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

[saltysam]

Enter The Fat Dragon

Classic Sammo film has him ala WOTD as a country bumpkin & Bruce Lee fanatic sent to HK to help out at his uncle's street restaurant. Sammo has Bruce's mannerisms down to a tee and despite it's comedic tone scenes like the one with the Bruce Lee clone are very interesting given that Sammo himself appeared in is arguably a Bruceploitation movie, Game Of Death in the same year. The new german blu/dvd combo is a must have despite it's price tag.

 

Eagle's Claw

Chang Yi inflicts a deadly blow on the master of the Eagle's Claw school, the dying master hands over his role to Don Wong Tao, Kuan-Chun-Chi is pissed off, he thinks it should be him so he seemingly joins up with Chang Yi and his comrades (including Beardy) very good Lee Tsao Nam effort, the english dubbed eastern heroes dvd is cropped widescreen but ok print, i'd like to see this subbed and fully wide.

Treasure Of Bruce Lee

Bruce Le is one of 4 students who's master tells them about a secret kung fu book he has, of course it's not long before evil bastards want their hands on it. Not bad Le effort, not as batshit crazy as most of his films, Chen Sing & Bolo make late appearances here as a bonus. The Jamal custom from a VHS is widescreen but this needs a better print to surface.

[kevenzz]

I watched Eagle's Claw also this week, great film and I also have the Eastern Heroes version… the print is good enough but the audio is pretty terrible on this disc…. it was hard to understand what they were saying.

[Chu Liu Hsiang]

THE TORMENTOR 

Tarnished by bad sound and lots of cuts (which one can at least - partly? - watch in the Extras) I still liked this Chang Yi movie. So far I've seen him mostly as swordsman or then later on as Silverfox or villain, so for me this was a new kind of role for him. Pity that Tung Li had so little screentime. 

[Tex Killer]

shoguns ninja. Tale about 2 daggers which have map of gold mine carved into them, and revenge of course. Great movie where hiroyuki sanada has plenty of chances to display his amazing ability and lots of action. Probably best japanese movie I have seen, first time from vhs long time ago.

Unfortunately the music is very dire and it plays almost every moment there is any kind of action. Whoever made such decision to have it featured this heavily should be put to walk in hot coals barefooted. And if he is not in this world anymore, burn there!Because of audio would not put this into all time favs list even as flick is superb..

Edited April 24, 2019 by Tex Killer

[DragonClaws]

 

Here's another brand new ramblethon, for those word hungry Kung Fu Fandom reader's/contributor's who are interested.

Click on the link below, for my thoughts on the IFD odditiy Evil Destroyer, thank you.

 

 

 

Those expecting a flying monster ape-man, will be gravely disappointed. However, there is a beared guy who plays a fighting Priest.

 

Edited May 2, 2019 by DragonClaws

[whitesnake]

8 hours ago, Tex Killer said:

shoguns ninja.

The only way my friend and I could sit through a bad English dub of this one was by drinking a bunch of sake. 

[Tex Killer]

1 hour ago, whitesnake said:

The only way my friend and I could sit through a bad English dub of this one was by drinking a bunch of sake. 

Well, at least Adness release has japanese spoken with english subs. Would be too much to suffer bad dubbing besides awful music.

[DragonClaws]

 

More written rambling's for all the Kung Fu Fandom readers/contributor's.

 

 

 

Edited May 2, 2019 by DragonClaws

[sym8]

Fists and guts-1979

Gordon Liu,Lau Kar wing,Lo lieh,great fights but not to many of them and irritating comedy let this film down for me.Recommend watching just for the fight scenes,maybe hit the fast forward button that’s what I ended up doing.👍👎👍👎

[ShawAngela]

Vengeance of the phoenix sisters 1968

 

Thanks to @NoKUNGFUforYU, I got a restored and English subbed version of this Taiwanese movie that I just finished to watch.

Three escaped convicts (among whom the usual villain Yi Yuan) kill the officer who put them in jail and his three daughters, still little girls, are saved by their servants, but separated.

15 years later they seek revenge for their parents and when they finally reunite, it's an eye for an eye.

Yang Li Hua plays the elder daughter and Liu Ching the second one. I also recognized Got Siu Bo as a familiar face in this movie, and an actress who didn't fight, Lin Lin, whose filmography contains some martial arts movies that I would love to find !!

 

Nice movie.

[Killer Meteor]

The Association (1975)

Incredibly sleazy Golden Harvest offering that tries to make up for its shortcomings with lots of nudity, including cinema's funkiest and funniest abortion scene! One-shot star Byong Yu left production early, resulting in a martial arts film that has no martial arts finale, just a slow and boring scene of the villains being arrested! Poor Angela Mao, Carter Hwang, Sammo Hung et al are horribly wasted. A low point for everyone involved.

