How Did You Get Into Martial Arts Movies?

[DragonClaws]

Fists Of Fury: How Did You Get Into Martial Arts Movies?

Thought I'd re-start this thread so the many great fans who visit this site can share their stories again. Sadly we lost everyone's contributions when the forum went down. I would be most grateful if people re-posted their stories in this new thread. New members feel free to add your recollections too.

 

 

 

Here's my long winded and unexciting introduction story.

When I was 14 I borrowed a copy of Bruce Lee's Way Of The Dragon(1972) from a friend. Little did I know that it was a heavily censored version, with over ten minutes worth of cuts to Martial Arts related violence. Despite this and the fact it was a full screen pan and scan version, I sat down and watched the movie. To be honest I was not overly impressed and after all the hype I'd heard about the star, it was a bit off an anticlimax. That said, the charisma and presence of the movies star kept me from turning the film off. It also made me curious about Asian cinema and sparked my interest in pursuing these films. This wasn't my first exposure to eastern action, I recall watching Enter The Dragon and The Best Of Martial Arts as a kid and enjoying them lot. Yet it was the butchered and dubbed version of WOTD that kicked off a much more serious love of the films. Shortly after I purchased a copy of John Woos Hand Of Death from a VHS bargain bin, recognizing the name Jackie Chan on the cover. At the time I'd only viewed a brief clip of Winner & Sinners featured in the documentary Bruce Lee The Legend. The rest is history, with my love of the genre has never fully gone away, even during some lapses in interest at times.

 

[AlbertV]

When I was 4 and still living in New York (about 30 minutes from Manhattan), it was during the Drive-In Movie/Fist of Fury Theater craze on Saturday afternoons. Where some of the kids in the area I lived in would go out to play after Saturday morning cartoons, I would watch the kung fu films on Channel 5's Drive-In Movie. Even more the fun, Channel 5 would dedicate one whole week of their prime-time movies at 8pm to Bruce Lee and having only one TV, my dad would have all of us (me, him, my mom, and two older brothers) watch the movies. Monday was Fists of Fury (The Big Boss), Tuesday was The Chinese Connection (Fist of Fury), Wednesday was Return of the Dragon (Way of the Dragon), Thursday wa Game of Death and Friday was Bruce Lee: The Legend. Then of course, Saturday afternoons came around and usually if it was kung fu on Drive-In Movie, I would be watching it. If not, then I would go outside. My uncle, who at the time lived in the Bronx, occasionally would stop by on Saturdays and have a few VHS tapes of kung fu movies to lend me for the weekend to watch, in which I would spend either Saturday night or all day Sunday to watch them. My dad would also take me to the video store on E. Tremont Ave. in the Bronx, across the street from the furniture store he used to work in on Saturday mornings and he would rent horror or some action films for he and my mom and I would get a martial arts film, either kung fu or the American MA films. The rest, as they say, is history.

Nowadays, it is me getting him into the newest martial arts films

 

[lungfei]

growing up in the midlands in the 90s eastern fu was hard to come by on vhs for me and having no family members or friends that were interested in this stuff i had to settle for whatever was shown on tv late at night i remember enter the dragon was the first fu movie i ever saw.

edit-would loved to have been around in the 70s to have watched all the great classics on the big screen.

 

[DragonClaws]

On 14/12/2016 at 2:42 PM, lungfei said:

growing up in the midlands in the 90s eastern fu was hard to come by on vhs for me and having no family members or friends that were interested in this stuff i had to settle for whatever was shown on tv late at night i remember enter the dragon was the first fu movie i ever saw.

 

On 13/12/2016 at 4:48 PM, AlbertV said:

When I was 4 and still living in New York (about 30 minutes from Manhattan), it was during the Drive-In Movie/Fist of Fury Theater craze on Saturday afternoons. Where some of the kids in the area I lived in would go out to play after Saturday morning cartoons,

Thanks for re-posting your stories guys, enjoyed reading them.

