What was the last classic martial-arts film you watched?

[DrNgor]

17 minutes ago, Drunken Monk said:

I don’t know much about Peng Kang as a fight choreographer. Did he ever reach the dizzying heights on this movie again? Are there some gems he choreographed I should look out for?

Peng Kang did great work in Woman Avenger, which I also recommended to you, and The Legs Fighters with Tan Tao-Liang.

[Drunken Monk]

20 minutes ago, DrNgor said:

Peng Kang did great work in Woman Avenger, which I also recommended to you, and The Legs Fighters with Tan Tao-Liang.

I'll watch Woman Avenger first thing tomorrow. It's currently at the top of my watchlist. And I have the Blu Ray of The Leg Fighters. I hadn't seen it before and really enjoyed it, despite some serious silliness going on. 

[Drunken Monk]

If you’re having a tough time going to sleep tonight, you may want to put Shaolin vs Ninja on.

Robert Tai delivers an achingly dull tale of Japanese lords essentially wanting to “buy out” Shaolin. Someone gets killed...twists and turns ensue. It’s banal, interminable dreck until, towards the end, we get a fantastic mini-tournament where Shaolin monks (including Tai himself) go up against Japanese warriors. This scene is worth watching but it’s not worth sitting through the painful hour that comes before it.

I know why this one isn’t up there with the best of the “Shaolin vs...” movies. It’s crap.

I have a feeling an Alexander Lou journey won’t be as fruitful as a Bruceploitation one.

Edited May 27, 2020 by Drunken Monk

[DrNgor]

53 minutes ago, Drunken Monk said:

I have a feeling an Alexander Lou journey won’t be as fruitful as a Bruceploitation one.

Just beware you get to Devil Killers and Shaolin Chastity Kung Fu.

[ShawAngela]

Movies of the day :

Unique lama : I had already watched it 10 years ago, but I only remembered the last scenes. Well...the fights are good, but I almost fell asleep while watching it, maybe I was too tired...And Yueh Hua plays a very vicious bad guy, almost in the same vein as his role in The vengeful beauty.

The iron man : first watching. A great Wang Yu's movie, non stop action. I recommend it.

The angry hero :  Another one that I had watched 10 years ago. What a superb action movie. I love these movies with Chang Ching Ching and Kong Ban, and Li Yi Min seems so young in it !! Sun Chia Lin has also a good part in it, and Chan Wai Lau plays so well the villain, here !

[Drunken Monk]

This morning I watched 1980’s The Woman Avenger aka Rapes ‘n’ Shapes.

Not surprisingly, I loved this one. The story is a breath of a fresh air: a woman is raped and her husband murdered and so she trains in kung fu to seek revenge. Very simple but very effective.

There’s not much else to right about. This premise allows for a high number of fight scenes and all are quality. Ha Kwong Li is a gem, giving us both style and power. She’s up there with the big boys of a genre here. Everything she does looks fantastic. She even pulls out some top class boot work toward the end.

An engaging joy to watch. I’d even go as far as to say the final fight scene is one of the best I’ve seen lately.

[DrNgor]

18 minutes ago, Drunken Monk said:

An engaging joy to watch. I’d even go as far as to say the final fight scene is one of the best I’ve seen lately.

You're welcome!

[Drunken Monk]

This afternoon I went for Secret of Shaolin Kung Fu. I'd seen this one before but couldn't remember much about it save for the ol' armless and legless dude. There's only one way to describe this film: a series of EXCELLENT fights in an otherwise uninspired and often tedious movie. This is the type of kung fu film my mum would have asked me to turn down when I was 15, yelling "Why are all those men shrieking?"

It's hard to say whether this one is truly good or bad. It's middle of the road, I suppose. A bevy of top quality fight scenes with a pretty shoddy everything else. It did remind me of my love for Li Yi Min though. I might give Roving Heroes aka Buddha's Palm and Dragon Fist a go shortly as it's one of his I've never seen.

