Martial Arts Films - WHAAAAAAAAAAA!
Bruce Lee:
https://res.cloudinary.com/jerrick/image/upload/f_auto,fl_progressive,q_auto,c_fit,w_1140/bn6vs2zmgbz5coxn1shc
Lee Jun-fan known professionally as Bruce Lee, was a Hong Kong and American actor, film director, martial artist, martial arts instructor, philosopher, and founder of the martial art Jeet Kune Do, one of the wushu or kungfu styles. Lee was the son of Cantonese opera star Lee Hoi-chuen.
He is widely considered by commentators, critics, media, and other
martial artists to be one of the most influential martial artists of all time and a pop culture icon of the 20th century. He is often credited with helping to change the way Asians were presented in American films.
Most know For Movies: The Way Of The Dragon, Enter The Dragon and The Chinese Connection.
Jackie Chan:
https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BMTk4MDM0MDUzM15BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwOTI4MzU1Mw@@._V1_.jpg
Chan Kong-sang known professionally as Jackie Chan, is a Hong Kong martial artist, actor, film director, producer, stuntman, and singer. He is known for his acrobatic fighting style, comic timing, use of improvised weapons, and innovative stunts, which he typically performs himself, in the cinematic world. He has trained in wushu or kungfu and hapkido, and has been acting since the 1960s, appearing in over 150 films.
Most Known For Movies: Rush Hour & Drunken Master
Jet Lee (Personal Favorite):
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/41/Jet_Li_2009_%28cropped%29.jpg/800px-Jet_Li_2009_%28cropped%29.jpg
Li Lianjie, better known by his stage name Jet Li, is a Chinese film actor, film producer, martial artist, and retired Wushu champion who was born in Beijing. He is a naturalized Singaporean citizen.
Most Known For Movies: Fearless, Unleashed, The One.
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My Top 3 Movies:
Fearless: No. 1
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/4/4a/Fearless_film.jpg
I have to say that Fearless is one of my favorite just due to how the choreography is done during the fights, especially the scene on top of the platform you can see in the image I've posted here. Jet Li was in his prime at this point and portrayed both comedy situations and drama situations really well.
One of the reasons I like watching these kind of films is how they show the western influence, which is shown frequently in fearless.
9/10
The Legend Of The Drunken Master: No. 2
https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BZmRiZTZiMWEtZGVlNS00YzU1LTkxZjYtODNiMDEyYTIxYjA0XkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyMTQxNzMzNDI@._V1_SY1000_CR0,0,674,1000_AL_.jpg
God this movie is just filled with so much great stunts and movements. Who ever did the choreography in this film had how a drunken master should move done to the T. Jackie does a great job in this movie, it almost seems like he's improvising every movement because it flows so freely.
I really like the whole gimmick of him getting stronger the drunker he gets, makes for some tense scenes.
8/10
Unleashed: No. 3
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/e/ed/Unleashed_poster.jpg
Doesn't really fall under the normal Chinese martial arts film but I'm adding it because I just love Jet Li too much. very interesting concept with once again great choreography, usually if a film is a complete dumpster fire in every aspect except for the choreography I would still like it, I just love cool fights
Man it's even got Morgan Freeman, what a combo.
8/10
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Sorry for the copy past wiki stuff as I didn't really know how to describe them haha.
Please discuss your fav martial arts films here, I would love to know what you guys are into and if you guys think my opinion is shit please tell me, I just wanna talk about these damn fun movies.
Legend of the Drunken Master really is a great place to start for anyone trying to get into JC's filmography
Only other starting point I can think of is the original Police Story. It has a great mix of action and comedy, and as far as stunts and fights go, Police Story features some of the absolute best. The finale is practically unreal, which is ironic cause most of the hits and falls are 100% real, and they aren't using sugar glass
There is a lot of broken glass at the end
I like Jackie Chan the most because Martial Arts really doesn't look good in movies but in Jackie Chans case it doesn't take itself too seriously so its alright
Hmm I wouldn't say so, depends on what movie and who's doing the choreographing.
Ya gotta be able to enjoy the work that goes into some scenes but yeah Jackie Chan basically does all the choreographing for himself so that's probably why you like his style. Oh and 90% of his movies are comedies
Donnie Yen is a more recent actor who is pretty good for both the Ip Man series (I've only seen the first two so far, because three looked silly just because of Mike Tyson) and Kung Fu Killer/Jungle.