[Zatotom]

When I was around 13-14, I started watching Kung Fu Theater on TV and instantly LOVED IT! I remember distinctly the first movie that got me into the genre, which IMHO, is the greatest classic kung fu movie of all time: THE 36th CHAMBER OF SHAOLIN. At the time, I knew it as MASTER KILLER, and that was the first VHS movie I ever bought. I also remember a movie called THE THREE AVENGERS, which I do not own, but would like to have. I'm sure that is an AKA for the real title as well. Anyway, my older brothers would make fun of me for watching them b/c of the sound effects and the choreographed fight scenes, but I would always say "they still have to know how to do that!" Meaning, the actors had to know kung fu in order to do the fight scenes. I have never loved another movie genre as much as the martial arts genre.

 

[AlbertV]

Aside from Channel 5's Drive-In Movie and Channel 11's Fist of Fury Theater in New York, USA Network had Kung Fu Theater and in June 1992, they had "Kung Fu June", which played Shaw Brothers films. I remember the four:

Super Ninjas (Five Element Ninjas)
Return of the Master Killer (Return to the 36th Chamber)
The Invincible One (Disciples of Shaolin)
Fist of the White Lotus (Clan of the White Lotus)

[Cloud Hands]

Lung Fei, I enjoyed seeing those flyers for London Cinemas. I was also too young to experience the golden age of seeing old school films at the cinema.

Looking back I think computer games surely played a part in me getting into Kung Fu films. I had a ZX Spectrum at age 7 or 8 and there were many fighting games, often with an eastern theme.. Renegade, Double Dragon, Yie Ar Kung Fu,  IK+ and Way of the Exploding Fist must have been some of the earliest. I can remember a game called Kung Fu Master which seemed to be inspired by Game of Death as you had to go up different levels of a pagoda and face the next boss. So it was only natural to rent martial arts films whenever I got my hands on them. Looking back it's a bit strange that my parents didn't care that I was watching violence at a young age, but it doesn't seem to have done me any harm!

[masterofoneinchpunch]

31 minutes ago, Cloud Hands said:

... I can remember a game called Kung Fu Master which seemed to be inspired by Game of Death as you had to go up different levels of a pagoda and face the next boss. So it was only natural to rent martial arts films whenever I got my hands on them. ...

This was one of the first games I played (and beat) on NES.  Here in the Colonies the title was shortened to Kung Fu.  I think it was a gateway game to further MA exploits.  But I had spent many a time playing it after school or while sick from school or on the weekend :).

[Bus]

I honestly don't remember but from my recollection it was a show called kung fu Thursday night on tnt back in the day. Now I have like 8 50 gallon storage containers, 2 huge dressers, 2 back packs, and several stacks of fu movies 

[Iron_Leopard]

One movie did it for me. Iron Monkey (1993). This was the Miramax release. I had seen Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon but it didn't do anything for me at the time (I love it now) but when a friend put this in the dvd player one day it was all over. Favorite movie ever. Been a hardcore fan of the genre ever since.

[Asmo]

Saw Project A on TV one night, as a youngster. Stared from there.

[DragonClaws]

Though I'd bump this old thread, see if any new members want to share their stories?.

Sadly we lost a lot of posts, when the original thread was lost due to technical issues last year.

 

[whitesnake]

In April 1973 there was an ad on TV for Five Fingers of Death on a double bill with Red Sun.  I had just moved into an apartment with a new roommate, so dragged new roomie and my dad off to see them.  And got hooked.  I saw just about every dubbed Chinese and Japanese martial arts movie that came through town in the next few years, and went to Asian-language kung fu and sword movies locally and in San Francisco J-town and Chinatown (which had 6 theaters then).  I dragged later roommates off to Asian action movies, read and wrote articles for the pro-zine Martial Arts Movies, and the fanzines Phangraphic, Jade Screen and a few fanzines that followed.  I took vacations to China and Japan; bought kung fu movies on tape (the few that were available back then), taped Asian movies off TV and got more from fans in Australia, Canada, Great Britain, Switzerland, as well as from all over the U.S., and now have lots of Asian movies on DVD and VCD.  I joined the David Chiang Fan Club (out of Manchester, England in 1979) and later the Jackie Chan Fan Club (Vancouver, WA).  I have a few action figures (Pai Mei, Blade, Detective Chow from Asian Organized Crime Task Force, was almost tempted by the recent Great Wall action figure of Strategist Wang (Andy Lau)), a handful of original Asian movie posters, and a nearly complete collection of my fave comic book, Usagi Yojimbo, as well as some old Jackie Chan soundtracks on record and CD.  So I've been a fan more than 40 years.  I loved watching the Hong Kong movies on the big screen in the 1970s, but some were so bad I wouldn't be able to sit through them now. 
 

