So I'm totally on a martial arts movie high right now, after having seen Jet Li's Fearless -- and now I'm curious to see "Fist of Legend" next, and his first Wushi-based film, "Shaolin Temple."  Ive also always wanted to see Jackie Chan's "The Legend of Drunken Master" -- I'm surprised I haven't seen it yet, considering I've watched the first one so many times before.

So, chop-socky fans, how about it?  Got any good recommendations for your favorite fight films?

Both Fist of Legend and Drunken Master are great; you're going to love them.  What makes them especially good is that they don't have all the pretentious arty story nonsense that all the recent stuff like Flying Daggers, Hero, and Crouching Tiger have.  They're just pure adrenaline fun.

that said, XLord, one of my favorites is Hero. ^^

Yeah, Hero's so beautiful. Absolutely great stuff.

I like Jet Li's old flicks too, especially Fong Sai-Yuk, which is probably my favorite humorous martial arts movie. It's just so silly and has some very nice action sequences, so it's hard not to like it.

Also, it might be a good idea to check out some of the films coming from Thailand, e.g. Ong-bak.

Well I'll go for a real obvious one but my fave is Enter the Dragon. Mostly because John Saxon rocks.

Yeah, that's definitially a classic.

One of my all time favorite Japanese martial arts/fantasy/adventures is "The Legend of 8 Samurai" (1983, aka "Satomi hakken-den").  Based on Chinese mythology and closely resembling the story line of countless RPGs that have come since, this movie is campy, colorful, and loads of fun, and features a jaunty, beat-laden, tongue-in-cheek 80's synth score that makes me laugh and dance and mourn its unavailability on CD.  In the English-dubbed version, the characters actually refer to themselves as "ninjas," probably to cash in on the ninja craze of the early 80's.  (I remember one year, probably around '83, almost every male in my elementary school, including myself, was dressed up as a ninja for Halloween.  We must've looked like an army of lethal midgets!)  Available on DVD as one of those super-cheap 2-on-1 deals (paired with another one of Sonny Chiba's masterpieces, "Street Fighter"), someone's actually selling this right now on Amazon for only 20 cents plus S&H: http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/ … 56-1242836, although I found my copy at a local grocery store (!) for 99 cents.  Pick it up!

I like a lot of the old HK stuff from the 70s and particularly 80s but at heart I'm a complete Bruce Lee fan. Even though he only made a handful of films he remains the most charismatic, magnetic martial arts star we've ever seen. Only Bruce Lee is compelling enough as an onscreen presence to hold the screen in all the non-action scenes. Lots of others have come and gone, and many have had incredible skills but none have had that special presence that makes Lee a genuine legend.

Other than that I'll take pretty much anything from Jackie Chan's heyday. Pure entertainment, though the comedy interludes are usually cringeworthy. Tony Jaa's stuff is pretty amazing, and Ong-Bak is a great, entertaining film with awesome action scenes. Warrior King is complete nonsense and suffers a bit from that.

I must admit I'm quite in the dark when it comes to Jet Li - I just never got round to watching much of his stuff.

Came across a bit evangelistic there... I mean, I love the films and the films only - I'm not the sort to have a pair of nunchuks hanging over my bed or anything

f---ing Riki-Oh: The Story of Riki. Best goddamn action movie (made under the pretense of being a kung-fu movie) ever. Sure, it's mostly over-the-top cheese, but how you gonna hate on a movie where a dog gets kicked in half?

Apparently, it's based on a manga, and there was an anime adaption. I must find these.

I didn't hate Hero, I just didn't care for it.  I don't mind arty films, but I prefer their "artiness" to be more subtle.  In Hero, it's like the director's trying to ram it down your throat.  Flying Daggers, however, I did hate.  That film was pure garbage.

"...and now for something completely different."

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0296042/

P.S. This movie f@#king RULES!

P.P.S. And so does the soundtrack!!!

http://www.cdjapan.co.jp/detailview.htm … AKMOSCD-22

Did you ever see Hero a second time?  I was pretty disappointed with it as well when I saw it in the theater, but the second and third times watching it on DVD it grew on me considerably.

Jet Li's films are my favorites, but I've recently discovered Tony Jaa. His fighting style is different from anything I've ever seen. Well, it does remind me of Sagat's moves from SFII (which makes sense, as his stage was Thailand).

