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

[Duel to the Death]

1 hour ago, DrNgor said:

Huh. I think it's one of the best old school end fights of all time. 

It's all good. I've seen so many movies recently i'm probably being too judgmental on some. I think if i would of seen the ending long ago before i seen so many other great end fights i may have liked it more. Sometimes my tastes change depending on the mood i'm in. 

[JackieRome]

12 minutes ago, DrNgor said:

Being an English teacher is my second profession. I'm bilingual, not a polyglot.

 

You assume you know what I'm thinking. I *know* and *understand* you have the different tastes. I'm making observations about English for your benefit, so that maybe you could understand how certain words will influence how people read and understand your posts.

 

At no point has anyone in this forum been censured for posting an opinion that went against popular wisdom. Let me remind you that the discussion began with you questioning how anyone could like Dance of the Drunk Mantis, which I graciously and politely provided a list of reasons for. At no point did I attack you for thinking the way you did. I simply expressed the feelings of me and the others who hold the film in high esteem.

Your commitment to responding point by point will not go unnoticed. You're working hard so I can't help but appreciate it. You have to be patient: unfortunately not learning other languages well has always been my fault. I am a lazy person, and I respect those who succeed. Regarding your clarification, my question about: how this movie might like ... it was a real question, I also said it above. I had found that sloppy film and made at low cost with a little digestible comedy and little incisive fights (the expansion of the drunken master's mythology had not conquered me) so I wondered how he could enjoy this fame. that's all. I can add that I had appreciated your very precise lineup of good reasons for the film in question and it does not seem to me that I have denigrated them. However, if you reread well I have always written: I hope not to offend anyone. peace.

Edited July 27, 2020 by JackieRome

[DrNgor]

7 minutes ago, JackieRome said:

Your commitment to responding point by point will not go unnoticed. You're working hard so I can't help but appreciate it. You have to be patient: unfortunately not learning other languages well has always been my fault. I am a lazy person, and I respect those who succeed. Regarding your clarification, my question about: how this movie might like ... it was a real question, I also said it above. I had found that sloppy film and made at low cost with a little digestible comedy and little incisive fights (the expansion of the drunken master's mythology had not conquered me) so I wondered how he could enjoy this fame. that's all. I can add that I had appreciated your very precise lineup of good reasons for the film in question and it does not seem to me that I have denigrated them. However, if you reread well I have always written: I hope not to offend anyone. peace.

Thank you very much. Let's now move on.

[Drunken Monk]

Stranger from Shaolin  - As far as action goes this one is awfully dull. There's barely any until the final fifteen minutes and everything that leads up to it isn't awfully exciting either. Cecilia Wong dresses as a boy in order to sneak into Shaolin. There shes tasked with getting water from a well. The focus is on this for about forty five minutes. It's all pretty snooze worthy, I'm afraid.
The film focuses on the creation of Wing Chun but it doesn't really give us much to chew on save for a fairly lengthy (and cool) training sequence. Once she's learned Wing Chun, she goes on to fight the chief bad who, it has been revealed, has been drinking children's blood as some sort of "power up."

When the action finally gets here it's all very mundane. Slow, jerky movements with no grace or style. I highly recommend skipping this one.

[ShawAngela]

On 7/27/2020 at 3:40 PM, DrNgor said:

I certainly enjoy this film a lot more than its follow-up, Buddha Assassinator.

I didn't know that the two movies were related...

[ShawAngela]

Polly's feast this evening, both first watching, with :

Mysterious heroes : Shih Kien plays a good guy, Carter Huang and Shan Kuan Ling Fung's are the heroes, and Cliff Lok and Wang Hsieh have short roles. A super non stop action movie, with some scenes very identical to some scenes of Tigers' claw, I'll develop this in my future review.

Lung Wei Village : Another superb movie, with three shining stars : Lo Lieh, Yueh Hua and Shan Kuan Ling Fung, with also Hu Chin in a supporting role and just a few mini martial arts moves, and Lung Tien Hsiang as the villain.

[ShawAngela]

Mysterious footworks of kung fu : Nice movie, but I wonder why this title. Fan Mei Sheng is great, as well as Charles Heung, and this latter displays another kind of kung fu as the usual one he shows in his movies.I hardly recognized Ting Pei, here...

[ShawAngela]

First exposure : very good movie, with a lot of familiar faces and good plot and action.

[paimeifist]

Revisited Snake in the Eagles Shadow after thinking I had a hard time remembering much about it..

I now realize why. While I appreciate the movies influence on the genre, it’s just really generic feeling once you have seen the other dozens of similar films. There are several Kung fu comedies that I prefer to this such as Dance of the Drunk Mantis, Ninja in the Dragons Den, and Knockabout to name a few that immediately spring to mind.
 

