POLL: Best Martial Arts Movies by Year (2017-2019)

[DrNgor]

Picking up where @SmokingFistOfDoom, left off, here's a survey for films made in the past three years. Have at it!

[Drunken Monk]

My 2019 choice was a little odd. John Wick 3 is in my top five movies of 2019, but I voted for Ip Man 4. That's because I feel like Ip Man 4 was more of a martial arts movie for me. It had that feel to it; the same feeling I get when I watch old school kung fu cinema.

So, John Wick was the better movie but Ip Man 4 was the better kung fu movie.

[Rodolphe Dux]

Voted for Shadow (which visually astonished me), art of self defense and paradox. But I have to admit I have not seen Ip man 4 yet. The ironic thing is that I may be the only one but I strongly dislike John Wick 3 even if I like the first two movies. I’m certainly missing something and will probably (and painfully) give it another go as some quality people like @Drunken Monk speaks very well of that movie.

[sym8]

For me Paradox,Master Z,and John Wick 3 but that may change when I see Ip man 4 but I’m ashamed to say there are still films on these lists I haven’t seen.(only recently seen Paradox).👍👍

[OpiumKungFuCracker]

I had no idea Paradox was SPL 3? Where was the memo?

[ShaOW!linDude]

Jailbreak for 2017 because the choreography is solid and consistent. I like Savage Dog but it just didn't quite check all the boxes for me. And I loved Atomic Blonde but view it more as an action film with some solid MA moments.

Accident Man for 2018 because Adkins owns that movie and the fights are great. Hard call though because The Night Comes For Us has some vicious fights scenes.

Triple Threat for 2019 because there's a plethora of great screen fighters & we finally got Adkins vs Jaa. And as much as I loved JW 3, again I see it more as an action movie with some killer fight scenes, especially the finale. Plus, I haven't seen Ip Man 4 and probably won't until its dvd release.

[D1 Ma]

Voted for Paradox(basically, for  the end fight),  Night Comes For Us and and John Wick 3

(Calling some of the movies listed here  "MA films" is a long stretch, BTW)

Night Comes For Us was an interesting take on adding extreme gore to MA. Something rather unusual  and hands down the best, most entertaining MA film of the year

I wouldn't call John Wick 3 a  pure "martial arts movie" neither, but it had some of the most intricate, inventive and original action ever seen in a Hollywood movie. I think it was top-notch, totally unmatched by anything else. (The fight in  the museum was my fave)   That's why I chose it over Avengement, which had some great brawls and arguably, the best Adkins' performance and as a whole, I liked it A LOT more  than JW3, but action-wise, JW3 wins here, IMO

 

[DrNgor]

2 hours ago, D1 Ma said:

(Calling some of the movies listed here  "MA films" is a long stretch, BTW)

 

I'm not too worried about that. For the 2009 poll, Shinjuku Incident was included and I think got a vote. That has zero MA as far as I'm concerned.

Moreover, Eastern Condors completely swept the 1987 poll, and that was an action film with spectacular MA moments.

[DrNgor]

3 hours ago, OpiumKungFuCracker said:

I had no idea Paradox was SPL 3? Where was the memo?

It's shown on cable TV here in Brazil as Comando Final 3, that being the Portuguese title for SPL.

Interestingly enough, SPL 2 has three different titles here:

Comando Final 2: O Guerreiro Imortal  (SPL 2: The Immortal Warrior) - cable tv title
Comando Final 2: Hora das Consequências (SPL 2: A Time for Consequences) - title I see on Google
Kill Zone 2 - the title that appears on Netflix Brazil

[OpiumKungFuCracker]

Just got done watching paradox. It's an ok rental of the week kind of viewing. Not something I would put on any kind of list now that would be crazy.

The topic being dealt with in this motion picture is some serious stuff and then the fight scenes are shot all whimsical and people are flying around like peter pan and what not as if it was crouching tiger hidden dragon? This is suppose to be a serious crime procedural so I don't know. Tony Jaa needed to be in it a lot more than just that one scene if you know what I mean.

[One Armed Boxer]

@DrNgor - Where's 'Revenger'!?  One of the purest martial arts flicks of the decade!

4 hours ago, OpiumKungFuCracker said:

I had no idea Paradox was SPL 3? Where was the memo?

It's technically not 'SPL 3', but a spin-off of the 'SPL' series.  I covered the topic in the opening couple of paragraphs in my review.

