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

[GOLDEN DRAGON YIN-YANG]

Congratulations on your new book DrCraig.

Do you all remember one of the earliest books on kung fu cinema called:

KUNG FU: CINEMA OF VENGEANCE by Verina Glaessner, Bounty Books 1974

Not sure of the gender of the author.

It is quite a small book. And one of the first about martial arts cinema, maybe someone could correct me on this.

I still have a copy, which I cut out a lot of the pics for a demo of my invention I would give back in the 90's.

A classic for sure.

GD Y-Y

[Monk Sante]

Congratulations on your new book DrCraig.

Do you all remember one of the earliest books on kung fu cinema called:

KUNG FU: CINEMA OF VENGEANCE by Verina Glaessner

Not sure of the gender of the author.

It is quite a small book. And one of the first about martial arts cinema, maybe someone could correct me on this.

I still have a copy, which I cut out a lot of the pics for a demo of my invention I would give back in the 90's.

A classic for sure.

GD Y-Y

I have a hard cover copy of this book. Lots of pics of Shaw Bros and Golden Harvest films. Also, a chapter dedicated to Bruce lee. A must have!

For those looking for a copy, there are several up for bid on Ebay.

http://books.shop.ebay.com/Books-/267/i.html?_nkw=CINEMA+OF+VENGEANCE&_catref=1&_dmpt=Art_Posters&_fln=1&_ipg=&_trksid=p3286.c0.m282

[KyFi]

Thanks for posting that awesome interview, teako! (and thank's for doing it, Dr. Craig).

As I always say about Chen Kuan Tai, aside from being a real-life fighter and one of Shaw's best on-screen fighters, I would also argue that he was a really natural actor with great range. Especially for a young, inexperienced actor, he does such completely different roles in Blood Brothers, where he's the coarse, dim-witted lout who can't even figure out his wife is having an affair, as opposed to his character in Boxer from Shantung, where's he's keenly subtle and observent with a sharp intelligence about everything going on around him. Nice to read about his background.

[thelastweaponmaster]

Dr. Craig;

Thanks for providing some background on the difficulty of obtaining photos to illustrate your fine book. You would think the right holders of photos for Golden Harvest or the other independent companies would want pictures of their films in the book so as to promote their films and improve the chances of future dvd sales, etc; as opposed to thinking of a short term immediate cash grab. I was thinking Bey Logan might have been able to help you on this as he seems to be well connected with the ex-Golden Harvest boys such as Jackie, Sammo and their prior management.

In reading your book some more, I thought another thing that the book could have included was some kind of comments or ranking of each film to indicate its quality/merit in relation to one another. At present, in reading about each film, you can't tell which film is regarded as a classic versus any other film that you have listed. I know that any ranking would be subjective but at least on a ten point scale, a film ranked as an eight should be substantially better than a film rated as a four. It would at least stimulate further discussion of each film's merit. Since you provide the film's length as well as the total length of the film's fight scenes, you could have had two scores. One for the overall merit of the film and then another for the quality of the martial arts scenes. Well, a suggestion for next time.

That was a great interview of Chen Kuan-tai. Dr Craig, maybe you can publish a book with all of the interviews you have done of people from the Hong Kong movie industry or roll it all together into another history of the genre.

As for the book "Kung Fu: Cinema of Vengeance" I have that book also and it is a great first book about the genre. It had a nice section with examples of HK movie poster art in full color. I had a second copy of the book which I was able to trade a number of years ago for original Shaw Movie Posters of "Legendary Weapons of China, King Boxer and The Five Shaolin Masters."

[Iron Boat]

Dr. Craig, my mother got your book today, Amazon took forever, but she is excited, she's only flipped through it but did mention there was a lot of pictures of David Chaing, which is cool cause she's a fan. I did relay the story about how legal issues dictated which pictures you used. So Im looking to read it ASAP but thanks you made this birthday gift easy.

