Another vote for Master of the Flying Guillotine; a genuine classic for its violence, humor (intended and otherwise), and broad diversity of fighting styles and weaponry - particularly in the aforementioned tournament scene. A very influential movie.
Not to mention a good idea. The point of studying with someone is to learn from someone better than you, and the only way to prove they’re better is to fight. If they can’t beat you, why waste your time? You should be teaching them!
BabaBooey, yep, that’s Drunken Fist Boxing, which has outtakes from a very early Chan film. In fact, he’s on the cover of the video, and yet he appears onscreen only in about one minute of film, which is a flashback. I own it on
As for the best movie… I’d suggest Iron Monkey (NOT Iron Monkey II), as directed by Yuen Wo Ping (the fellow who did the fight choreography for the Matrix movies). It’s a classic Chinese legend, and classic wire work and pacing. It’s not the prittiest ever made, and certainly not the most life-like… but the final fight scene has to be seen to be believed.
Well, okay. Just a glimpse, though. It’s fought on the tops of the remaning posts of a building that’s burning to the ground. Hotfoot.
Since the OP was asking for “martial arts”, I tried to avoid movies where the use of weapons dominated the action. This kind of ruled out so many sword fighting films in my mind like the Lone Wolf And Cub and Zatoichi series and so many Kurosawa films as much as I love them.
But I’d definitely recommend them all to someone looking for a broad overview of great Asian action flicks from many subgenres along with various Chinese ghost story films and HK gunplay actioners from the Tsui Hark and John Woo vein.
Riki-Oh!! Hehe.
Seriously, see ALL the Bruce Lee movies (except maybe Game of Death). Great charisma and realistic but awesome fight scenes.
On a side note it’s always fun to watch Steven Segal pay numerous stuntmen to run into his elbow. 
Ever see the Joe Don Baker masterpiece Golden Needles? It’s a laff-riot! see the poster here
I love watching stupid martial arts movies almost as much as the good ones.
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[/Miss Piggy]
If there was only one martial arts movie to see, it would have to be “Enter the Dragon”. There are a number of reasons why this is so:
- Bruce Lee at his peak. (enough reason by itself, but there’s more)
- a martial arts movie with a plot. Okay, it’s only about a “B” grade plot, but better than the usual “our school vs. your school” and/or revenge plot.
- Choreography. Or rather, choreography that doesn’t look SO choreographed. Jackie Chan is a fine performer, but what has gotten really old about his movies is that his fight scenes are so obviously choreographed. Clearly the fight scenes in “Enter” were choreographed, but they come off as spontaneous. Perhaps it was rehearsal or just good stunt people, but there is a much better sense of realism in the fights. Add Bruce Lee’s ability to this, and you have the masterpiece that it is.
- Secret agent genre. Okay, so they had to really stretch believability as far as why an armed attack couldn’t be done, but Lee in the “undercover agent” role perfectly suited a martial arts movie. He had to survive not only by his wits, but with no fancy gadgets or tools.
All in all , “Enter” stands above all others as the “ideal” martial arts movie in my book.
There are other movies worth seeing, but for other reasons:
- Jet Li’s “Shaolin Temple” for pure technical performance. The cast of wu shu masters made for some of the most techincally amazing fights/performances.
- Jet Li’s “Kiss of the Dragon”. Chock full of plot holes, I think this is Jet’s best “modern” film (set in a modern setting). Also the undercover agent fits this genre well.
- I would catagorize both “Crouching Tiger” and “Seven Samurai” not as “martial arts” movies, but as movies that happen to have martial arts in them. Both are great movies - but more for their story and characters than any fighting.
Awww! Dumbguy beat me to mentioning Shaolin Soccer. What a great film.
But, if you’re looking for something a tad more serious, I’d check out Crouching Tiger.
Let me preface this post by saying that I really enjoyed the movie (would’ve enjoyed it more recently if the copy I lent to a friend of mine were actually returned to me, but I digress).
The wire work was a tad lazy. Too much of it was a “look, we can fight while floating slowly upwards” than CT,HD’s, which had them really covering some ground. It gave that movie more a sense of the scale of the scene than Stormriders.
The CGI was a shade too cheezy. I’m thinking of the “drilling the monk into the ground” and “blood instead of water” scenes in particular. Though they were both cool in a “Damn, that’s cool” sense (especially the latter), the CGI was very obviously CGI. Kinda like the anti-coagulent effects in Blade. (Sword Saint, OTOH, was damn cool.)
The story suffered, IMHO, from it being a comic book adaptation. There were sequences (something was stolen from someone?) that seemed to be tacked on simply because a certain character had enough of a following that they needed to make some kind of appearance - even a token one - lest all the loyal fans of the comic get pissed off. And while I remember the scene as being cool, there was an even greater sense of “who the hell are these two, now?”
Also, it wasn’t as pretty a movie in terms of knowing when to pull the shot back and let the action speak for itself. Not quite as bad as most American movies, but it had too much of a “let’s zoom in and pay undue attention to this move or this special effect” feel for my taste. By contrast, CT,HD generally gave the characters a nice big frame in which to work their magic - for me it’s all about a nice “natural” feeling to the action.
So, yeah, while Storm Riders was cool, it just wasn’t as…polished as CT,HD or Hero. (Come to think of it, I didn’t even like the CGI as much as I did Shaolin Soccer’s.)
Can’t believe no one has mention Bride With White Hair yet. Quite similar to Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon but superior imho.
I’ll also add votes to Swordsman I/II, CTHD, Enter The Dragon and Drunken Master I/II.
Although they aren’t really martial arts movies, both Ricky-Oh (insanely over the top) and Shaolin Soccer (one of the funniest movies ever) are great fun. Try to get the Hong Kong original of Shaolin Soccer. From what I’ve read Miramax are butchering the US release and I read somewhere that they are editing out the brothers singing!
And why has no one mentioned The Karate Kid trilogy :rolleyes:
heh, “Only the Strong”
as far as I know the only martial art movie featuring Capoeira.
I dunno if you’d consider it a martial arts movie, but Mission Impossible 2 contains some Capoeira. (According to my friend who was taking a Capoeira class at the time. I don’t know much about Capoeira except what she told me.)
I will add get another vote for it.
Close second is Iron Monkey.
Enter the Dragon is a must see though.