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

[shukocarl1441996347]

Edge of Fury (1978) This is a blast, lots of hard fighting (what I call REAL Kung fu) between my man James Ho, Yasuaki Kurata and Tommy Lee. Not the most original of plots but pretty well done. Lousy English dub (the usual guys must have been on holiday), Dana being a (gorgeous looking) slut and the annoying kid (somebody should have kidnapped him early on - until the end) add up to a great bit of late 70's fu.

[saltysam]

Chinese Mack

Chan Wai Man is bullied by two brothers as a kid,their dad takes him and his family in, he falls for the sister, learns kung fu and heads off to make his fortune. Loads of brawling basher action ,there's also a needless and horrible dog fight here as well, next time i watch i'll be pressing the skip button.

Print i watched was 101 minutes ,scope and HD,with a lot of print damage. English dubbed.

[Super Ninja]

22 hours ago, saltysam said:

Chinese Mack

Chan Wai Man is bullied by two brothers as a kid,their dad takes him and his family in, he falls for the sister, learns kung fu and heads off to make his fortune. Loads of brawling basher action ,there's also a needless and horrible dog fight here as well, next time i watch i'll be pressing the skip button.

Print i watched was 101 minutes ,scope and HD,with a lot of print damage. English dubbed.

Hope this one gets a proper release now that the HD version has surfaced. Judging by that runtime, it might be uncut?

[saltysam]

1 hour ago, Super Ninja said:

Hope this one gets a proper release now that the HD version has surfaced. Judging by that runtime, it might be uncut?

Too much print damage to be viable i think. It's really battered.

[Killer Meteor]

On 2/17/2023 at 8:16 PM, saltysam said:

Chinese Mack

Chan Wai Man is bullied by two brothers as a kid,their dad takes him and his family in, he falls for the sister, learns kung fu and heads off to make his fortune. Loads of brawling basher action ,there's also a needless and horrible dog fight here as well, next time i watch i'll be pressing the skip button.

Print i watched was 101 minutes ,scope and HD,with a lot of print damage. English dubbed.

Is this HD transfer avaliable anywhere?

[ironfistedmonk]

Rebellious Reign - What a great movie this is, it's the well known story of succession with the 4th and 14th Ching dynasty Princes vying for power, the second time Tsui Siu Keung has played a role with this same story (unless there are more?).  It stands out from most films of this time because of the production values, the sets and the costumes are up there with the best that Shaws and GH could turn out, and Jimmy Lee gets his shining moment as the leading man, some great action in this one

Crazy Couple - Goofy ass comedy with some decent action, mostly when choreographer Fung Hark On is on screen, love that guy.  If you can stand to watch Dean Shek then this might be worth your time, Jimmy Liu dropping a little Lau monkey here and there, I've never understood why he didn't work more with his uncle at Shaws?

[BornToDefense]

Idk why but Chinese Mack is probably one of my favorite nonsensical retitles of a HK movie meant to remind audiences of another movie. I'd also love to see the HD.

[shukocarl1441996347]

The Sword (1971) Slow burning historical tale of a young prince (Jimmy Wang Yu) obsessed with his collection of rare swords. Jimmy's a total arse in this one, putting everyone and everything (family , romance, friendships) aside for his pursuit of a unique sword. Good production values, fight scenes not so. You know this isn't going to end well. Good acting from Jimmy.

[shukocarl1441996347]

Revisiting the classic Japanese series The Water Margin after a number of years. It was made in 1973 and I caught it from it's debut on BBC 2 back in 1976 (there were only 3 channels then). It really is a great series and recommended to everyone who loves Shaw Bros films, just don't expect the same choreography and production values. Atsuo Nakamura and Sasae Tuschida (sp?) are brilliant as Lin Chung and Hu San Niang respectively.

[DrNgor]

25 minutes ago, shukocarl1441996347 said:

Revisiting the classic Japanese series The Water Margin after a number of years.

I've asked this in other places. How many Japanese series and films have dealt with history on the East Asian Mainland (or Chinese literature). I know that there's The Silk Road; Princess Yang Kwei Fei; Kingdom; Shin No Shikoute...Probably a couple of Genghis Khan films. Are there any more?

[masterofoneinchpunch]

On 11/20/2022 at 12:46 PM, ShawAngela said:

Still some days ago, I watched The invincible kung fu trio.

