewings are in order

In reply to Tom Valentine:




I might have overstated that one
It paled on second viewing - is that better? Whereas (keeping it Minghella) I like to think that The Talented Mt Ripley would BLOSSOM on a second viewing.




Nah that one's fine! The only downside is that it has made you think it's more of a universally-known classic than it really is (that's not a judgement statement btw).

I've seen Stanley Kramer's Inherit the Wind two or three times, plus the 80s TV version with Jason Robards and Kirk Douglas. I'd rather watch either of those versions (or the George C Scott / Jack Lemmon one that I've not yet seen) than see JCVD or The English Patient again. And I write as someone who has a framed poster of Les Amants du Pont-Neuf signed by La Binoche and who was very pleased that she got the Oscar for The English Patient :-P

In reply to Tom Valentine:



Back on topic - is this really your favourite martial arts type film? There's not much action in it!

In reply to Blue Straggler:

Not much of a martial arts fan, though I do like The Yakuza. But then I'm a sucker for any Mitchum film.

In reply to Denni:

Ip Man or Ong Bak for me. Although Enter the Dragon is high on the list.

In reply to Clarence:
Drunken Master has it all (especially the dubbed version) but Drunken Master 2 might be better!

In reply to gd303uk:
Loved Ip Man, though it's almost a proper film with a plot, drama etc......

In reply to alan moore:



A simplistic plot and ham-handed propagandist drama, mind you. But if you don't mind THAT, then yes, great stuff.

Fearless was more dramatic and plot-driven than Ip Man, I felt. Ip Man was awfully predictable. And Fearless has Nathan Jones in it

btw my recommendations earlier in the thread class as being "proper films with plot, drama etc..." as do quite a few of the other posters' suggestions, so I am not quite sure what you are getting at. Please do elaborate, I look forward to it.

In reply to alan moore:


Which "Drunken Master 2"? I've always ALWAYS been a bit confused as to what I should I watch, given that so many films(*) that immediately trailed in the wake of Drunken Master appropriated the name and in some cases some of the stars!

* e.g. Legend of Drunken Master

I agree that the dub is good fun if only for the "so - you fancy you know some kung-fu? WOW, the old bitch is tough" bit near the start

The original "cheap" dub of The Tai Chi Master, "Twin Warriors", was done quite well. An admirably minimal use of "now, I will destroy your kung fu skill" might have helped my bias though

In reply to Blue Straggler:


The one that came about 20 years later, with Chan in the long black robe and the fire breathing fight scene against his (real life?) bodyguard. I'm sure it uses the original theme tune which helps a lot .....

In reply to alan moore:

Thanks, I will look out for that one (or is that the one that is rarer than rocking horse poo?)

In reply to Blue Straggler:
Looks like the whole thing is on youtube.

'drunken master ll 1994'

..though I don't have the internet power to play it....