Martial Arts Movies

spacecoyote

I was wondering if people could recommend some martial arts movies to me. I like all areas within the genre from fantasy (eg Kung fu hustle) to swordplay (Zatoichi, Azumi), modern (Ong Bak) to classic (Bruce Lee, Kurosawa movies). Any, and all recommendations welcome!
Thanks

TerrorFirmer

One of my favourites is "Drive" with Mark Dacasscos.

Its in pretty much all Super Valu stores being sold with a cover that you wouldn't piss on - don't let this put you off, its an absolutely superb film.

Muckmagnet

i picked a good one up in town last week called shogun assasin , it was banned originally cause it was so voilent , its a samuri movie . its cool if your into arms and legs flying everywhere

TerrorFirmer

Muckmagnet wrote:

i picked a good one up in town last week called shogun assasin , it was banned originally cause it was so voilent , its a samuri movie . its cool if your into arms and legs flying everywhere

Yeah that's a great movie I must say, really enjoyed it - there wasn't an opportunity wasted to spill blood in this movie

spacecoyote

thanks guys, haven't seen drive, but saw that mark damasscos guy in brotherhood of the wolf (great movie) and he was pretty good.

Yeah, i have shogun assassin, its pretty cool stuff. If you like it i'd definitely check out Zatoichi and Azumi, as well as Yojimbo and The Seven Samurai (older movies). Theres actually a whole series of movies based on the guy and kid (Lone Wolf and Cub) from shogun assassin, they are called the babycart series i think, more of the same limb dismembering fun

Noelie

I liked Crying Freeman, I think its a manga movie

Running Bing

Muckmagnet wrote:

i picked a good one up in town last week called shogun assasin , it was banned originally cause it was so voilent , its a samuri movie . its cool if your into arms and legs flying everywhere

You should check out the lonewolf and cub series(babycart series). Its a series of five movies that you can get a box set of pretty cheap on the net(Think I got it for 35 euro). Anyway shogun assassin is just some of the violent scenes from the series pieced together and made into a movie. But the actual movies are absolutely class. great story and characters.

Im a big fan of classic oldschool kung fu flicks. Check out some Shaw brothers films some classics being 36th chamber of shaolin(classed by many as best kung fu movie ever), return to the 36 chambers, disciples of the 36 chambers, five deadly venoms, eight diagram pole fighter, fist of the white lotus and executioners from shaolin (both feature the white eyebrowed monk pai mei from kill bill 2). They have some of these films pretty cheap on cdwow.com.
Also Iron monkey is a great MA film and the once upon a china series is also a good starting point as its more western in style because the Kung fu complements the story instead of it being the focus of the film.

pbsuxok1znja4r

Iron Monkey!

legologic

If you look in the Japanese movie thread you'll find a good few there. Mostly Kurosawa and Takeshi Kitano ('Beat' Takeshi) movies. They're the obvious places to start. Japanese Samurai movies would probably be my favourites.

For martial arts you can't go far wrong with Shinichi 'Sonny' Chiba (Hattori Hanzo in Kill Bill), tho' he's more kick-and-punch than bound-and-leap martial arts. The "Street Fighter" series are probably his best known works tho' the original "The Street Fighter" is the best of the lot.

And then of course there's the b-movies. Mostly these are just fun and cheap. I regularly have a peek into the €2 store for these hillarious gems. If you want a good laugh look for the now infamous "Ninja Terminator". Director Godfrey Ho is renound as the master of dodgey martial arts flicks. When watching Ninja Terminator I thought... god this looks like they made the story after the film, little did I know he probabably had (hehehe). Czech out some of the names of the films... pure cheese [IMDb] [IMDb bio] lol... I'd really love to see "Zombie Vs. Ninja" and "Full-Metal Ninja" sounds interesting too. :rolleyes:

Tower have a Hong-Kong section with a load of decent Kung-fu movies (as apposed to samurai Movies) tho' they can be rather expensive. Tower have an alright selection and get some really good stuff. I usually see if anthing in there takes my fancy and if I can get it in Laser or Somewhere else cheaper, saying that tho' I got Shogun Assasin there for somethin' like €7.

Running Bing

Godfrey Ho is un-****ing-believable. Watching one of his movies (preferably one with Ninja in the title, of which theres about 70 all from the 1980's) is an experience everyone must have before they die.:D
He also made a bruceploitation film called dragon lives again in which bruce Lee dies, goes to hell and fights darth vader, zatochi, James Bond, clint eastwood and popeye amongst other. This is the god honest truth.:eek:

The_Bullman

Shaolin Soccer and Kung Fu Hussle

pbsuxok1znja4r

Instead of Tower, you might try "Laser" on that little street just off Exchequer st....I don't really know the name...but they've a better selection than Tower and well, you can't really get more expensive than Tower, either.

