Thanks to Netflix, I have a new addiction...

[Katastrophe]

Martial arts movies! I've been watching these like crazy. Some of the newer films have great cinematography, and of course the action is great.

Films I've seen lately:

Ip Man

Drunken Master (early Jackie Chan)

Rumble in the Bronx

Shinobi

Ong Bak 2


Any other martial arts film fans? Any suggestions?

[Spudman]

Drunken Master was pretty fun.
I remember as a kid having to wait all week for Saturday's Kung Fu Theater. That was several hours of Kung Fu movies throughout the day. We were totally geeks for that stuff.

My addiction now is "Weeds" the Showtime TV series. What a hoot!

[tunghaichuan]

I love martial arts flicks as well.

There are always the classics like Enter the Dragon, Return of the Dragon, Fists of Fury, etc.

Only the Strong features Capoeira and stars Marc Dascos (sp?)

Red Belt features Brazilian jiu-jitsu, and while not a great movie, it has good action sequences.

The first Ong Bak is good as well as Tony Jaa's other American release, The Protector which has a cool Capoiera vs. Muay Thai/Thai Boran fight scene.

Iron Monkey is good.

Hero, House of Flying Daggers, and Crouching Tiger... all have decent (if unbelievable) fight scenes.

The One with Jet Li is good and features Bagua and Xing-yi.

Another good Jet Li film is Fearless. Pretty standard revenge plot, but good action sequences.

I've always liked Van Damme' Kickboxer, and The Quest.

Some of Steven Seagal's early flicks are good: Above the Law, Out for Justice, Hard to Kill. Avoid the later direct-to-DVD releases, though.

Another movie worth a look is called The Musketeer. The protagonist uses Chinese-style moves applied to Renaissance rapier and dagger weapons. As the title would suggest, it is about the three Musketeers.

Just a few off the top of my head.


Martial arts movies! I've been watching these like crazy. Some of the newer films have great cinematography, and of course the action is great.

Films I've seen lately:

Ip Man

Drunken Master (early Jackie Chan)

Rumble in the Bronx

Shinobi

Ong Bak 2


Any other martial arts film fans? Any suggestions?

[Jimi75]

Ip Man is a brilliant movie. That particular one was one of the best I've seen in the past.

[kiteman]

Bloodsport. :)

[deeaa]

Oh my fave all time is Kung Pow: Enter The Fist...

[tunghaichuan]

Oh my fave all time is Kung Pow: Enter The Fist...

Shaolin Soccer was pretty good, too.

[stingx]

One of my favorites - The Flying Guillotine

http://ia.media-imdb.com/images/M/MV5BMTQ5OTQxODAwNV5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwOTg4MTcyMQ@@._ V1._SY317_CR3,0,214,317_.jpg (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0071512/)

My brother and I couldn't wait until Kun Fu Theater came on. We'd lay on the floor close to the console TV with whiffleball bats near our sides. During the commercials we'd beat the shit out of each other but all would cease once the movie resumed. Fun time!

[Ch0jin]

I think I own, or have at least seen most of them, but there are some good tips there to add to the collection.

Good call on "Bloodsport" Kiteman. I just watched 'Kickboxer' again for the first time in aaaages, and apart from the cheesy music, it's great! I'd forgotten how massive JCVD was back in the day. I'll have to hunt down Bloodsport now.

Some good ones in Tung's list too. I like the comment about Seagal, although I'd suggest not only avoiding his direct to DVD films, but also his aging hippy reggae band, and his website ;) I like to remember him as a lean, mean aikido machine, sadly, like myself, he's quite a bit "puffier" than he was in his prime.

I was looking at his website just now, I guess I'd never realized it before, but he only has one facial expression. That slightly tilted, one eye squinted serious look. :)

Whilst not a movie of course, but what about the TV series Monkey! I loved that show as a kid. A Japanese show filmed in China, and dubbed in English!

Oh wait....I just checked the wiki for Monkey and it says it was only aired in Australia, the UK and NZ. That can't be right. Anyone else know the show I mean? IMDB (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0078659/) It was known as Saiyûki in Japan.

Whilst not a martial arts movie, rather more of a typical "Tommy Lee Jones tracking down the bad guy movie", The Hunted has a couple of cool fight scenes where Tommy and bad guy Benicio Del Toro use Sayoc Kali, the knife fighting style from the Philippines.

[tunghaichuan]

A few more:

Brotherhood of the Wolf

Equilibrium

Kung Fu Hustle

Yojimbo

Seven Samurai

[Spudman]

Shaolin Soccer was pretty good, too.

One of the best ever. You're the first person I've run into that has seen it.

[tunghaichuan]

Here is an interesting documentary on "Western martial arts," mainly dealing with swords:

Reclaiming the Blade (http://www.reclaimingtheblade.com/). An excellent documentary on how the West lost its connection to the sword and swordsmanship while the East did not.

A few feature films have portrayed historical Western swordsmanship accurately such as Rob Roy with Liam Neeson, Alatriste with Viggo Mortensen, Troy with Brad Pitt and Eric Bana, and The Duelists with Keith Caradine and Harvey Keitel.

So if the so called "Western martial arts" appeal to you I'd recommend any of the above films as well as Last of the Mohicans with Daniel Day Lewis and the Three Musketeers with Michael York. The Princess Bride, while not being a martial arts film, has excellent fencing choreography.

300 and Gladiator are good "swords and sandals" epics.

Finally, this documentary (http://www.amazon.com/Chop-Socky-Cinema-Hong-Kong/dp/B0007TKNP6/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1295104322&sr=1-1) is an excellent history of Hong Kong cinema martial arts films.