4/10

[Drunken Monk]

7 Grandmasters - Revisited this one. While the plot may be overly simple (though perfectly enjoyable), the fights are far better than I remembered. And I remembered them being good. The Core Yuen/Jack Long fight is definitely in my top ten of all time. Maybe even top five.
All in all, a kung fu classic. And I may actually enjoy it more than The Mystery of Chess Boxing even if Chess Boxing has a more traditional silliness to it. I still think Jack Long is super underrated.

Edited April 29, 2019 by Drunken Monk

[NoKUNGFUforYU]

On 4/28/2019 at 2:37 PM, Killer Meteor said:

The Association (1975)

Incredibly sleazy Golden Harvest offering that tries to make up for its shortcomings with lots of nudity, including cinema's funkiest and funniest abortion scene! One-shot star Byong Yu left production early, resulting in a martial arts film that has no martial arts finale, just a slow and boring scene of the villains being arrested! Poor Angela Mao, Carter Hwang, Sammo Hung et al are horribly wasted. A low point for everyone involved.

4/10

That guy Byong Yu ran a bunch of schools in Berkeley and the SF Bay Area, then moved to LA. He's a slumlord, but he has a really nice school down there. Runs it like a cult in the past. His black belts tended to be on the thuggish side, and he was known for his poor sportsmanship and outright cheating at least in one occasion. He was also incredibly fit and competed into his late 30's when most guys in tournaments were still in their 20's. He was good, but a very, very sleazy guy. I learned most of my Tae Kwon Do under his black belts, and I woild hear that he was still dreaming of a movie career, and even claimed to be a VP at Warner Brothers. His other claim to fame is training Jennifer Garner, who was pretty good, as a matter of fact.

[ShawAngela]

North and South Chivlary 1977

Well, first, I don't know who had the idea of this English title, since there isn't any mention to North or South in the movie, unless it's a litteral translation of the Chinese title...

Actually, the story is linked to Judge Bao's stories, since it tells how one of his best men Zhan Zhao (I only realized it was him at the end of the movie, because he was called Chan Chao !) is captured by an evil man who has stolen a jade short sword that can only be destroyed by Zhan Zhao's sword. As everybody thinks that he is dead, his adoptive son and four other young boys decide to go at the devil's house in order to get revenge. They are helped by Wang Ping, who is one of the devil's women, but is actually there undercover in order to get revenge for her family too, and they are also helped by two monks.

I almost did'nt recognized Yu Tien Long as the taoist monk (who has good fights during the movie) and the Buddhist monk is played by Liu Ping.

I had already watched this movie years ago and hadn't very well understood the plot at that time. This time, it was clearer for me, but the white subtitles cropped at each side and often written on white images didn't help to fully understand, and in addition to that, they sometimes disappeared before the line was fully read !!

 

Good wuxia movie, with a kiind of house of traps in it. Since it's a Judge Bao story, it's a little bit normal...

[ShawAngela]

Dreaming fists and slender hands 1979

I had this movie in a box since years and hadn't found a while to watch it. It's done now.

A story of two friends who arrive in a village where people are blackmailed by Lung Fei and his men. They both think that they are good in martial arts, but they are soon defeated by the bandits and one of them is captured. He meets an old man who recognize a birth mark on his waist and he is taught the sleeping kung fu, while the other one is engaged as a waiter by the beautiful Hu Chin, who teaches him her kung fu, and they are both entrusted by their respective masters to get rid of Lung Fei and his men.

Good fights, especially the ending one, but it's a shame that Hu Chin and the old man didn't have their share in the final fight.

Hu Chin as a fighter is so rare that when she fights in a movie, she should have longer fights and not just training sequences !

 

[ShawAngela]

The tournament 1974

I finally found a while to watch this movie that was in my " archives " since years !!

A good one, in which Angela Mao shines, as usual, but for my taste, there were too much boxing matches and not enough " real " fights such as the ending one, or the one in which Sammo and a few other ones learn their lesson from Angela !

[Chu Liu Hsiang]

10 hours ago, ShawAngela said:

Dreaming fists and slender hands 1979

I had this movie in a box since years and hadn't found a while to watch it. It's done now.

A story of two friends who arrive in a village where people are blackmailed by Lung Fei and his men. They both think that they are good in martial arts, but they are soon defeated by the bandits and one of them is captured. He meets an old man who recognize a birth mark on his waist and he is taught the sleeping kung fu, while the other one is engaged as a waiter by the beautiful Hu Chin, who teaches him her kung fu, and they are both entrusted by their respective masters to get rid of Lung Fei and his men.