It isn’t bad by any means, and the acting/drama is a bit better than in other movies, but who cares about that with a movie like this... There aren’t enough fights, and what’s there isn’t all that great. The finale is very good though.
 

I am also still of the opinion that The Young Master is far better than Jackie’s earlier classic Kung fu efforts. I prefer Fearless Hyena to SITES as well though. I’ll need to give Drunken Master a rewatch soon.

Edited July 30, 2020 by paimeifist

[ShaOW!linDude]

1 hour ago, paimeifist said:

Revisited Snake in the Eagles Shadow after thinking I had a hard time remembering much about it..

I now realize why. While I appreciate the movies influence on the genre, it’s just really generic feeling once you have seen the other dozens of similar films. There are several Kung fu comedies that I prefer to this such as Dance of the Drunk Mantis, Ninja in the Dragons Den, and Knockabout to name a few that immediately spring to mind.
 

It isn’t bad by any means, and the acting/drama is a bit better than in other movies, but who cares about that with a movie like this... There aren’t enough fights, and what’s there isn’t all that great. The finale is very good though.
 

I am also still of the opinion that The Young Master is far better than Jackie’s earlier classic Kung fu efforts. I prefer Fearless Hyena to SITES as well though. I’ll need to give Drunken Master a rewatch soon.

Hmmm. Should this post be in the Unpopular Opinion thread?  (Kidding.)

I like SITES alright, but find Fearless Hyena to be a superior film.

[One Armed Boxer]

3 hours ago, paimeifist said:

I am also still of the opinion that The Young Master is far better than Jackie’s earlier classic Kung fu efforts. I prefer Fearless Hyena to SITES as well though. I’ll need to give Drunken Master a rewatch soon.

Time to resurrect a couple of golden oldies?

 

[paimeifist]

5 hours ago, One Armed Boxer said:

Time to resurrect a couple of golden oldies?

 

I impulsively ordered the HKR Blu Ray of Drunken Master last night. After I watch it again in all its glory I’ll drop in these threads.

 

As much as I love The Young Master, I’ve always felt the finale was a slight disappointment due to the “angry style” gimmick. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still very good and Hwang In Shik is downright frightening with his kicks. I just kinda wished they just duked it out without the gimmick.

[ShawAngela]

Which is stronger, karate or tiger ? : First, I thought that it was a Chinese movie, but discovered that it was a Japanese one, maybe my first Japanese movie with Yasuaki Kurata, who I discovered only in Chinese movies in the past...

Good movie, full of fights, with a lot of cruelty too, and a tiger fed with human flesh that eat his victims alive...

 

I forgot to mention that I got the German dvd of this movie. I don't know if it's the same for all its releases, but the sound was positively AWFUL : it was almost impossible to hear the dialogues because either it was the music that was too loud during the dialogues, either it were the shouts of the training students/fighters that covered the dialogues !! Frankly, it was very disappointing to watch the movie with such a  sound problem !

Edited August 2, 2020 by ShawAngela

[Duel to the Death]

Young Master I'm a fan of this movie. Haven't seen it in over 10 years and forgot a lot of it. But it came back to me. For the longest time i was trying to remember a movie that had Yuen Biao fighting with a step stool and it ended up being this movie. Mystery solved. 

I like the comedy in this one. I also like the Lion Dance at the beginning. The end fight is like a precursor to his fight in Drunken Master 2. But i can't tell if he's just angry, becoming immune to the pain or an effect to what is in the pipe water or all of the above combined into one. I'd like to go with all of the above but that pipe water had some effect. lol

While i really haven't seen enough Jackie films, this is one my favorite ones. I still need to see a lot more. But i'm no hurry. My watch list is pretty long. Here it is if anybody is interested. It's not complete, i know there is a lot i haven't added, some recommendations i probably forgot to add. I'm always adding more. But it's a start. After i watch a movie i take it off the list. https://www.imdb.com/list/ls080130202/ 

[Liersi]

10 hours ago, Duel to the Death said:

Young Master I'm a fan of this movie. Haven't seen it in over 10 years and forgot a lot of it. But it came back to me. For the longest time i was trying to remember a movie that had Yuen Biao fighting with a step stool and it ended up being this movie. Mystery solved. 

