THE ULTIMATE GUIDE TO THE MARTIAL ARTS MOVIES OF THE 1970s

[thelastweaponmaster]

Thanks for the preview of the book Teako170. Dr. C, your book looks great!! Will be looking forward to my copy which should be delivered later this week.

Bring on volume 2!!

[Karlos]

That is one seriously nice looking book - cannot wait to get my hands on a copy!

[Fang Shih-yu]

Thanks for the pix of the pages, teako170! It's these visuals that have finally sold me on getting this!

[bratty]

yup me too. had to buy it immediately after seeing that.

update: Amazon still has the pre-order sale price listed .. Full retail costs 10 bucks more .. grab one!

[KyFi]

Yep, teako's photos forced me to order immediately!

[venom10463]

Just placed an order at Amazon. So excited!

[prinnysquad]

This really is too much!

No email, no money taken from bank, nothing!

Gutted.

[lightning hopkins]

Got my copy today, and man is it impressive! Pretty text-heavy, so it'll be a while before I can offer up anything substantive viz. reader response, but still (as they say in the genre) -- very very nice. And any book that manages to cram in one of my all-time guilty favorites, "Brave Girl Boxer in Shanghai," is already sporting four-star potential...

[Athena]

Just received mine ! All I can say is : It looks substantial ..Totally packed with info !!

Beautiful images too !!

It will definitely take some time going through !!

Thanks again, Athena ..♥

[Buxbaum]

Guess it will take a month or so till I get it. Mail service is kinda slow from the US.

And now I really want it after seeing those pictures.

[Karlos]

My copy is on it's way - at last!!

[Cheh's Boys]

Awesome job on the book Dr. Craig.

I had a couple of questions.

Do you have a list of movies that where cut out from your original 600?

I can't seem to find magnificent butcher in the book, did i miss it or was that one of the movies that was cut?

Do you ever think you'll write about some of the movies in the late 60's that helped push the kung fu genre to where it went in the 70's; like the original one armed swordsman, come drink with me, golden swallow, dragon inn, etc?

Is there anything that you wanted to put into the book but couldn't due to time or size constraints?

How long did it take you to write?

Thanks again for a great job on putting together such a thorough book.

[prinnysquad]

I've just emailed amazon to give them a piece of my mind.

I pre-ordered in early September, but have had no email about publication date changing or despatch email. What shoddy service.

[KyFi]

Sorry to hear that, prinnysquad.

I had the opposite experience, as mine shipped quick and I just got it today.

Holy cow, this book is awesome! Just looking through it briefly for Shaw movies, it seems to have all the classics, plus a whole bunch of my favorite, slightly obscure movies like The Young Avenger, The Bastard, The Lizard, Five Tough Guys, etc. Great pictures throughout. Also, even after reading this thread, I kind of forgot that this included Japanese movies, too! Great book, and I'm sure I'm going to be going through numerous times in the coming weeks and months.

[DrCraig]

Awesome job on the book Dr. Craig.

I had a couple of questions.

Do you have a list of movies that where cut out from your original 600?

I can't seem to find magnificent butcher in the book, did i miss it or was that one of the movies that was cut?

Do you ever think you'll write about some of the movies in the late 60's that helped push the kung fu genre to where it went in the 70's; like the original one armed swordsman, come drink with me, golden swallow, dragon inn, etc?

Is there anything that you wanted to put into the book but couldn't due to time or size constraints?

How long did it take you to write?

Thanks again for a great job on putting together such a thorough book.

It took over a year to write...I'd love to do a '60s version. If all goes well, I could end up doing a pre'70s book (anything before 1970 would be game), an '80s, '90s and '10s. We'll just have to see how fate takes things.

It was very difficult to narrow down which films to write about. I had over 1000 films collected for the book, and as you can imagine if I wrote on all of them, the book would have been huge and certainly more expensive.

So I only watched over 600, and wrote on 500. The one's of the 600 I did not write about either didn't have enough fights to make the cut or things were getting a bit too repetitive or what happened to Magnificent Butcher.

When the final 500+ limit was enforced, so to speak, I had to stop writing up the films and so movies like Magnificent Butcher, Hapkido, Warriors Two and another 50 or so, which already had completed notes and stats, just couldn't be done. It was one of the toughest things about the book...doing that chopping block. (

But I really do appreciate and thank everyone for their enthusiasm about the book.

[Shaolin Chamber 36]

I received my copy of the book today, beautiful looking book!

So far I have only read the Dedication, Acknowledgments, Preface, Foreward and About the Author. Just getting ready to read the Introduction, and what follows after that.