[TripMasterMunky]

I noticed someone earlier in the thread stated this was a great companion piece with Hong Kong Action Cinema by Bey Logan, 1995.

So I am taking that advice and I am currently reading through that first, then I will order Ultimate Guide right afte.

Is there any other absolutely must-read books about classic martial art films I should check out? Or are these 2 books basically the complete essentials?

[Kwok Choi]

"The Ultimate Guide To Martial Art Movies Of The 70s - 500+ films loaded with action,weapons and warriors" is a very worthy effort by Dr Craig D Reid.The Preface tIll the introduction page alone is worth the money.This section also gives us valuable information about Dr Craig that would make a fascinating documentary.This part of the book further handles and addresses any critique or short comings that might be raised in general because a book this heavy on text is bound to have printing errors so I hope they can be forgiven when noticed.

Due to the points noted above I can now understand why the majority of the movies mentioned are from the Celestial catalogue and this for me is not a bad thing as long as there are potential volumes to be published in future.However it will be better in future to write about most of the films listed in the index which might help good copies to surface on the market and possibly give us more information on the Shaw Brothers competition like Cathay,Golden Harvest,First Films,Goldig,Eternal,Seasonal etc etc.plus some of the films listed here http://kungfucinema.com/forums/showthread.php?t=4200&highlight=bashers&page=2

I hope this book becomes a best seller so future volumes can be guaranteed which hopefully will make copyright owners of films from independent companies contribute more and also for stuff in the public domain to be shared not forgetting personal collection of material by dedicated die hard fans.

The only personal gripe I have with this book is the space given to Indian Movies ( that could have been attributed to greater known fare ) which in my view cannot be termed as martial art films and the fact that Indian Mega Star Amitabh Bachchan seems to be promoted as a martial arts hero.Kalaripayattu seen here

practised in India is not Amitabh's way of fighting in his movies and neither is this Indian martial arts prominently featured in the Indian movies mentioned in the book and listed at the index.

Agreed Zeenat Aman's character in " Don " studies Judo & Karate and the overall end fight scene is classic action for 70's Indian films; though the Indian films mentioned in this book are good films for what they are, and as this book is first and foremost about martial arts,I would therefore not recommend these films for their martial arts content.

This issue aside Dr Craig's book is a highly commendable effort that must not be ignored by fans of this genre and before I forget I'll like to say that oh yeah those tidbits really made my day.

[Sheng]

My copy arrived yesterday and I'm really thrilled by having just read the introduction. This is obviously a labour of love and should sit on every Kung Fu fan's coffee table! Omissions? 'Course there are, lots. (I for one would have prefered to see more GH and independant HK & Taiwan films covered, but hey, that's beside the point here, everybody would have come up with a different list. Doesn't take anything away from the QUALITY of this tome!)

Bottom line is I love the approach Reid takes here and am well pleased with his erudite but never too academic writing style. What was most striking from the handfull of reviews I read so far was his discussion of fighting techniques as well as his obvious concern to impart a historical & philosophical grounding for his subject matter. If one wants to get deeper into the latter I'd also recommend to invest in Meir Shahar's peerless "The Shaolin Monastery - History, Religion, and the Chinese Martial Arts". Makes a great companion piece to Reid's Fu fan bible.

Oh, and the part where Reid talks about becoming an English dubber of Kung Fu movies in Taiwan made me crack up. Kinda confirmed how and under which circumstances all these hilariously wacky assembly line dubs were coughed up back then - two per day, 30 bucks per flick, 60 movies per month! These brothers were running their mouths, hah? Bloodclaat!!

[Buxbaum]

The book finally arrived yesterday. I love the introduction and the stuff said about dubbing and English film titles. Wonder why the number 18 is used so much.

I have seen about 500 martial arts movies from the 70s mostly Japanese/HK/TW but I am missing out completely on Turkish, Indian and Indonesian movies.

Any recommendations on movies from those countries? I really like the Turkish Italo Western styled movies so the MA films should be fun to watch.

