Are we Living in the New Era of Kung-Fu Movie Ignorance?

[DragonClaws]

4 hours ago, Tosh said:

I can understand Bruce Lee movies should be labeled as Kung Fu, but technically since he's fighting Japanese there would be Karate in this? Granted Kung Fu should be over the Karate part for this poster.

You are right there is some Karate style moves in The Big Boss, Fist Of Fury would certainly be even more suited to this. There's also karate elements in the rest of Lee's films. Their just not striaght up Karate films, like some of Sonny Chibas films.

 

[HyperDrive]

On 2/24/2017 at 6:52 AM, Tosh said:

You just hit the nail on the head.

 

I really lost interest in HK/Chinese newer movies probably after Jet Li's Hero, HK lost it's idenity soon after the takeover, every new movie I've tried to watch just melts into the same movie to me(exceptions of course,) so at the moment I'd be just as ignorant despite my knowledge of old school KF. Granted I haven't watched anything new since Ip Man 2 and was already abondoning it at that point, I'm sure there are a couple movies I need to see.

The quoted comment hits home with me, the fighting became to "flowy", chain punches and jumping twirls all to common, cgi enhanced ugh.

It's pretty funny you mentioned Ip Man 2 since Gallants was released that same year. Gallants had Chen Kuan-Tai, Bruce Liang, Chan Wai-Man, and Lo Mang doing whatever they wanted in terms of choreography with Yuen Tak as the action director. What happened is that this old-school flick ended up winning best picture at both the Hong Kong Film Awards and Hong Kong Film Critics Society Awards. Sadly, it was always regarded as a tribute to the classics so it could be considered the last hurrah for that type of film.  One could make the claim that our favorite genre died seven years ago then.

It makes me ponder what the scene would look like now if it had inspired filmmakers to put some old school flavor into their work. I'm going to check out Derek Yee's Sword Master since it's an actor remaking what got him the big break in the industry. Plus the original Death Duel is one of the classics this forum loves.

As for the whole international scene, I'm not too optimistic regarding its current state. Thailand already ran out of gas after only 14 years of big productions. How much gas does Indonesia have left? Vietnam is undependable because if the authorities don't like a couple scenes, the whole film is scrapped (see Cho Lon).  Not sure about Cambodia and the Philippines.