How Did You Get Into Martial Arts Cinema?

[DragonClaws]

I started thread similar to this on the old KFC forum and thought I'd give it a try here. How did you get into the genre? was it through seeing a movie poster/image? or perhaps a friend or family member put you onto these films?.

[shaolin swords]

for me it starts at a very young age ever since i can remember i had a passion for martial arts flicks nobody really put me on to the movies just something i loved from ever since i can walk talk i had a passion for it and like most of us remember being a kid watching the shaw brothers movies on tv in the 80s thats where every thing begins for me

[venom10463]

It started for me from observing my first martial arts class at 4-5 years old. A few years later, I stumbled upon my Uncle's box of vhs, he had recording of 36 Chambers, Ninja in the Deadly Trap, Death Duel, Crippled Avengers, Heroes Two, and one other one with Carter Wong and a monkey.

[KenHashibe]

I watched Cinemassacre's Top 10 Jackie Chan Fights/Stunts videos and was blown away. So I started watching a bunch of Jackie Chan movies and later introduced myself to other actors. I watched more and more HK movies and later became a fan of MA cinema.

[Secret Executioner]

Initially bought a DVD copy of Godfrey Ho's Secret Executioner out of curiosity. Somehow, this one appealled to me.

I was essentially into indie films and Ninja cut-and-splices at first, but afterwards (courtesy of joining the kungfucinema forum) I got into Shaw Bros stuff, Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan...

Three years later, I got quite a collection with MA DVDs from around the world (France of course, but also Britain, North America, HK, Spain, Belgium...) as well as a few French VHS.

[DragonClaws]

Thanks for sharing your stories everyone .

It started for me from observing my first martial arts class at 4-5 years old. A few years later, I stumbled upon my Uncle's box of vhs, he had recording of 36 Chambers, Ninja in the Deadly Trap, Death Duel, Crippled Avengers, Heroes Two, and one other one with Carter Wong and a monkey.

I had the pleasure of sitting through the one with Carter Wong & the monkey not so long ago. Watching that film was an experience to say the least.

I didn't start to purchase Kung Fu films or follow the genre until I was about 13. Befor then I had watched some Martial Arts movies mainly U.S produced stuff like Double Impact & the Bruce Lee films. I was really into action cinema at that age and I just watched films from as many genres as possible. The earliest HK based stuff I can recall seeing were the scenes showcased in The Best Of Martial Arts documentary. I watched this around the same time I caught Enter The Dragon. But I didn't get access to these films again until my teens. I spent most of my childhood as a huge wrestling fan and films were not at the top of my priority list. The Hand Of Death was the first HK film I ever bought and the rest is history.

[Lady Jin Szu-Yi]

I cannot answer for my childhood, I think it was a mix of liking Bruce Lee and Star Wars. I always came back to martial arts films in and around European cult cinema (Lone Wolf and Cub and samurai films were the last nibble about 12 years ago), but I never got hooked until this Spring.

I enjoy older films for their emphasis on character and story; I was looking for fun genre movies inspire me in a positive way and stumbled across the End Fight of The Victim on youtube.

After tracking that film down, I was floored that Leung Kar Yan had no formal training and wanted to see more. Every couple of weeks I'd discover more new and talented performers / martial artists and here I am.

[sym8]

It was the early 80's and my mom and dad bought our first vcr.Round the corner from where i lived there was a video shop that had lots of kung fu movies,i rented one and the rest was history.The movie was sun dragon(hard way to die)starring Billy Chong.

[Guest Anonymous]

Oh my gosh! I love this!!

The Karate Ki was my first martial arts movie back in the 80's when I was 6!! AA! I knew I loved pro wrestling and nintendo video games that used karate and kung fu from the 80's. We played them at my friends house. Then we of course saw Bloodsport and all the hollywood stuff like Best of the Best! Awesome stuff! But I KNEW there were some asian films from the old days. Movies from the 70's I would see clips off on TV shows or movies as a joke. As if the character is switching through channels. I knew who Bruce Lee was too and never was able to see his movies because I was a kid and my mom wouldnt allow it.

