List of Crap #121: Top 50 Martial Arts/Wuxia Films

[F-Zero]

CRAP.  I completely forgot the one where the guy is an investigator samurai.  Oh what was his name.  There were three movies and one of them he practices torture on himself to see how much his prisoners can stand, and another he coerces information out of woman sexually.  DAMN what was that called.  Well don't say it because doubtless it's coming up.  Someone PM it to me pls thx.  I have to go see it again immediately.

[PsychoGoatee]

Unrelated to that, but I do like the movie G.I. Samurai.  Time travel, Sonny Chiba, good times.

On the Gordon Liu movies and whatnot, I've always meant to check those out. He's naturally cool in his roles in Kill Bill.

[George-2.0]

Not familiar with the samurai investigator films - though I enjoyed the Wuxia Sherlock Holmes type trilogy I just finished with, Detective Dee.

I didn't post the 2 I planned to on Friday night - so I'll post these 3 for Sat, then 4 on Sunday, and get back to my 5 a day schedule on Monday.

[George-2.0]

#37 – Project A
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/v/nwbgYCjdSTo" target="_blank" class="new_win">https://www.youtube.com/v/nwbgYCjdSTo</a>
30 points on 3 of 11 lists - Highest Ranking: #14 (Johnny Unusual)

Year: 1983
Directors: Sammo Hung · Jackie Chan

From IMDB - In late 19th Century Hong Kong the British may rule the land, but the pirates rule the waters. Reluctantly, the Coast Guard is given money to fight these pirates, but the pirates themselves have many contacts (that is, bribed officials) in the government, and seek to thwart the Coast Guard's efforts to eliminate them. One Coast Guard officer is Dragon Ma, who is determined that his beloved Coast Guard will not be made fools of.

From Wiki - Set in the 19th century in old Hong Kong, Project A blends comedy moments and spectacular stunts, including set-pieces reminiscent of Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd. One stunt, in particular, involved Chan hanging and falling from the hand of a clock tower some 60 feet high, tearing through awning canopies before hitting the ground head-first. It was inspired by Lloyd's famous clock-tower stunt from the 1923 film Safety Last!; while Lloyd only hanged from the tower, Chan took it a step further and actually fell from the tower.

[George-2.0]

#36 – Lone Wolf and Cub: Sword of Vengeance

32 points on 2 of 11 lists - Highest Ranking: #7 (Fluncheon)

Year: 1972
Director: Kenji Misumi

From Criterion... Based on the best-selling manga series, the six intensely kinetic Lone Wolf and Cub films elevated chanbara to bloody new heights. The shogun’s executioner, Itto Ogami (Tomisaburo Wakayama), takes to wandering the countryside as an assassin—along with his infant son Daigoro (Akihiro Tomikawa) and a seemingly infinitely weaponized perambulator—helping those he encounters while seeking vengeance for his murdered wife. Delivering stylish thrills and a body count that defies belief, Lone Wolf and Cub is beloved for its brilliantly choreographed action sequences as well as its tender depiction of the bonds between a parent and a child.

[George-2.0]

#35 – Drunken Master
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/v/KQMNllz6aE0" target="_blank" class="new_win">https://www.youtube.com/v/KQMNllz6aE0</a>
32 points on 2 of 11 lists - Highest Ranking: #5 (Johnny Unusual)

Year: 1978
Director: Yuen Woo-ping

GamesRadar ranked it 3rd out of their top 25 Kung Fu Movies and said… Now it's nothing new, but back in the late seventies no-one was mixing comedy and martial arts. This was one of the first successful genre blends of that type, and became Jackie Chan’s calling card. He stars as Wong Fei-hung, who trains in the ancient form of Drunk Boxing.

Coolest fight: While drinking and fighting typically results in a night in the slammer, for Chan's fighter it's an intoxicating combination. It's amazing that his moves connect.

Iconic moment: The training sequences in which Chan is quite clearly suffering a lot. The birth of the "Ah, I'm so tired but I know I must go on to be the master" training montage.

[F-Zero]

Not familiar with the samurai investigator films - though I enjoyed the Wuxia Sherlock Holmes type trilogy I just finished with, Detective Dee.

I didn't post the 2 I planned to on Friday night - so I'll post these 3 for Sat, then 4 on Sunday, and get back to my 5 a day schedule on Monday.

stethacanthus jumped in immediately and PMed me the correct name.

[F-Zero]

Oh come on...only me and flunch voted for Lone Wolf & Cub?!!??!?

The rest of you have some serious HOMEWORK to do:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lone_Wolf_and_Cub#Films

[George-2.0]

I've seen 2 and a half Lone Wolf & Cub movies but I didn't care for them and quit on the series, they just weren't for me.

[George-2.0]

Sunday features 4 of my personal faves, starting with this all-world, top of the class masterpiece...

#34 – Yojimbo
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/v/y_1iT_GmHTE" target="_blank" class="new_win">https://www.youtube.com/v/y_1iT_GmHTE</a>
32 points on 2 of 11 lists - Highest Ranking: #1 (Edward J Grug III)

Year: 1961
Director: Akira Kurosawa

From Criterion - The incomparable Toshiro Mifune stars in Akira Kurosawa's visually stunning and darkly comic Yojimbo. To rid a terror-stricken village of corruption, wily masterless samurai Sanjuro turns a range war between two evil clans to his own advantage. Remade twice, by Sergio Leone and Walter Hill, this exhilarating genre-twister remains one of the most influential and entertaining films of all time.

Trivia: Akira Kurosawa challenged his assistant directors to come up with an image for the film to let Sanjuro know he was entering a bad town. He shot down all of their ideas, since all of them had already been done. Kurosawa himself then came up with the idea of the dog carrying the human hand.