Oh and it was interesting to see which movies qualify as MA movies and which not.

Especially the James Bond ones and Peter Seller ones. In the Pink Panther series it is Kato who is a MA Artist ?

I don't know if Dr. Craig Reid misses some unknown movies but could always be.

Buy the book I want a sequel and one about the 80s.

[Kwok Choi]

I have seen about 500 martial arts movies from the 70s mostly Japanese/HK/TW but I am missing out completely on Turkish, Indian and Indonesian movies.

Any recommendations on movies from those countries? I really like the Turkish Italo Western styled movies so the MA films should be fun to watch.

For Turkish Martial arts look for titles starring Cuneyt Arkin (Cuneyt is pronounced "Junaid " in Turkish phonetics ) aka Steve Arkin / George Arkin / Joseph Arkin.

For Indian Movies get Veeru Ustaad inspired by Enter The Dragon and Rani Aur Jaani about two sisters separated as children who later found themselves on the opposite side of the law.Bear in mind that the fight scenes in these movies are badly dated : example http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=urOWzwimMFc

[Buxbaum]

The Indian film looks funny as hell.

Cuneyt Arkin did around 270 movies according to imdb?

[Kwok Choi]

The Indian film looks funny as hell.

Cuneyt Arkin did around 270 movies according to imdb?

Yeah see what I mean regarding the Indian fights ? and yes that amount of movies by Junaid hits the mark and I believe there are even more unlisted one but his films were of all genres including Martial Arts.

[Omni Dragon]

I noticed someone earlier in the thread stated this was a great companion piece with Hong Kong Action Cinema by Bey Logan, 1995.

So I am taking that advice and I am currently reading through that first, then I will order Ultimate Guide right afte.

Is there any other absolutely must-read books about classic martial art films I should check out? Or are these 2 books basically the complete essentials?

There will be another must have book but for now it's a secret.

[Buxbaum]

For other books I can recommend Kung Fu Cult Masters: From Bruce Lee to "Crouching Tiger" it is a nice read and gives a good overview over the whole genre.

[RogueWarrior]

The Ultimate Guide to Martial Arts Movies of the 1970s: 500+ Films Loaded with Action, Weapons & Warriors (Paperback)

Just saw this in a bookstore in JapanTown in San Francisco. Only having a moment I flipped thru it and noticed it was mainly Shaw Brothers films.

Does anyone here have it and if so, any comments to share? Looked very interesting.

http://forum.hkcinemagic.com/index.php?showtopic=10047

Pics and good comments on it here.

[RogueWarrior]

Duh, there was a thread about this. Thanks!!!

ORDERED!!!

[QueMuchita]

Sorry if this has already been asked or mentioned, I looked through the thread but didn't see anything about it. I want to purchase this book but I keep seeing different information on different sites regarding the size of the book and such. Some stores list it as 200pg, some at 350pg, some at 400pg and some at 600pg. What is the difference in these books or is it just wrong information posted?

[venomsfreak]

I think it's just wrong information. I see Amazon says it's 350 pages, that's incorrect. I have this book and it's 287 pages.

[QueMuchita]

Is everybody else's copy 287pg as well?

[Pai Mei]

Yep, mine has 287 pages.

[Shaolivevil]

My question to the illustrious Dr. Craig Reid is will there be a volume 2 for this book and if so, when?

[Kwok Choi]

My question to the illustrious Dr. Craig Reid is will there be a volume 2 for this book and if so, when?

I think Dr Craig mentioned that this depends on how well volume one sells.

[inframan]

I'd like to see Vol one of MA movies of the 80's or even the 60's

[Fazeo]

My question to the illustrious Dr. Craig Reid is will there be a volume 2 for this book and if so, when?

I hope he writes a Volume 2 as well, I'd buy it.

[waywardsage]

I stumbled across my copy at Barnes and Noble and almost passed out! I had to have it!

Here's hopping for a 60's vol. 2!

Some of the best Samurai films of all time were produced in the 60's!