I like the comedy in this one. I also like the Lion Dance at the beginning. The end fight is like a precursor to his fight in Drunken Master 2. But i can't tell if he's just angry, becoming immune to the pain or an effect to what is in the pipe water or all of the above combined into one. I'd like to go with all of the above but that pipe water had some effect. lol

While i really haven't seen enough Jackie films, this is one my favorite ones. I still need to see a lot more. But i'm no hurry. My watch list is pretty long. Here it is if anybody is interested. It's not complete, i know there is a lot i haven't added, some recommendations i probably forgot to add. I'm always adding more. But it's a start. After i watch a movie i take it off the list. https://www.imdb.com/list/ls080130202/ 

To my mind, Jackie was and is a great storyteller first, and a gymnast, athlete and actor second. All his oldschool stuff had an impact on me as a kid in the early 80s, but it wasn't until he took the reins again in The Young Master that it all really came together. There's little narrative arcs everywhere, the comedy works and is integrated with the main narrative. I loved SITES, DM and FH, but this was different. Here it took more than training to beat the big bad. Jackie paid close attention to how the audience would perceive skill levels and abilities. As a kid renting this from the local video store, my jaw dropped when they free Whang Inshik and he lets loose. My goodness, this wasn't a fight, it was a demonstration! This terrified me much more than Huang Zhengli ever did. It was an eminently physical, full body assault. The lion dance, fighting with benches, the physical gags all conspired to reinforce this notion: go all out, use everything you have, use your whole body and hammer it until it stops moving. It was, and hopefully still is (haven't seen it in years) exhilarating.

[Duel to the Death]

Mr. Vampire is a movie i seen once before but only remembered bits and pieces. It's great. I like supernatural movies. I do like Spooky Encounters more but this movie is great. Lam Ching-ying is excellent. 

But it's not perfect. Some of the comedy i don't like. Some of it was okay but some felt forced. And some people are better at comedy then others. Take Sammo. He's a natural. Someone else could preform a joke and it can fall flat, and Sammo could preform that same joke and it would be funny. Some of the humor in this movie feels like Sammo style humor, but it's missing Sammo to perform it. Also the character Wai is annoying and i don't like him. What would of made this a perfect movie would of been less comedy, less Wai and more supernatural. Not all the comedy was bad. Man Choi turning into a vampire was good. 

How are the sequels? Should i see them? I also need to see the sequel to Spooky Encounters. 

[sifu iron perm]

On 7/28/2020 at 11:05 PM, ShawAngela said:

I didn't know that the two movies were related...

same production/actor's..

similar to 7 grandmasters and mystery of chess boxing etc

 

 

[sifu iron perm]

3 hours ago, Duel to the Death said:

Mr. Vampire is a movie i seen once before but only remembered bits and pieces. It's great. I like supernatural movies. I do like Spooky Encounters more but this movie is great. Lam Ching-ying is excellent. 

But it's not perfect. Some of the comedy i don't like. Some of it was okay but some felt forced. And some people are better at comedy then others. Take Sammo. He's a natural. Someone else could preform a joke and it can fall flat, and Sammo could preform that same joke and it would be funny. Some of the humor in this movie feels like Sammo style humor, but it's missing Sammo to perform it. Also the character Wai is annoying and i don't like him. What would of made this a perfect movie would of been less comedy, less Wai and more supernatural. Not all the comedy was bad. Man Choi turning into a vampire was good. 

How are the sequels? Should i see them? I also need to see the sequel to Spooky Encounters. 

i love part 2 is brilliant! Yuen biao and little boy vampire..

 

wish 88 films releases this.

 

 

[ukrevrend]

On 7/30/2020 at 11:02 AM, paimeifist said:

As much as I love The Young Master, I’ve always felt the finale was a slight disappointment due to the “angry style” gimmick. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still very good and Hwang In Shik is downright frightening with his kicks. I just kinda wished they just duked it out without the gimmick.

Same here, that's how I felt, the 'angry style' just didn't do it for me either.  

Bless

[JackieRome]

The Club: I finally got to see it. Even if the copy sucked, there is an incredible cure in Kirk Wong's direction. Great debut on his part. The soundtrack is very enthralling and you involve the history and the fighting between triads. It would deserve a nice restoration, because it is a real regret to see it in this way. Vote: 8/10

[Duel to the Death]

The Odd Couple What a cool movie with an interesting concept.  

Spoiler

The older versions of themselves training the younger versions of themselves. Brilliant.

Lau Kar-Wing is one of my favorites and to team him up with Sammo is excellent. And it also stars one of my other favorites, Beardy.  Dean Shek is always annoying but i did laugh at his "Master Rocking" gimmick and being carried around with generic rock music being played. 

I like this move Lau Kar-Wing did catching the spear with his foot and kicking it back up. 

[ShawAngela]

I rewatched Fight Dragon  the movie this evening.

I wonder if Bruce Liang and Lee Ka Ting also appear in the series ?