[DragonClaws]

On 01/10/2017 at 5:24 PM, whitesnake said:

In April 1973 there was an ad on TV for Five Fingers of Death on a double bill with Red Sun.  I had just moved into an apartment with a new roommate, so dragged new roomie and my dad off to see them.  And got hooked.

Great post @whitesnake and thanks for sharing your story in this thread.

We had a lot people active in the old thread that sadly got deleted, hopefully people might start to re-post some of their stuff.

[DragonClaws]

Bumping this old thread, seeing if any new members want to add their stories. We sadly lost a lot of posts, when the forum went down in late 2016.

[Drunken Monk]

I grew up with a heroin addict for a brother. My mum would often be at work and, when not at work, she'd go out to let off steam with my aunt. This caused my brother and his cadre of fellow junkies to spend a lot of time at our house, shooting up, smoking, popping pills etc.
I, being somewhat of a shy teen, would lock myself in my room and listen to music to drown out the sound of the zombies in the living room. Fun times. Anyway, my brothers' favourite thing to do was hit the ol' heroin and then slump into unconsciousness while watching a bevy of whatever movies he could get his hands on. I'm not sure where he got them from but he got his hands on some obscure stuff. Well, obscure for our small Welsh town that is.
One day he comes knocking on my bedroom door. Randomly. Something he NEVER did (he typically left me alone). He's stood there, hazy and all messed up waving a copy of a film called Drunken Master in my face. He then slurs "You have to watch this" and hands me the VHS.
Now, one thing I did have in my room was a VCR. And while I didn't condone my brother's behavior, he'd steered me toward some good horror in the past. And so, I through the VHS in the player and gave it a watch.
I can't tell you how much I loved it. It was everything I wanted from a film. Even the comedy made me laugh. I immediately became interested in this Jackie Chan character. At the time Channel 4 in the UK was showing Jackie films in the wee hours of the morning and so I started taping them: Wheels on Meals, Armour of God etc. 
Then one brave morning I headed out to my not-so-local (about 45 minutes away by train) HMV and blindly bought an old school VHS: Shaolin Red Master. While it isn't the best film in the world, it did fuel my passion for old school films even more. And so, my fascination (nay, obsession) began. The rest, as they say, is history. 

[Omni Dragon]

I summarised a lot of my life experience with martial arts movies in this thread:

 

However after reading the posts in this thread it made me think how linked peoples experiences are to a certain era. That influenced me to give a different perspective than what I already stated in the other thread.

I didn't realise it at the time, but I got into martial art movies not long after mainstream Hollywood started to have an interest in the 'HK action style', perhaps the likes it hadn't had since Bruce Lee. You see around the late 1990s/early 2000s is when mainstream Hollywood seemed most interested in Jackie Chan, Jet Li, Yuen Woo Ping, Chow Yun Fat and John Woo. I assume this cultural interest maybe have been an influence on me, even if I didn't quite realise it at the time.

 

[OpiumKungFuCracker]

My favorite thread! I'm pretty sure I got into it pretty young and then those saturday afternoon kung fu theater on tv put my fandom into overdrive. 

[OpiumKungFuCracker]

I didn't know about shaw brothers until QT came around. Does that mean I'm a fake fan or? 

[Omni Dragon]

4 hours ago, OpiumKungFuCracker said:

I didn't know about shaw brothers until QT came around. Does that mean I'm a fake fan or? 

I think it might mean Shaw's where (and still are to some extent) difficult to find. Shaw's and Celestial don't strike me as the easiest companies to make deals with. I'd go as far as to speculatively say bootlegs might have played apart in keeping some of the enthusiasm alive.   