[Drunken Monk]

So, in this thread, I talked about my dislike for The Thundering Mantis. Well, I wasn't a hundred percent sure so I decided to rewatch it this afternoon. Good lord, was I wrong. This is an excellent film. My chief gripe with the movie was that the kid and the grandfather were obnoxious and they're not...at all. They're played relatively straight aside for some small comedic spots here and there.
The film is formatted perfectly too. Beardy is expelled because of his temper, he befriends the kid and his grandfather, learns mantis fist and then his temper subsequently assists him at the end. Oh and a spiral into complete insanity.

Do I really need to talk about the fights? Classic shapes on display here. Beautiful long takes boasting both incredible hand and foot work. I could have done with maybe one more fight but that's a very minor gripe and certainly not any kind of criticism.

I think we all know how this one ends but it really is unique. Bat shit crazy, granted. But unique. Whoever dubbed Beardy must have had the time of his life with this one. Not to mention Beardy himself.

As far as kung fu classics go, this is another five star watch for me. It's sleek, refrains from being at all grating and delivers a devastating finale. I can only hope for a 2K remaster one day.

[Drunken Monk]

If posts are going to be moved from this thread, maybe it should be renamed "What was the last classic CHINESE martial arts film you watched?"

[DrNgor]

17 minutes ago, Drunken Monk said:

If posts are going to be moved from this thread, maybe it should be renamed "What was the last classic CHINESE martial arts film you watched?"

What was moved from this thread?

EDIT: Okay, I saw. I noticed that some of my Dragon Lee posts were also moved.

Edited May 29, 2020 by DrNgor

[Drunken Monk]

Having just watched Ninja vs Shaolin Guards for the first time, if you asked me this very second, I'd probably tell you it's in my top ten kung fu movies of all time. I loved this movie. 
It had everything I wanted from an old school martial arts movie: a super simple plot ("take this to there"), surprisingly high production values, great looking locations and oodles of fantastic looking fights.

I didn't actually know Alexander Lo Rei was a fight coordinator but he has his name on this one alongside Robert Tai (who has a mini-guandao wielding cameo). The action is superb and it let's you know what you're in store for with an opening fight showing Eagle Han Ying (the bad guy of the film) kicking the shit out of ninjas (of course).
There is also some great camera work, cinematography and wire work on display here (not too much of the latter). There's a scene with an archer shooting our heroes with arrows that, in a lesser film, would look cheesy and silly.

"But Drunken Monk, are there GHOSTS in this movie?" I hear you yell. Well yeah...kinda.

"But Drunken Monk, there can't POSSIBLY be boobs!" Oh, you'd be wrong there my friend. There's a bountiful display of babylons early on that'll have you spitting out your rice wine. What's more, they're...tattooed?

A truly wild fifteen minutes caps the film off. I bow to the altar of Eagle Han Ying and his rosary beads.

Weirdly, I didn't even know I owned this under the title, Hero of Shaolin. It's been on my "to watch" list for ages and I never got around to it. I actually watched this on YouTube.

 

[DrNgor]

19 minutes ago, Drunken Monk said:

Having just watched Ninja vs Shaolin Guards for the first time, if you asked me this very second, I'd probably tell you it's in my top ten kung fu movies of all time. I loved this movie. 

I'm glad you liked it a lot. I have to revisit it soon as well. Really one of Lo Rei's best overall films.

[Ramji]

20 minutes ago, Drunken Monk said:

Weirdly, I didn't even know I owned this under the title, Hero of Shaolin. It's been on my "to watch" list for ages and I never got around to it. I actually watched this on YouTube.

You hooked me in there with your review and had me thinking, damn, I need to see this movie! Then you said it’s also called Hero of Shaolin and I have the terracotta release sitting on my shelf and have given it a watch a while back, don’t remember anything! Rewatch in order!

[Drunken Monk]

Cantonen Iron Kung Fu - This was a first-time watch for me and...well...I’m not impressed. I could forgive the plot as it’s as generic as any of your independent kung fu movies but the choreography, while fairly cool, was so repetitive. The same shit over and over. Combine that with the lackluster story and bland characters and this one just didn’t do it for me.

Nowhere near Leung Kar Yan gems like Legend of a Fighter, The Thundering Mantis, The Victim and hell, I might even prefer The Sleeping Fist to this one.

The final fight does give us some decent stuff but it’s not enough to save this one. Shame really as the print on Amazon Prime is bloody gorgeous.