Non stop action, and I wonder how Bruce Liang and Yasuaki Kurata were able to kick so high and fight so well with these high heels shoes and very tight trousers !!

[One Armed Boxer]

On 4/8/2015 at 12:13 PM, paimeifist said:

The Leg Fighters

Not as well rounded as other great Lee Tso Nams films like Shaolin vs Lama or Fatal Needles vs Fatal Fists, but still great.. What "The Leg Fighters" does do right, it does damn right! Some fantastic fighting, particularly kick fighting of course, some amazing performances by a few cast members, solid slapstick and comedy.

On 11/6/2019 at 11:46 AM, Drunken Monk said:

The Leg Fighters - I’ll admit, this is my first time seeing this one so I consider myself lucky that my cherry was popped with the new Blu Ray release. Wow! I can really understand why this one is considered a classic.

On 11/14/2019 at 9:30 PM, Killer Meteor said:

THE LEG FIGHTERS (1980)
Director: Lee Tso-Nam

Great as it is to see a Taiwanese old school indie lovingly preserved on Blu-Ray, this is pretty poor with far too much stupid comic relief (especially from a strange fellow called Ding-Dong who dresses like a Native American draped in bells), an uninspiring villain and underwhelming fights. Dorian Tan Tao-Liang is a decent lead, and Ha Kwong-Li is very adorable, but I wish they'd found the long lost TIGER BOY instead!

4/10

On 12/10/2019 at 3:13 AM, teako170 said:

The Invincible Kung Fu Legs 南北腿王 (1980) a/k/a The Leg Fighters. Have two copies. Tai Seng full frame had much better colors but watched the wider burnt in subs version. 

On 12/27/2019 at 2:00 AM, DragonClaws said:

The Leg Fighters (1980) - To view this Lee Tso Nam directed movie, in its original Wide-screen foramt is nothing short of spectacular. The big bootwork can only by fully appreciated in a non cropped prints. The story and plot are average, but with some minor tweaks, this would have been a classic. 

On 3/21/2020 at 12:05 PM, Writ said:

The Leg Fighters (1980)

This one is very fun and the focus on kicking makes the choreography in this one really unique. It might be the pacing which kinda kills this one for me because I do like the characters and watching them muck around is really fun. But I dunno, maybe the focus shifts too much from our main 2 guys? Ha Kwong Li is as charismatic an actress as you can get and she's pretty great. Such a shame she isn't in more films.

I got through watching this one recently thanks to the Pearl River Blu-ray.  If only the movie itself was as good as the treatment it's been given.  Featuring everyone's favourite plank of wood Tan Tao-Liang and more grating comedy than most are willing to endure, I gave it the full review treatment over at COF.  Check out out via the link - 

https://cityonfire.com/the-leg-fighters-aka-the-invincible-kung-fu-legs-1980-review/

[paimeifist]

3 hours ago, One Armed Boxer said:

I got through watching this one recently thanks to the Pearl River Blu-ray.  If only the movie itself was as good as the treatment it's been given.  Featuring everyone's favourite plank of wood Tan Tao-Liang and more grating comedy than most are willing to endure, I gave it the full review treatment over at COF.  Check out out via the link - 

https://cityonfire.com/the-leg-fighters-aka-the-invincible-kung-fu-legs-1980-review/

Good review, I think I’m pretty much in agreement with you. Ha Kwong Li and Peng Kang make this one worth a watch. 

 

I have never cared much for Tan Tao Liang, and even less for John Liu.

 

Fatal Needles vs Fatal Fists is probably Lee Tso Nams best work that I’ve seen, it feels less campy than his other films and has a solid plot. I do love Shaolin vs Lama as much as the next guy, but when you consider it was made in 1983, it certainly takes some steam out of it.

Edited August 3, 2020 by paimeifist

[JackieRome]

23 hours ago, Duel to the Death said:

The Odd Couple What a cool movie with an interesting concept.  

  Reveal hidden contents

The older versions of themselves training the younger versions of themselves. Brilliant.

Lau Kar-Wing is one of my favorites and to team him up with Sammo is excellent. And it also stars one of my other favorites, Beardy.  Dean Shek is always annoying but i did laugh at his "Master Rocking" gimmick and being carried around with generic rock music being played. 

I like this move Lau Kar-Wing did catching the spear with his foot and kicking it back up. 

The film is good, but the comedy is unbearable. I struggled a lot without fast forward the ridiculous moments with Dean Shek. Even Mars made up that way is unwatchable. I wonder why they always had to wear ridiculous makeup with thick eyebrows, wigs, huge cartoon noses, just to recycle the actors in the movies. Yes, I know that the audience made people laugh like that ... it's a rhetorical phrase.