Running Bing

Wicklow street I think its called. Its not the one on georges street, thats rental only. And prices in tower really are ridiculous.

OSiriS

I'd recommend Jackie Chan's "Drunken Master" movies, and Jet Li's "Legend"

Running Bing

you just reminded me of another one oSiriS. Jet LI's fist of legend is also brilliant. Its a remake of Bruce lees fist of fury. Its class.

legologic

*cough*

Tower have an alright selection and get some really good stuff. I usually see if anthing in there takes my fancy and if I can get it in Laser or Somewhere else cheaper

spacecoyote

Babybing wrote:

He also made a bruceploitation film called dragon lives again in which bruce Lee dies, goes to hell and fights darth vader, zatochi, James Bond, clint eastwood and popeye amongst other. This is the god honest truth.:eek:

This sounds like possibly the greatest movie ever made

and if you're looking for hilarity, you should check out "The Story of Riki" aka "Riki-oh", pure genius from start to end

TerrorFirmer

Haha, Story of Ricky is brilliant.

Ninja Terminator is so cheesy but some of the sword fighting is actually very good for such a cheapfest! :eek:

Hmmm...some other great ones are The Black Sheep Affair, Police Story and The Avenging Fist - but they're more a mix of action/combat/martial arts brawling as opposed to typical Kung Fu. Still great though.

But as I said, for pure impressive combat/action martial arts, Drive is the best I've seen to date. Drive puts any Jet Li movie to shame imo.

Running Bing

Also (and please dont flame for this) you may want to check out equilibrium. Very interesting take on MA with its gun kata. Good movie thats often overshadowed by the matrix but is up there with it imo.

spacecoyote

no accusations of flaming here. I thought it was pretty entertaining myself, christian blae managed to carry it off quite well

hairyheretic

For pure comedy, Jackie Chans "City Hunter" is hard to beat.

You can also get complete box sets of Monkey and The Water Margin.

Mr Vampire is pretty funny as well.

Muckmagnet

the one armed swordsman !!! half the arms , twice the action

Necronomicon

HavoK wrote:

One of my favourites is "Drive" with Mark Dacasscos.

Its in pretty much all Super Valu stores being sold with a cover that you wouldn't piss on - don't let this put you off, its an absolutely superb film.

Seconded! I'm a big fan of Dacasscos, if you got Drive and ended up liking it then I'd check out Brotherhood of the Wolf and Crying Freeman. They both have a bit more substance to them, not all-out martial arts, but both brilliant.
If you liked Ong Bak then you should check out Born To Fight.
As for the more classical ones, I'd check out the Once Upon A Time In China trilogy.

Karl Hungus

scouser.tommy wrote:

Iron Monkey!

Damn right.

I'm not so much into martial arts films myself, but that's definetly one of my favourites.

monkeyfudge

hairyheretic wrote:

For pure comedy, Jackie Chans "City Hunter" is hard to beat.

You can also get complete box sets of Monkey and The Water Margin.

Mr Vampire is pretty funny as well.

These are good recomendations right here people.

Mr. Vampire is very funny and has some great fight scenes in it.

Wheels on Meals would be one of my favourite Jackie Chan films, and possibly has one of the best on screen fights of all time.

The Heroic Legend of Fong Sai Yuk and Once Upon a Time in China are two great Jet Li flicks.

BopNiblets

I just watched Seven Samurai recently, and it's fricking cool for 1954.

I'm also trying to watch Six String Samurai, it's about a guitarist samurai (natch) trying to replace Elvis as the new King of Rock And Roll in post-apocalyptic Las Vegas... and there's a kid and lots of bad guys, including Satan... yeah.

Juggalo

You could try getting Tom-Yum-Goong same production company as Ong-Bak and also starring Tony Jaa, you could wait for the UK release but it goes by the name Warrior King then.

You can't go wrong with Jackie Chan flicks either.

spacecoyote

cheers, i've seen some of those mentioned above.

City hunter is one of the best comedy/MA movies i've seen. i also loved Iron Monkey...i know some of the sequences are sped up but its still pretty impressive stuff.