[Duel to the Death]

I have been watching a lot of classic movies last few weeks. But i'll mention the recent two.

Fearless Dragons  That fight at the end is unbelievable, but the rest of the movie was lackluster and hard to follow. I might enjoy it more if i heard the original language with subtitles.

The Buddhist Fist  Now this is a fun movie from start to finish. The fight scenes are great and comedy is great. The dub is good but would like to hear it with it's original language and subs. Correct me if i'm wrong and i hope i get the names right. But it seemed that Siu Ming Tsui was the superior fighter and better at the choreography than Shun-Yee Yuen was. Maybe it was designed that way. 

[ShawAngela]

These last days, I watched :

The martyrs or how a general and his whole family sacrifice themselves to save the prince and his son. I had forgotten almost all the plot. Chia Ling, Pai Ying, Han Ying Chieh and Tien Feng play in it.

Blood on the sun  : I always enjoy watching Tien Peng and Chang Ching Ching at their best !

Seven to one : almost a non stop action movie. Shan Kuan Ling Fung and Yasuaki Kurata are at their best, here.

Filial son : It reminded me of the first time I saw it in French language in a cinema. At that time, I didn't even know who were Chang Yi, Yang Wei and Tien Feng...

Bruce kung fu girls : nice action scenes, but I hate these English dubbings that are so difficult to follow, with an addition of screams and women voices too high, so high that one can't understand what they say when they talk...Does anyone know if it's really Shan Kuan Ling Fung who sings the song at the holidays camp with the guitar ? If it's her, she sings well, and if it's not her, at least, her playback is very good, and that it's not really the case in other movies in which the heroes or the heroines have to sing and in which it's very obvious that they are just mimicking the singing...

File of heroes : Chang Yi once again as the hero, and it's always a pleasure to see Nancy Yen's and Charles Heung's fights. Miao Tian is here to, as a traitor, once again...

It seems that I'm in my rewatching period...

 

[ShawAngela]

Vengeance of a snow maid : first viewing. Nice movie, with a good plot. I think that it's the first time that I see Chen Chen in a wuxia movie and she does very well.

Hurricane sword : the plot is good, but the movie is SO SLOOOWWW !! I was a little bit annoyed but how the movie was slow, with very little action, and so many non sensical things...

[Duel to the Death]

Just watched The Victim. I thought i was watching it for the first time but parts of it makes me think i seen it before. It was really good. It's almost like the spiritual sequel to Knockabout. But instead of Ka-Yan Leung dying this time, he gets to shine. It's only missing Yuen Biao for it to be a masterpiece. The final fight was damn good. 

Is there rumors of this being re-released? Looks like the best version to get is the German import. Just not sure it's worth spending $26 to get it. 

[Duel to the Death]

Legend of a Fighter More like Clark Kent the Kung Fu master. This movie was weird and all over the place. I don't know how the story is with the original language but with the dub i could swear they were just making up a story as they went a long. And boy was that dub crazy. lol

I did have a nice fight at the end. Major problem i had was i had a hard time believing the main character Fok Yun Gap was as good as he was with the very little bit of training we seen him get. But glad to see another movie with Ka-Yan Leung.  The next 2 movies i'm going to watch star him as well (Sleeping Fist and Thundering Mantis)

[Killer Meteor]

On 5/28/2020 at 7:51 PM, Drunken Monk said:

This afternoon I went for Secret of Shaolin Kung Fu. I'd seen this one before but couldn't remember much about it save for the ol' armless and legless dude. There's only one way to describe this film: a series of EXCELLENT fights in an otherwise uninspired and often tedious movie. This is the type of kung fu film my mum would have asked me to turn down when I was 15, yelling "Why are all those men shrieking?"

It's hard to say whether this one is truly good or bad. It's middle of the road, I suppose. A bevy of top quality fight scenes with a pretty shoddy everything else. It did remind me of my love for Li Yi Min though. I might give Roving Heroes aka Buddha's Palm and Dragon Fist a go shortly as it's one of his I've never seen.

My main memory of this was the REALLY STUPID scene where the Beggar Clan debates that since their chief has been missing for 18 YEARS, they might need to hold an election for a new chief, or if not now, then in 3 months, because by then they'll REALLY need a new chief.