Meng Fei plays Fang Shi Yü, John Liu plays Lu A Cai and another actor plays Hong Xi Guan. In this movie, it's Hong Xi Guan who plays the hot tempered hero, while Fang Shi Yü is the brain of the trio together with Lu A Cai.

Angela Mao plays Wing Chun, but she nearly has nothing to do in the movie, what a shame !

Great fights, good movie.

While I watched it on the Tai Seng full-screen DVD with English dub, of course later I found this online:

 @DrNgor A couple of notes here: lots of animal styles mixed in with Wu Tang (on the side of the Qing, of course this takes place during the Qing era).  Not as bad as I thought going in.  Kam Kong (white haired sometimes in the film) has decent form, but you can tell he gets tired during the fight scenes and slows down (and has some obvious misses too).  Weird short subplot with clones (and the funny aspect is that their scenes are shown early on in the movie).  Some weapons play, but mainly two sharp discs used for throwing and/or other things like putting them together with cloth and making them a chain style whip weapon.

Some of the lion dancing is good, though sometimes it feels (well it is) cobbled together with the plot. Obvious Taiwan film.

Angela Mao Ying is barely in it, but nice to see her in a short battle (though completely absent for the end). I haven't found any interviews on this film but there is a nice review in VideoHound's Dragon Asian Action & Cult Flicks book by Brian Thomas.  I used to use this book a lot years ago.  The Ultimate Guide to Martial Art Movies of the 1970s does not have a capsule review.

Edited March 17, 2023 by masterofoneinchpunch

[DrNgor]

18 minutes ago, masterofoneinchpunch said:

A couple of notes here: lots of animal styles mixed in with Wu Tang (on the side of the Qing, of course this takes place during the Qing era).  Not as bad as I thought going in.  Kam Kong (white haired sometimes in the film) has decent form, but you can tell he gets tired during the fight scenes and slows down (and has some obvious misses too).  Weird short subplot with clones (and the funny aspect is that their scenes are shown early on in the movie).  Some weapons play, but mainly two sharp discs used for throwing and/or other things like putting them together with cloth and making them a chain style whip weapon.

I've always been a bit wary of this one because Mark Pollard's Kung Fu Cinema review (and one at an old Angelfire site dedicated to Angela Mao) was so negative. I'll have to watch it, now.

[masterofoneinchpunch]

4 minutes ago, DrNgor said:

I've always been a bit wary of this one because Mark Pollard's Kung Fu Cinema review (and one at an old Angelfire site dedicated to Angela Mao) was so negative. I'll have to watch it, now.

It is not a good film overall, it is a quickie, but there are fun parts to it.  I've seen much worse.  For me the worst MA films tend to be when the actors cannot do MA and it is a cheapie (I've seen a decent amount of these in the past).

I also just noticed that the English dubbed version is longer.  Weird.

[DrNgor]

7 minutes ago, masterofoneinchpunch said:

It is not a good film overall, it is a quickie, but there are fun parts to it.  I've seen much worse.  For me the worst MA films tend to be when the actors cannot do MA and it is a cheapie (I've seen a decent amount of these in the past).

I also just noticed that the English dubbed version is longer.  Weird.

That said, it is almost counter-intuitive to make a film about the Shaolin heroes and cast a superkicker like John Liu in one of the roles, since Zen Kwun Do/Tae Kwon Do is practically the polar opposite of Hung Gar.

[Django]

I recently came over a pretty nice widescreen version of Robert Tai's 1980 debut Devil Killer. I believe around 65% of this movie was copy pasted from another older film that I can't remember the name of. However we get around 30 minutes of fight scenes with Alexander Lo and Alan Chui which is absolutely top notch choreography fro Mr. Tai! 

 

[Super Ninja]

11 hours ago, Django said:

I believe around 65% of this movie was copy pasted from another older film that I can't remember the name of.

The Best and the Worst (1974).

[paimeifist]

Incredible King Fu Master

Drunken Master formula movie that is a chock full of excellent fights, especially in the last half of the movie.

Interestingly enough - I think the fights between Stephen Tung Wai and the goofy brothers / Phillip Ko were actually better than the finale (vs the comically cartwheeling and rolling leopard skin wearing team / Lee Hoi San) - but it was all good stuff.

The sequences between Sammo and Stephen Tung Wai were spectacular too - these two had outstanding timing and seemed to really be in sync with one another.