Good fights, especially the ending one, but it's a shame that Hu Chin and the old man didn't have their share in the final fight.

Hu Chin as a fighter is so rare that when she fights in a movie, she should have longer fights and not just training sequences !

 

Have to hunt this one down, I like Hu Chin and the only movie I remember right now where I saw her in an action scene was the really weird TIGER LOVE which I do not intend to watch again any time soon.

[ShawAngela]

1 hour ago, Chu Liu Hsiang said:

Have to hunt this one down, I like Hu Chin and the only movie I remember right now where I saw her in an action scene was the really weird TIGER LOVE which I do not intend to watch again any time soon.

I haven't watched Tiger love. She has actions scenes in the excellent Dragon blows, in The fate of Lee Khan (if I'm not mistaken) and in Bandits from Shantung. If you can get Golden sand sword (sadly only on dvdr), it's her first wuxia movie and her first movie too.

She is also mentioned in the martial arts movies Lucky, lucky 1974 (as the lead) and An unexpected guest 1974, two movies that I'D LOVE to find one day...

I wonder if I don't have a double of Dreaming fists and slender hands...I'll check my boxes and let you know.

[chingdog]

Gold Constables VCD with Carter Wong

[CT KID]

On 4/30/2019 at 1:13 PM, NoKUNGFUforYU said:

That guy Byong Yu ran a bunch of schools in Berkeley and the SF Bay Area, then moved to LA. He's a slumlord, but he has a really nice school down there. Runs it like a cult in the past. His black belts tended to be on the thuggish side, and he was known for his poor sportsmanship and outright cheating at least in one occasion. He was also incredibly fit and competed into his late 30's when most guys in tournaments were still in their 20's. He was good, but a very, very sleazy guy. I learned most of my Tae Kwon Do under his black belts, and I woild hear that he was still dreaming of a movie career, and even claimed to be a VP at Warner Brothers. His other claim to fame is training Jennifer Garner, who was pretty good, as a matter of fact.

Remember watching The Association years ago and thinking what a trashy, strange ass movie it was. Never knew Byong Yu was really just as sleazy lol.

[NoKUNGFUforYU]

45 minutes ago, CT KID said:

Remember watching The Association years ago and thinking what a trashy, strange ass movie it was. Never knew Byong Yu was really just as sleazy lol.

His students said "Master Yu was in a porno movie!"

He thought he was as good an actor as Steve McQueen. He told us in great deal his insights into the film business. I told my girlfriend (we were in our late teens) and she burst out laughing! Anyway, he was rumored to have slept with a 15 year old student but it was never proven. He was known for sure as a wife beater, she would show up with sunglasses.

Tae Kwon Do was on the radar for being involved with cults back in the 70's and 80's, I even met an FBI agent that told me about it. Anyway, he was talented and feared though. Watch some of his kicks, no wire work!

[Killer Meteor]

Maybe the cult in THE ASSOCIATION was too close to home for him!

[Chu Liu Hsiang]

On 5/2/2019 at 10:06 AM, ShawAngela said:

I wonder if I don't have a double of Dreaming fists and slender hands...I'll check my boxes and let you know.

Okay, thanks in advance  

[ShawAngela]

The righteous fist 1972

If I count when I first saw it in French language in a cinema when I was 13 or 14 years old, today is my fourth visit to this excellent movie !

The idea suddenly came to my mind this evening to watch it and I enjoyed it as much as the other times !

As I said in a review, Chiao Chiao has only one real fight in this movie, but what a fight ! She kills numerous bandits bare handed and later with a knife in a fight that has nothing to envy the kinife fights in The Duel !

Yu Tien Ling and Wong Yung are also very good in this movie, as well as the traitor, I never remember his name !!

Hkmdb doesn't list the actress who plays the widow. Does anyone know who she is, please ?

 

Highly recommended !

[saltysam]

Fury Of The Shaolin Master

A chinese take on Lone Wolf & Cub with a great cast but less than stellar results. Yueh Wah ,in a confusing opening sequence he executes some bad guys,in revenge his family is slaughtered,leaving just his little nephew. He sets off to find whoever set the slaughter up, with his nephew tagging along. As the price on his head increases various assassins try to off him (Phillip Ko among them) . A slow start but it does pick up towards the end, in which the great Chen Sing appears. The german blu ray looks very nice (english dub) but it's a pity the lesser kung fu movies are the ones with the best remaining elements for a HD release. I've come across Chen Sing making a lot of cameos in this type of movie recently, did he basically wind down to these guest starring roles i wonder?