I always love reading how people get into this magnificent genre of ours, and yours Craig was truly life changing. Having watched nearly 5,000 martial arts movies, is truly a feat that not many could pull off. Giving how nowadays people tend to be so busy with everyday life, including their family, jobs, and other time consuming aspects of ones life.

I look forward to reading this book, and hopefully retaining the information I read, and I look forward to reading MORE from you Craig in the near future.

Congratulations on an amazing accomplishment. I stand and applaud your efforts!

[teako170]

It took over a year to write...I'd love to do a '60s version. If all goes well, I could end up doing a pre'70s book (anything before 1970 would be game), an '80s, '90s and '10s. We'll just have to see how fate takes things.

An 80's version would be quite interesting to see. There are so many films from Taiwan that need to be chronicled in one book. As you have mentioned this previously, (re: if all goes well) how big is the print run for this book and what is your publisher looking for, in terms of sales, to green-light further volumes?

[Jesse Smooth]

An 80's version would be quite interesting to see. There are so many films from Taiwan that need to be chronicled in one book. As you have mentioned this previously, (re: if all goes well) how big is the print run for this book and what is your publisher looking for, in terms of sales, to green-light further volumes?

The 80s are the pivotal point in Chinese action films. You should do the golden years up to '93. Then post-Handover Hong Kong cinema. Taiwan would be covered in the 80s. I think the last Taiwanese kung fu film of any importance was DEATH GAMES from '97.

[thelastweaponmaster]

Dr. Craig, got your fantastic book on Friday and have just skimmed it from cover to cover.

Just some initial comments and questions:

1) As mentioned in a previous email, it is great that the book was printed on such high quality glossy paper. Made the great pictures that you had in there stand out even more. Would have been nice if some of the pictures were larger in size but I can understand the space constraints.

2) Would had been nice if you could had sourced some quality pictures for the non-Shaw Brothers films as the book seem to emphasize Shaw Brothers (SB) productions.

3) Just a question why the production companies beside SB wasn't identified for the films. Would have been nice to give credit to the other companies such as Golden Harvest, Seasonal Films and the other independent companies for their productions.

4) As mentioned, you had excluded listings for such quality films such as Hapkido, Warriors Two, The Magnificent Butcher, etc. due to lack of space. Could you not have

drop some of the other much less known films to include these more relevant films?

5) To give some sense of perspective or quality, it would have been nice to have included some notes about how some of these films did in terms of the annual Hong Kong box office.

Overall though a great effort. Thank you for all of your work and time that you spent in putting this together. This publication is a mountain of information and is something that all martial arts fans should buy asap or put on their christmas wish list. Thanks again!!

[KyFi]

When the final 500+ limit was enforced, so to speak, I had to stop writing up the films and so movies like Magnificent Butcher, Hapkido, Warriors Two and another 50 or so, which already had completed notes and stats, just couldn't be done. It was one of the toughest things about the book...doing that chopping block. (

Looking over the book some more, personally, I really like the inclusion of lots of lesser-known Shaw movies and great photos from them. Before the Celestial remasters, I had probably seen only about 10-12 Shaw movies--I now have about 200! For a lot of the better-known movies, I feel like there's already been a lot written on them. And as you weren't really doing long, in-depth reviews for all these movies, I like the choices you made for the book.

[bratty]

ditto, everything KyFi just said (although I do think the book should have the production companies listed for each title)

this is the book I've been dying for really. perfect amount of Shaws info for me

[fabhui]

My copy has been shipped so I am looking forward to getting my grubby little mitts on it!

[Winfred]

Are the Cathay swordplays covered in this book?

A friend of mine has films like Escorts Over Tiger Hills, The Invisible Sabre & Travel With A Sword. So it would be nice to read up on them before he send them to me.

[teako170]

Are the Cathay swordplays covered in this book?

A friend of mine has films like Escorts Over Tiger Hills, The Invisible Sabre & Travel With A Sword. So it would be nice to read up on them before he send them to me.

Those 3 titles have release dates of 1968-69 so they're not mentioned. In the back, he has a listing by country for all the films released in the '70s, so Cathay films (examples:To Skin a Tiger, Yellow Killer and Cold Blade) are listed but not reviewed. If you have any specific titles, I (or someone) can take a look for you.

[Jesse Smooth]

I'll eventually get around to buying the book, but are are the films of Jimmy Pascual/Ng See Yuen from 72-74 (with the likes of Chen Sing and Kurata) covered as well as the obscure 'basher' films like Infernal Street as well as early Joseph Kuo films starring Wen Chiang Long. Even Larry Lee films, since those films are rarely covered.