[DragonClaws]

On 8/7/2018 at 4:16 PM, Silver and Gold Dragon said:

However after reading the posts in this thread it made me think how linked peoples experiences are to a certain era. That influenced me to give a different perspective than what I already stated in the other thread.

 

Thanks for posting the link, and it's cool to hear your story frm a different perspective, in this thread too.

 

On 8/7/2018 at 5:41 PM, OpiumKungFuCracker said:

My favorite thread! I'm pretty sure I got into it pretty young and then those saturday afternoon kung fu theater on tv put my fandom into overdrive. 

 

Good to see you on the forums @OpiumKungFuCracker, can I ask why this is your favorite thread?.

 

On 8/7/2018 at 3:55 PM, Drunken Monk said:

I grew up with a heroin addict for a brother. My mum would often be at work and, when not at work, she'd go out to let off steam with my aunt. This caused my brother and his cadre of fellow junkies to spend a lot of time at our house, shooting up, smoking, popping pills etc.

 

Thanks for sharing your story, and exposing a side to your life, that some people might shy away from sharing. Nice to see some positive came out of your brothers negative behaviour. 

[Omni Dragon]

On 8/7/2018 at 3:55 PM, Drunken Monk said:

I grew up with a heroin addict for a brother. My mum would often be at work and, when not at work, she'd go out to let off steam with my aunt. This caused my brother and his cadre of fellow junkies to spend a lot of time at our house, shooting up, smoking, popping pills etc.

4 hours ago, DragonClaws said:

Thanks for sharing your story, and exposing a side to your life, that some people might shy away from sharing. Nice to see some positive came out of your brothers negative behaviour.

I remember @Drunken Monk sharing part of that story in the timeline thread as well. I don't want to take anything away from the other interesting stories in this and that thread, but I find @Drunken Monk's story to be the most striking. It's also the most memorable to me after my own (though I did live my own 1st hand).  

 

[Killer Meteor]

For me it was this -

 

I first encountered the film in its HK incarnation, on UK TV, and this was what got me into HK cinema. Now, baring in mind that the version I saw was missing two of the three Bruce Lee fights (Chi Hon Tsoi due to a mistake, Dan Inosanto due to the BBFC), the HK version improves on the English version because:

 

• The Chinese dubbing makes the Bruce Lee character much more of a strong prescence.
   
• Replacing the terrible "pat-a-cake" fighting in the theatre with the phenomanal "Bruce" vs. Casanova Wong fight. That was the point where I went "Woah, this film is awesome!"
   
• The stupid carboard Bruce head is almost completely eliminated
   
• Dean Jagger seems like a reasonable crime boss, rather than a bizarre combination of Monty Burns, George Burns and Grandpa Simpson
   
• The English version has very weak sound FX (check out the crowd scenes where people are talking, but no sound is heard) and Bruce's war cries are Chris Kent going "waaah" like a moron. The HK version has much better sound design, and proper Bruce Lee war cries.

 

 

If I had seen the English version in 2001 instead, I probably would not be here now (and my bank balance would be a LOT better!)

[TheKungFuRobber]

It was in 2005, I was 7 years old. My father let me watch Fist of Fury with him. I was hooked on Bruce Lee and kung fu movies ever since.

[DragonClaws]

6 hours ago, Killer Meteor said:

I first encountered the film in its HK incarnation, on UK TV, and this was what got me into HK cinema. Now, baring in mind that the version I saw was missing two of the three Bruce Lee fights (Chi Hon Tsoi due to a mistake, Dan Inosanto due to the BBFC), the HK version improves on the English version because:

 

Channel Four BL Weekend, featured a decent documentary (Links in the BL Forum), and while they still cut the nunchaku footage, Lee's films were shown in their most complete form. Seeing them clean up, in widescreen, with the orignal language, was also a whole other experience. Not such a big deal now, but it was in the late 90's, pre internet days.

 

 

3 hours ago, TheKungFuRobber said:

It was in 2005, I was 7 years old. My father let me watch Fist of Fury with him. I was hooked on Bruce Lee and kung fu movies ever since.

 

Fist of Fury was a great place to start dude.

 

Thanks for sharing your Martial Arts movie intro sstories, @Killer Meteor and @TheKungFuRobber.