[George-2.0]

#33 – Chocolate
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/v/0Onmgwe5xi8" target="_blank" class="new_win">https://www.youtube.com/v/0Onmgwe5xi8</a>
34 points on 2 of 11 lists - Highest Ranking: #9 (Stethacantus & George-2.0)

Year: 2008
Director: Prachya Pinkaew

GamesRadar ranked it 22 in their Top 25 Kung Fu Movies list - Paste ranked it at the 51st position and said… Chocolate is a pretty odd premise that succeeds because the action is just so good. One might summarize it thusly: “It’s like Rain Man, except with more muy thai.” As in, the lead character is an autistic savant, except instead of counting toothpicks, her talents mostly lay in kicking people in the face. Casting is critical to its success; lead Yanin “Jeeja” Vismistananda is an ostensibly adorable waif, which makes her appear as a most unlikely butt-kicker. After a childhood spent mnemonically absorbing martial arts movies, however, she turns into a tool of vengeance unleashed upon the gangster threatening her mother. The fight scenes are over-the-top ridiculous but thankfully wireless, which makes for a stylish, exuberant film. —Jim Vorel

My Thoughts: I loved the story, I loved the protagonist – especially in the way she imitates other fighters, M.A. aficionados will be able to spot her doing all the greats from Tony Jaa to Jackie Chan. My favorite moment is when she replicates Bruce Lee’s Ice House fight, complete with cat-like howl. Awesomeness!

[George-2.0]

#32 – Five Fingers of Death, aka King Boxer
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/v/RfsIV4w8oh0" target="_blank" class="new_win">https://www.youtube.com/v/RfsIV4w8oh0</a>
34 points on 2 of 11 lists - Highest Ranking: #3 (George-2.0)

Year: 1972
Director: Chang-hwa Chung

Martial Tribes ranked it #9 in their list of Top 10 Kung Fu movies of all time - Paste ranked 46th, and wrote...Enter the Dragon is often the martial arts film cited as being the start of the kung fu craze in America, but in reality it was Five Fingers of Death that kickstarted the genre in the U.S. a year earlier as an unexpected drive-in hit. As such, the dubbed version at least is a little more naive in its presentation and attitude toward the martial arts, treated with a sort of aloof, mystic reverence. At its core though, there’s an excellent story here, starring the great Lo Lieh as a young pupil who shuffles between masters as he attempts to learn the necessary skills to defeat a local tyrant and win the hand of the girl he loves. It proved extremely influential—once again, Kill Bill borrows elements here, in particular its instantly recognizable battle music, which was itself lifted from the 1967 TV series Ironside. Perhaps most importantly, films like this one paved the way for martial arts cinema to soon explode into crossover popularity in the U.S., with Bruce Lee as the standard-bearer. —Jim Vorel

My Reflections: If you were of a certain age and resided in the U.S. you got a chance to live through the martial arts boom that hit the States in the early 70s. It started with the Kung Fu television series, and reached fever pitch with Bruce Lee and Enter the Dragon, but nestled in between them was this gem - there was no way I wasn't going to rank this high, if only for its importance and the nostalgia factor. A revisit shows it holds up well (and it was the first I saw it with subs rather than dub, which was an improvement.)

The original HK title was King Boxer, a rather bland appellation, IMHO. Five Finger of Death is a much cooler, bad-ass title.

[George-2.0]

#31– The Five Deadly Venoms
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/v/N_QqI6QBdww" target="_blank" class="new_win">https://www.youtube.com/v/N_QqI6QBdww</a>
34 points on 4 of 11 lists - Highest Ranking: #11 (Charles Castle)

Year: 1978
Director: Chang Cheh

aka The Five Venoms - Ranked #11 in Entertainment Weekly's "Top 50 Cult Films of All-Time." - GamesRadar ranked it #5 - Paste ranked it #1 and said... This is what vintage kung fu—and martial arts cinema, with it—is all about. The mythology alone is exquisite: Five Deadly Venoms is the first Venom Mob film, and gave each of them a name for the rest of their careers. There’s the blinding speed of The Centipede, the trickery and guile of The Snake, the stinging kicks of The Scorpion, the wall-climbing and gravity-defying acrobatics of The Lizard and the nigh-invincibility of The Toad, along with the so-called “hybrid venom” protagonist, who is a novice in all of the styles. It’s a film typical of both Chang Cheh and the Shaw Brothers—high budget, great costumes, beautiful sets and stylish action. Is it on the cheesy side? Sure, but how many great martial arts films are completely dour? Five Deadly Venoms is emblematic of an entire era of Hong Kong cinema and the joy they took in delivering beautiful choreography and timeless stories of good vs. evil. It’s everything that’s wonderful about martial arts. —Jim Vorel

Trivia: The Venom Mob is the colloquial title of a group of actors from the Shaw Brothers Studio, popular creators of martial arts films in the 1970s and 1980s. Most were friends since childhood and attended the Peking Opera School in Taiwan before meeting director Chang Cheh and moving on to the Shaw Brothers studio in Hong Kong.

They appeared in numerous Shaw films, but did not become a group in high demand until Five Deadly Venoms. They were the main choreographers in all of their films, highly skilled Chinese weapon experts, talented actors, and excellent acrobats. Their films usually dealt with Chang Cheh's common themes of brotherhood, valor, and betrayal.

To read more (including the complete roster...  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venom_Mob

[Johnny Unusual]

I love Drunken Master.  I know a lot of people prefer the sequel, which has some great creative fights but I prefer the classic training/finally fight structure and staccato martial arts style of the era.

Five Venoms was a recent watch for me.  I like that its a sort of whodunnit, except its finding out who are the evil martial artists and who are the good ones.

[Russoguru]

I probably know of about 5 total movies on this list so far... which explains why I did not participate. If I did, I probably would have just made a list with... five entries.