 

WHAT??????

[ukrevrend]

The Shaolin Brothers Eng W/S 1977

Starring: Carter Wong, Tung Li, Tang Wei, Fan Ling (Invincible Swords Woman) & Mark Long

Directed By: Joseph Kuo

Haven't seen this for a hell of a long time, a good 20+ years! But I always like to draw for a Joseph Kuo kung fu movie, when I want to see some 'Shapes' and this delivers....just about!

Forget the plot, it's the standard Chings vs Mings affair, with secret knocks, betrayals, hopping corpse and of course, the customary comedy that doesn't fit the movies theme! 

The main problem with this movie, it's story led, but this story is complicated and it would be very hard for someone who needs to engage with a story / plot, to enjoy this! I myself don't have the need for proper stories in my kung fu movies, so long as the action is top notch, a good story / plot is an added bonus, i'm all about the the 'Fu' And when we do get the 'Fu' Carter Wong is in top form, throwing shapes & weapons, the perfect bad guy! Mark Long showing off his kicking ability and Fan Ling is really nimble. 

As with all Joseph Kuo movies undercranking is present, but it's not over done.......Kung Fu Zombie!

3/5

[Graeme Of Death]

The 18 Bronzemen

First time seeing this one, not sure if it's considered a "classic" but I'd rate a competent enjoyable kung fu film. Standard train like fu*k and seek revenge plot with the novelty of the 18 bronzemen thrown in. I watched this on your average piss poor image quality and cropped DVD, would probably have enjoyed it more seeing it in HD in the correct aspect ratio. 

The main character Shao Lung sports an early 2000s Liam Gallacher hair cut for the first half of the film which I thought was a nice change.

Can't quite work out why his fiance is disguised as a man in the usual top quality kung fu film disguise and why she's so antagonistic towards him to begin with though.

 

6.5/10

Edited June 1, 2020 by Graeme Of Death

[Drunken Monk]

As a kung fu cinema fan, there's nothing better than taking a gamble on a movie you know absolutely nothing about and it paying off. I'd run out of recommendations from the good people of these forums and so I decided, randomly, to put on The Lady Constables. I am so happy I did.
The premise is simple: a number of bandits murder a royal convoy and steal five "shining pearls." They then lay low. Angela Mao, Chia Ling and Wang Kuan Hsiung mosey into ton in an attempt to track down the robbers. The rest of the film plays out as a "Who can catch the bad guys first?" movie and honestly? It's an absolutely delights.
The characters play off each other wonderfully with the two women going back and forth as sassy as can be while Wang Kuan Hsiung plays a guy that simply doesn't like talking. And so he communicates via signs only. As silly as that sounds, it gives him some gravitas.

There isn't a TON of fights. Not compared to movie like, I don't know, 7 Grandmasters, but this isn't that type of film. Any by no means is there a lack of fights. It's pretty much just right. The ladies look strong and Hsiung's swordplay is crisp and impressive. By the Chia Ling fights with an ever extending metal rod and Angela Mao has sleeve scarves. DUN, DUN, DUNNNN!

My only disappointment with this film is that I had to watched the full screen, cropped dubbed version. There's a widescreen subbed print on YouTube but since I'm working while watching these movies, I need to hear the dub. Subtitles would cause a big problem for me.

However, I will be returning to this on and I will view it in widescreen glory. Great movie. If you want an underrated Angela Mao gem, I highly recommend this one.

[DrNgor]

38 minutes ago, Drunken Monk said:

As a kung fu cinema fan, there's nothing better than taking a gamble on a movie you know absolutely nothing about and it paying off. I'd run out of recommendations from the good people of these forums and so I decided, randomly, to put on The Lady Constables. I am so happy I did.

This was the first Angela Mao movie (outside of Enter the Dragon) that I bought on VHS back in the 90s. Loved it. Lots of solid action and two no-nonsense women kicking butt for the film's duration.

I believe this film has the line, "Don't be a fool, you idiot." and the bit where a character refers to Angela Mao a "goddamn slut", which prompts her to beat the hell out of him and respond: "That will teach you not to talk dirty to me."