Did they square up in any other films?

[DrNgor]

10 hours ago, paimeifist said:

The sequences between Sammo and Stephen Tung Wai were spectacular too - these two had outstanding timing and seemed to really be in sync with one another.

Did they square up in any other films?

Sadly, no.

But if you want to see Stephen Tung Wai in action, you can watch:

The Golden Mask (1977)
Shaolin Devil, Shaolin Angel (1978)
Eighteen Fatal Strikes (1978)
Killer in White (1980)

[paimeifist]

3 hours ago, DrNgor said:

Sadly, no.

But if you want to see Stephen Tung Wai in action, you can watch:

The Golden Mask (1977)
Shaolin Devil, Shaolin Angel (1978)
Eighteen Fatal Strikes (1978)
Killer in White (1980)

I’ve seen Killer in White, big fan of that movie. Its like an old school Kung Fu buddy cop movie!

[Killer Meteor]

I watched SEVEN TO ONE last night. It's funny that after probably watching thousands of these things, it's still quite a novelty to see a kung fu film set in contempoary times - even if the fashions of 1973 seem more bizzare and outlandish than those of the Ching dynasty!

For a change, instead of the film trying to make us think Polly Shang Kuan Ling Feng is a boy, this time it tries to pass off Yasuaki Kurata as a pop star! When he "sings", it sounds like it's coming from behind the camera!

And what a theme song!

[url="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XRev94Qo5fY&ab_channel=Focus-Topic"]Hocus Pocus - YouTube[/url]

[BornToDefense]

A lot of the times contemporary-set movies of the 70s (and not always just HK movies) do feel more like period pieces than the Early Republic, Qing or Ming set films. Maybe it's some kind of uncanny valley of fashion and hair, just close enough but not quite modern...

[saltysam]

Challenge The Dragon

Evil gangsters led by big bad japanese Tanaka force the local villagers to work for them and hand over their valuable ginseng. The village elder in charge of negotations with the baddies is weak as piss so it's up to Tong Lung to show up and clean house. Features an epic kung fu swimming chase and plenty of basher action after a slow start. Decent german blu ray, english dubbed with some german dialogue with english subs for the missing english audio.

[saltysam]

Shaolin Invincibles & Seven To One

Picked up this Agfa new release double feature, possibly caught me on a bad day but wasn't fussed on either. Invincibles is bonkers and has a good cast but just wasn't feeling the love. Same with Seven To One, i like Kurata but a lot of his movies end the same, a longchase scene interrupted by some fighting.

Bruce & Shaolin Kung Fu

Bruce Le learns kung fu from Chen Sing, the japanese invade Korea. He flees and heads to kindly James Nam. Bolo and a team of fighters, and the japanese are after him. Lots of Enter The Dragon music.Not very good, Le could fight but his films aren't up to Bruce Li standards.

[Django]

Shaolin Invincibles - AGFA / Vinegar Syndrome

Fantastic release of this bonkers indie. I have only seen it one time before, and that time it was the Tai Seng DVD but I thought it was great then aswell. Top performances from Chia Ling, Doris Lung and Carter Wong, but wait there's more - The end fight with Tan Tao-Liang and Jack Long! Two of my top favorite guys in their prime time - all presented in glorious HD in a roughed up print with burnt in subs, just the way I like it. 

***** 

Edited April 9, 2023 by Django

[Jizzmaster Jerry]

Shaolin Death Squad 1976. Not to be confused with Shaolin Death Squads aka The Shaolin Kids from 1975, which is shockingly terrible.  But the one from 1976 is a top tier movie from that year.  Based on the same story as Rebellious Reign.   Off the top of my head i think only Magic Blade and Master of the Flying Guillotine tops it from 1976.   I like it a bit more than some other classics of 1976 like Hand of Death, Killer Clans and Shaolin Wooden Men.  
 

Four Real Friends- one of Wang Yu’s very best.  Damn good fights and a bad guy that seems like he’d be a great bad guy in a horror movie.  But here he is in a kung fu movie and he’s one of the most vicious villains of all time.  Definitely the scariest man in white I’ve ever seen.  
 

Rewatching some Video Asia packs lately.  These versions are cut up pretty bad.  Would be great to see them get a good release.  

Edited April 9, 2023 by Jizzmaster Jerry