Ong Bak: The Thai Warrior

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0368909/

So Close, which stars Shu Qi from Transporter is pretty good:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0300620/

Anyone ever see Furious starring Simon Rhee? I'm not sure how to describe it but it's one of my favorite films, martial arts or otherwise. It has an almost silent film quality with its sparse dialogue and muted score. I also love the bizarre story and live contact sound effects. No overdubs as far as I can tell! I really hope this gets released on dvd someday.

I just don't get the Jet Li hype. Hero was all right but every American film I've seen him in is bad. The "wire fu" in Romeo Must Die was particularly awful. The football scene makes me laugh out loud.

I saw a really cool Hong Kong flick at the cinema about 10 years ago (maybe longer), it was in a HK triple bill and it was called Nightlife Hero AKA I Love You Baby. I did the triple bill with with a friend, and while the other two were passable (one of them was a tremendously so-bad-it's-good rip-ff of Enter the Dragon), Nightlife Hero was so much fun. It had a good story, genuinely funny comedy bits and surprisingly great action. I've been trying to track down a copy of it ever since, hoping that some distributor in the west will pick it up under one of the HK action labels. No luck as yet though. Heck, if it only came out in HK with no subs I'd probably try to get it.

I don't know how it would hold up but I'd dearly love to see it again.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0105877/

Fist of Legend is a decent Jet Li movie.

Avoid "The House of the Flying Daggers."  It has a bad plot and bad wire-fu martial arts sequences compared to Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.

If you're into martial arts comedy (not-so-serious plot with off the wall martial arts), Shaolin Soccer and Kung Fu Hustle are great in that genre.

Aforementioned movies are fun (Jackie Chan is very impressive), but I feel that most of these HK or HK-like action flicks are pretty much the same thing, and I am hard pressed to remember any particular fight scene, plot, diaologue, or most anything specific about them. That being said, the two movies below are my favorite martial art films (although they are in a different catagory than these HK flicks):

The Karate Kid
Seven Samurai

cheers,

-avatar!

I just saw the latter a few days ago and thought it was a great deal of fun. It was a bit too reliant on CGI at times, but it was all worth it for the Harpist fight.

I haven't really seen too many martial arts movies since Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (which is my favorite), but I remember enjoying Iron Monkey. The fights were inventive and the story was interesting enough to hold my attention.

- The Protector
- Best of the Best
- Bloodsport

Great recommendations, guys, thanks!   I've already got Fist of Legend, Shaolin Temple, and Drunken Master on order, and I'm about to put in for Fong Sai-Yuk and Ong-bak.  After those, I'm almost certainly going to check out the rest.

For the record, I loved Enter The Dragon.  I thought Crouching Tiger was okay, and Hero I really liked.  Shaolin Soccer was awesome, and Kung Fu Hustle even more so. (Hustle even earned my favorite movie of 2005.)  I still need to find a Chinese copy of Raymond Wong's soundtrack; apparently it's supposed to be more complete than the domestic one.  I only hope it has the Sing's past/love theme on it.

I watched The Protector last night. It's better than Ong Bak. In fact, I went on a little shopping spree and purchased a few more Thai films; that country is starting to offer some serious competition for Hollywood.

I bumped it up for this:

http://www.hkflix.com/xq/asp/filmID.540 … etails.htm

I got mine in the mail yesterday. I'm looking forward to watching it.

Some recommendations:

Old School:
- Warriors Two
- Once Upon a Time in China 1/2
- The Prodigal son

"""Contemporary""" (if you can call 80's this way ):
- Police Story 1/2
- Enter the Dragon

With Comedy:
- Chinese Ghost Story 1/2/3
- Millionaires Express
- Odd Couple
- Project A

Oh my...
- One Armed Boxer vs Flying Guillotine

For some reviews:
http://www.kungfucinema.com/movies/reviews.htm
http://www.hkcuk.co.uk/reviews.htm
http://www.hkcinema.co.uk/reviews.html

Wow, I found the Once Upon a Time in China trilogy in Best Buy for $15 a few days ago. I watched the first one last night and it was similar to Fearless, but better. I did some research and there are actually 6 movies in the series. Jet Li was in 1, 2, 3, and 6. Some other dude was in 4 and 5.

I also started researching the Shaw Bros. (it's a studio that's made some 1000 Hong Kong movies)

Yeah, "Shaw Bros" was a huge operation who pretty much owned the entire market, I remember reading about that company in Jackie Chan's biography book many years ago...