When Blockbuster opened up in town I saw a TON of video covers of Wu Tang Clan presents for a ton of crazy movies with weird titles. I never got to rent one yet because I was broke as a teen. Then my mom let me rent a Bruce Lee movie, then another, then I rented this "Greates Fight of Kung Fu" complilation VHS and thought it was cool. By this time I had joined Taekwondo classes and some dumb guy told me those movies sucked and really good fight choreography was in Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon and the Matrix. But he went on about Fist of Legend.

Then I rented Kung Fu VS Lama and was freaking blown away and loved it. I also saw eventually crouching tigert blah blah boring and then fist of Legend too. but before that I saw Jackie Chan's Rumble in the Bronx.

over time I was able to rent more movies. Then when I got a job I saw the video stores actually sold martial arts movies. I was so excited and started obsessively buying oldschool kung fu movies.5 Deadly Venoms, Super Ninjas, more and more shaw brothers, then of course golden harvest films and was blown away by HWang Jang Lee and didnt even know he also did Taekwondo at the time.

Oh my gosh then I collected over 300 videos and DVDs. I was addicted!!! I spent thousands of dollars. I used to run a website with kung fu movie reviews on geocities but it got deleted over time. Also, I was featured on the New York Martial Arts website for a few reviews I did but are since gone.

I was reall yinto the Joseph Kuo collection and though any film he directed was probably going to rock.

every since then oldschol kung fu has been some crazy thing im into that no one else is. Im a martial artist as well and even people in the martial arts world in real life dont really watch this stuff.

I am literally so happy that El Rey the channel exists and I record tons of movies and watch them later and sip through commecials. I lost all of my VHS and DVDs because I had to sell them on ebay at an ebay store man years ago. Now I dont own any movies except martial arts instructional DVDs from turtle press. But forever in my heart is oldschool kung fu. Everything about them.

My problem is I have no clue what many of the directors look like physically, only some names, never memorized every actors name or movie they were in either. Only a few stick out. I have seen so many movies that I literally cannot remember which movie had what scene or what every story was about. All I know is there is tons of fighting and I love it. I would not call myself a pretetnious hipster geek over it, but I am freaking into this stuff. I just cannot be like "Oh yes in 1978 so and so played the character or so and so which was directed by so and so. His co-star was blah blah and the movie is about this and that..." I literally cannot tell you what every movie is about, only the big ones like venoms, super ninjas, golden arm, silver fox rivals, 7 grandmasters, ghost face killer etc.

[Leung Tsan]

Well for me the movie that really started the fire was Drunken Master.

I was a teenager at that time 13-14 years old, and the only Jackie Movie that I saw before Drunken Master was Police Story..... I saw it on TV and I remember being really astonished with the stunts, and of course the martial arts..... but later on, a buddy of mine came back from holidays, he came back from New York where he bought this Drunken Master bootleg vhs....... well we saw this movie altogether with some buddies the night he came back and we were really shocked and amazed !!!!! that was certainly a huge discovery for all of us and this movie had the impact that lead me into collecting and wanting to watch ALL of them haha..... I think the best thing is that it never stops, there are always movies to be discovered......

[Guest Anonymous]

Well for me the movie that really started the fire was Drunken Master.

I was a teenager at that time 13-14 years old, and the only Jackie Movie that I saw before Drunken Master was Police Story..... I saw it on TV and I remember being really astonished with the stunts, and of course the martial arts..... but later on, a buddy of mine came back from holidays, he came back from New York where he bought this Drunken Master bootleg vhs....... well we saw this movie altogether with some buddies the night he came back and we were really shocked and amazed !!!!! that was certainly a huge discovery for all of us and this movie had the impact that lead me into collecting and wanting to watch ALL of them haha..... I think the best thing is that it never stops, there are always movies to be discovered......