Yeah he's been in a lot of great movies recently, really liked him in Ip Man.
In the early 2000s, there were a lot of cool and great Chinese historical martial arts epics being released. Films like Hero, Curse of the Golden Flower and to some extent, House of Flying daggers. These were all made by the same director and while he's made more films, i can't get a read on whether any of them have reached the same level of quality.
I'm just generally looking for more in the genre, as the visuals and fantastical premises of Martial Arts feats are just mesmerizing and beautiful to me. I miss getting that vibe from newer films. I know Jackie Chan was involved in some historical epics in the late 2000s, but i haven't really looked further into it yet. Also, how is the Red Cliff duology?
I guess what i'm asking is if there are more Historical Epics that draw inspiration from how the wars of the 3 kingdoms portrays its key heroes as superhuman warriors as well as larger than life personalities without it being utterly cheesy and lame or devolving into Man of Steel levels of bombastic scenery destruction.
Did that whole genre just die?
Is this also the Waluigi thread? The subtitle says yes.
Yes it did in favor of modern stuff, there's been resurgence of historical works but they're all fantasy based on have the typical potty humor and 2d plots.
The one you're looking for is Battle of Red Cliffs.
op says jet li is his favourite but can't even spell it right
anyway, as far as martial art films go.. raid redemption is absolutely solid for a modern era one.
Totally agree on The Raid: Redemption, such a class movie.
On Amazon Prime video, I found "The Big Boss 2" and I decided to give it a look out of sick curiosity.
I turned it off after like, 10 minutes. Nothing is in frame, ever. Seriously.
Also can we all appreciate Jackie Chan some more.
https://youtu.be/yQYyXBJJfTM
(Second part)
https://youtu.be/u8j2zqRkDIw
Good modern martial arts films are too rare nowadays, I think the main reason why is because there isn't really many good stars like Jackie still does moves but he hasn't done a classic Martial Arts film in ages.
Donnie Yen is good and all but he hasn't really done anything good except for the last ip man, new one is hopefully coming out soon
Also here's a photo of Donnie Yen Ripped
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/5/56/DY_Training.jpeg
he did Kill Zone SPL and that good shit
theres not a lot of great films in the genre in general. Martial arts nerds often overlook that films are seriously bad as long it contains frequent scenes of chop socky. I remember growing up getting a bunch of chinese MA films on vhs from the rental shop every few weeks, and out of the literal hundreds i have seen most are seriously bad, often hilariously bad in the case of stuff coming out of early hong kong film shops that had been obviously pieced together from different films in the editing room. I remember reading recommendations in magazines about supposed genre "classics" that turned out to be really really shit.
Not trying to be an asshole, just lamenting that the genre overall is terribly weak. Whenever there is discussions of the movies its always the same handful of titles coming up because as far as quality goes, these aren't deep waters.
Enter the Dragon is the best MA film ever made IMO, and probably not in any small part due to the fact it wasn't approached as a martial arts film and had experienced director and producers that had next to nothing to do with MA in any capacity before. Its pretty much a rip off of the bond films of the era, only instead of sean connery and his ridiculous hair piece you've got bruce lee smashing people in the face with nunchaku. Like bond films from that time, utterly ridiculous premise that manages to be charming instead of eye rolling.
Surprised Van Damme hasn't been mentioned, bloodsport, kickboxer, universal solider and timecop revived a lot of the commercial interest from studios in making MA films for a short period of time due to their success. Bloodsport is one of those weird 80s gems that very easily could've been a straight to video wet fart, but somehow the stars aligned and you've got well crafted film where all the components work well in spite of very corny material.
http://theactionelite.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/Van-Damme-Bloodsport.png
Its now commonly known (and if you're on reddit you'll get at least 100 parakeets who won't fail to remind you of it every fucking time the film is even peripherally mentioned) that Frank Dux (who the film was based on) is completely full of shit, but I think some people assumed in the pre-internet era that he was widely believed. That wasn't really the case, i remember guys in gyms and dojos i went to as a young kid having conversations about obviously full of shit Dux was... its interesting to me at least that the world wasn't as disconnected as some very young people seem to believe it was pre-widespread internet access. When you start to get into niches like professional fighting its actually a very small world and six degrees of separation and all that.
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