I thought born to fight was pretty good too, some of it was totally hilarious, esp the bit with the soccer star kicking the football a couple hundred yards to take out a guard perched in a tree.

yeah i've seen trailer for that Tom Yum Goong, i've heard its not as good as Ong Bak and that contrary to claims that they never use any SFX in their movies that they actually do in it. but cheers for the heads up on the english title, will definitely be keeping an eye out for that.

really liked the once upon a time in china series too

If anyone hasn't seen them, i'd recommend Azumi, Versus & Sky High by the director Ryuhei Kitamura. They are pretty slick, not really martial arts movies but fit closely enough into the genre. Azumi is a more classic samurai movie, but with a modern twist. Versus is best described as a Zombie/samurai/gunplay movie and Sky High is your standard evil guy wants to bring about hell on earth with only a select few able to stand against him. He's done a few other movies. Theres one in particular called Aragami which i haven't seen but sounds like quality stuff. Has anyone seen it? And if so what did they reckon?

ionapaul

Legend of the Drunken Master? I think it rocks. Pretty funny and some great action scenes.

TerrorFirmer

The Twins Effect is also quite a good movie, Martials Arts combined with Vampires.....it works for me

nadir

scouser.tommy wrote:

Iron Monkey!

definately one of my fav.

HavoK wrote:

Story of Ricky is brilliant.

aye yeah.

Id go for any of the old Jet Li movies, 'The Shaolin Temple' fong sai yuk, etc.
Then there are the more off the wall ones like, Hero, Zu Warrions, the legend of zu etc. all great.

Muckmagnet wrote:

i picked a good one up in town last week called shogun assasin , it was banned originally cause it was so voilent , its a samuri movie . its cool if your into arms and legs flying everywhere

You should really watch the baby cart movies 'lone wolf and cub'
Samurai Shogun is just an edit of that.

For Japanese stuff Anime is really where its at, rurouni kenshin etc.
although it's not really in the martial arts category. Most of the Kurasawa Samurai movies are great though and there are a good few live action adaptations of manga, Crying Freeman, Azumi, and Zatoichi already mentioned.

monkeyfudge

I found Azumi to be a bit dull actually. It was pretty much all style and very little substance.

The ladyboy bad guy was pretty cool though.

Versus was very enjoyable though.

Has anyone seen the sequel to Azumi?

spacecoyote

Haven't seen the 2nd Azumi no. They kept a couple of the original cast, but the original director didn't do it. I've heard its pretty poor, but don't know for sure

spacecoyote

Babybing wrote:

Check out some Shaw brothers films some classics being 36th chamber of shaolin(classed by many as best kung fu movie ever), return to the 36 chambers, disciples of the 36 chambers, five deadly venoms, eight diagram pole fighter, fist of the white lotus and executioners from shaolin (both feature the white eyebrowed monk pai mei from kill bill 2). They have some of these films pretty cheap on cdwow.com.

I've been very tempted to pick up a few of these recently, but hadn't heard from anyone who'd seen any. they were on cdwow (only region 3 i think), might have been a few on play.com too and i've seen them in Virgin. If they really are as good as you say i'll definitely have to check them out

Running Bing

spacecoyote wrote:

I've been very tempted to pick up a few of these recently, but hadn't heard from anyone who'd seen any. they were on cdwow (only region 3 i think), might have been a few on play.com too and i've seen them in Virgin. If they really are as good as you say i'll definitely have to check them out

You should pick one up first and check it out to see what you think(their pretty cheap). The ones on cdwow are all region 3. Id recomend getting any of the ones I mentioned previously as they have most of them on cdwow at the moment and their definately amongst the best. Check out kungfucinema.com for reviews of the movies and also dont be tempted to go for unofficial dubbed versions as the quality is nearly always shocking. The versions remastered by celestial pictures though are absolutely brilliant.

hairyheretic

Babybing wrote:

Godfrey Ho is un-****ing-believable. Watching one of his movies (preferably one with Ninja in the title, of which theres about 70 all from the 1980's) is an experience everyone must have before they die.:D
He also made a bruceploitation film called dragon lives again in which bruce Lee dies, goes to hell and fights darth vader, zatochi, James Bond, clint eastwood and popeye amongst other. This is the god honest truth.:eek:

And is available from play.com for 6 sterling. Sounds like a bargain to me

Running Bing

hairyheretic wrote:

And is available from play.com for 6 sterling. Sounds like a bargain to me

Id get right on it. No collection is complete without it:D

jor el

I'd recommend Ong Bak, bloody good film that. I'd also second (or third) Iron Monkey, definitely watch this.

There's already quite a good list of films in this thread, a lot of which I don't have so I must save up some cash and go shopping again.

I have Azumi and Azumi 2. Azumi I thought was pretty good, but the second wasn't up to much. A bit like Battle Royale 2 Vs 1.