6 hours ago, Rodolphe Dux said:

The ironic thing is that I may be the only one but I strongly dislike John Wick 3 even if I like the first two movies.

3 hours ago, D1 Ma said:

I wouldn't call John Wick 3 a  pure "martial arts movie" neither, but it had some of the most intricate, inventive and original action ever seen in a Hollywood movie. I think it was top-notch, totally unmatched by anything else. (The fight in  the museum was my fave)

I think the 'John Wick' series gets a lot of credit through its combination of the whole 'cool' factor, combined with each instalment having at least one killer action scene.  The question of if they're legitimately good movies is a whole different ball game.  For me 'John Wick 2' is the best one.  'John Wick' was underwhelming - the repetitive soundtrack of Marilyn Manson's 'Killing Strangers', and damp squib of a final fight against the late Michael Nyqvist, left me feeling ambivalent about the whole thing.  For 'John Wick 3', it bolted out of the gates strong with an awesome opening 30 minutes of action, then lost its momentum.  The whole desert deal didn't do it for me, and while the finale started off great against Tiger Chen and his cronies, the fights against Yayan Ruhian (who can't seem to make a good movie outside of 'The Raid' flicks), Cecep Arif Rahman, and Mark Dacascos were too playful for my liking. 

 

[OpiumKungFuCracker]

@One Armed Boxer Another solid review man I do believe paradox is a slight improvement over SPL 2.  The casting is great.

[Rodolphe Dux]

6 hours ago, One Armed Boxer said:

@DrNgor - Where's 'Revenger'!?  One of the purest martial arts flicks of the decade!

It's technically not 'SPL 3', but a spin-off of the 'SPL' series.  I covered the topic in the opening couple of paragraphs in my review.

I think the 'John Wick' series gets a lot of credit through its combination of the whole 'cool' factor, combined with each instalment having at least one killer action scene.  The question of if they're legitimately good movies is a whole different ball game.  For me 'John Wick 2' is the best one.  'John Wick' was underwhelming - the repetitive soundtrack of Marilyn Manson's 'Killing Strangers', and damp squib of a final fight against the late Michael Nyqvist, left me feeling ambivalent about the whole thing.  For 'John Wick 3', it bolted out of the gates strong with an awesome opening 30 minutes of action, then lost its momentum.  The whole desert deal didn't do it for me, and while the finale started off great against Tiger Chen and his cronies, the fights against Yayan Ruhian (who can't seem to make a good movie outside of 'The Raid' flicks), Cecep Arif Rahman, and Mark Dacascos were too playful for my liking. 

 

I feel the same with John Wick trilogy, the second one is the perfect action movie according to my likings. The third one starts nice but the overall script is very predictable. After a while, the fight scenes became kind of boring, even if very well choreographed. But the main problem for me is that the Wick character loses his badass bleak attitude which is a letdown to me. And the final line, and final shot of the movie sounds like a cliché to me. My feeling is that neither the director nor Reeves believe in that, they just do their jobs nicely, with a serious lack of motivation.

[DragonClaws]

 

Nice to see The Foriegner made the list, not as fight-centric as many of the entries but it has a good story, to back up the fights.

 

I was going to vote for Headshot starring Iko Uwais, but then I discovered it came out in 2016 not 2017. Atomic Blond I have lined up as part of this weekends viewing, but I'm late to the game on this one.

 

On 1/3/2020 at 11:30 PM, ShaOW!linDude said:

Triple Threat for 2019 because there's a plethora of great screen fighters & we finally got Adkins vs Jaa. And as much as I loved JW 3, again I see it more as an action movie with some killer fight scenes, especially the finale. Plus, I haven't seen Ip Man 4 and probably won't until its dvd release.

 

For me this was like the Cannon movies of the 1980's, only they really brought up the quality of the choreography.

 

[OpiumKungFuCracker]

Fine I'll watch Triple Threat. Please let this be decent for the love of god!

[DragonClaws]

18 hours ago, OpiumKungFuCracker said:

Fine I'll watch Triple Threat. Please let this be decent for the love of god!

 

 

You mean, you havent already watched this one by now?. It's tough for any movie to deliver after 12-months plus of hype, but this one might your kind of thing?.

[Rodolphe Dux]

Wow, The night comes for us is a success! First time I watched it, I was amazed. I gave it a second watch, I couldn’t finish it, I felt it was overdone. But it deserves a third chance.