Right it is literally humanly impossible to watch every oldschool kung fu movie that exists in one's lifetime. It's best to stick with the good ones and not care about some. Watching movies would literally take years without stopping if you wanted to see them all.

I remember everyone in the 90's was talking about Drunken Master. Well the guys at my Taekwondo gym were who were older. I was about your age. Then they talked about how Drunken Master 2 was the best. I rented Drunken Master 1 from Blockbuster and it was so crazy!!!

I then rented The Young Master an was not into it much. Some of the old old kung fu you have to have an acquired taste and learn more about it to appreciate it. The reason is because it looks dance like and not the whole hollywood western punching people type fighting. Over time I have totally appreciated Young Master and also Drunken Master was awesome. Then I saw Drunken Master 2 an was blown away. But then bothered it had no real connection to the first movie.

[Leung Tsan]

oh yeah.... I remember when I saw Drunken Master 2...... yeah really very very spicy !!!! martial arts, tricks, stunts, wow..... and Lau Kar Leung !!!! well the whole casting..... It's certainly one of the best Jackie Movies for me.... if not the best...

[dvdtherapy]

For me it started with my Dad taking me to see Bruce Lee and Chuck Norris movies in the 70s when I was a boy. As an adult, I found John Woo. Not as much martial arts, but Hard Boiled especially blew me away. Eventually I stumbled on a Last Hurrah for Chivalry. After that, I looked for something similar and found the Shaw Brothers. I have about 240 SB titles now and I can't get enough.

[Tosh]

I became obsessed with Godzilla at age 4 or 5, that led to watching KF on tv in the late 70's-80's, eventually the home video stores came in so stared renting/collecting on beta, fell out of the fu in the late 80's early 90's, got back into it around 99-2000 with the ease of finding movies through the internet.

[Guest Anonymous]

Dude I am also obsessed with Godzilla yet I have not even seen every movie. I just really like the concept and the kinds of monsters and how fun it is. I also like some of the Toho Sci Fi movies, they are so crazy and I love the explosions of models. It is just satisfying and GCI stuff is so ang boring to me. I want to see real fire and things breaking on camera not fake cartoon stuff.

And I love Chuck Norris he is a badass.

but honestly I have never seen hard Boiled haha. Or the other stuff people talk about. I really am more into obscure stuff.

By the way does anyone watch many current martial arts films they make now days? I watched a few but honestly they put all of this stupid "tricking" in them and it makes the fights look so stupid like gymnastics and boring. Its not like the classical chinese opera where it just flows so well and has real kung fu. I am not a fan of Scott Adkins but I think he is all right.

but dude the current thai and indonesian movies are kind of making martial arts go in a extremely awesome direction.

Anyway yeah Jack Long, Li Yi Min, Gordon Lui, Luen Kar Yuen, Hwang Jang Lee, the Venoms, Loh Leh and more wooo!

[DragonClaws]

Great to see people getting involved in this thread & sharing their stories with everyone. When I first watched the Bruce Lee films they didn't impress me too much due to them being heavily censored in the U.K. Despite this Bruce Lee still intrigued me and his charisma shone through. At the time the Bruce Lee films each had an image on the spine of the video label. If you bought every film in the series they made up an image. To complete this picture I bought G.O.D 2 and that really opened my eyes to HK choreography. This was pre to seeing Jackie Chan or the other big names of HK cinema.

[Guest Anonymous]

Great to see people getting involved in this thread & sharing their stories with everyone. When I first watched the Bruce Lee films they didn't impress me too much due to them being heavily censored in the U.K. Despite this Bruce Lee still intrigued me and his charisma shone through. At the time the Bruce Lee films each had an image on the spine of the video label. If you bought every film in the series they made up an image. To complete this picture I bought G.O.D 2 and that really opened my eyes to HK choreography. This was pre to seeing Jackie Chan or the other big names of HK cinema.

Game of death 2 was part of the collection? He wasn't even in that movie. What did the picture show?

[DragonClaws]

The back of the cover promised unused footage from Bruce Lee's previous films re-worked into a new movie. I had no knowledge of HK cinema at the time. The internet scene wasn't even around then and know one used the term Bruce Lee exploitation. I had a lot to learn in those days.

Each film had part of the picture on the video spine, so you had to collect all five titles to get the full picture. The image was from Enter The Dragon and in black and white. The set featured all his completed HK films, G.O.D 1 & 2 and Bruce Lee The Legend documentary. For some reason The Legend VHS cover didn't feature any of the image. These films were released a lot on VHS in the U.K and they often used the idea of a big picture split across the spines of five films. Another earlier box set set featured an image of Bruce Lee from Game Of Death split across five VHS covers.

[Guest Anonymous]

The back of the cover promised unused footage from Bruce Lee's previous films re-worked into a new movie. I had no knowledge of HK cinema at the time. The internet scene wasn't even around then and know one used the term Bruce Lee exploitation. I had a lot to learn in those days.

Each film had part of the picture on the video spine, so you had to collect all five titles to get the full picture. The image was from Enter The Dragon and in black and white. The set featured all his completed HK films, G.O.D 1 & 2 and Bruce Lee The Legend documentary. For some reason The Legend VHS cover didn't feature any of the image. These films were released a lot on VHS in the U.K and they often used the idea of a big picture split across the spines of five films. Another earlier box set set featured an image of Bruce Lee from Game Of Death split across five VHS covers.

I owned the Legendary documentary. BUt I never bought the others. Cool art!!

[MonkeyFu]

I was always a movie junkie growing up and my brother and I would watch Godzilla movies, Hammer horror movies, James Bond movies and any kung fu movie that would come on (usually Sunday afternoons). We were so dedicated that we would set our alarms and wake up at 4 in the morning if a particular movie was coming on that we really wanted to see!

So I've always had fond memories of movie watching from those days. That fondness has stuck through the years, and the one genre that I collect the most and am most interested in is Kung Fu

[DragonClaws]

I was always a movie junkie growing up and my brother and I would watch Godzilla movies, Hammer horror movies, James Bond movies and any kung fu movie that would come on (usually Sunday afternoons). We were so dedicated that we would set our alarms and wake up at 4 in the morning if a particular movie was coming on that we really wanted to see!

So I've always had fond memories of movie watching from those days. That fondness has stuck through the years, and the one genre that I collect the most and am most interested in is Kung Fu

I used to set my alarm for early morning screenings or just stay up late. Some times I fell asleep before the ending if I stayed up. I can recall nodding off halfway through Police Story 3 only to wake up to the Pink Panther cartoon.

[Secret Executioner]

Before getting into Fu cinema, I was a big horror/sci-fi cinema. I still am actually.

But I never did that wake up early/stay up late thing - I bought (and still buy) tons of DVDs.

[DragonClaws]

Before getting into Fu cinema, I was a big horror/sci-fi cinema. I still am actually.

But I never did that wake up early/stay up late thing - I bought (and still buy) tons of DVDs.

I still have the habit of watching old Kung Fu flicks in the wee hours. I'm also a sucker for buying DVD's too and no doubt I'll pick something up when I visit the local DVD shop this week.

[Secret Executioner]

I still have the habit of watching old Kung Fu flicks in the wee hours. I'm also a sucker for buying DVD's too and no doubt I'll pick something up when I visit the local DVD shop this week.

I buy mainly at local stores rather than in franchised stores or on the Internet (except for the couple of orders on yesasia and some buys from fellow Fu fans). And I'm getting into war cinema now.

[DragonClaws]

I buy mainly at local stores rather than in franchised stores or on the Internet (except for the couple of orders on yesasia and some buys from fellow Fu fans). And I'm getting into war cinema now.

A lot of the big chain shops are gone now in the U.K. They have been replaced by online retailers such as Play & Amazon. Back in the days of VHS every store had a Martial Arts section and some had a large selection of films too. Sadly these films now get put in the World Cinema section rather than having a shelf of their own.