kung fu films

[miss giggles]

I've just watched "Kung Fu Hustle" and loved it. I've never been into Kung Fu films before but that was brilliant. Can anyone reccomend any more Kung Fu films I should see? The more stylised the better!

 

[Ryazan]

Rock N Roll Cop.

To edit: not Kung Fu exactly, but an excellent, dark (if in a casual comedy sense) and violent action moive from Hong Kong. Not usually into this genre, but it sticks in my memory.

 

[Alf Klein]

Any Bruce lee

 

[Shippou-Sensei]

kung fu for the fighting or just for the cool stuff? bruce lee is excelent for hard core fighting but jackie chan is the way to go for funny but with breath taking stunt fighting

 

[Jayshat]

Enter the Dragon with BL is supposedly the best of his. I liked it although it was a bit violent which I suppose was the aim. Good plot and funky tracks.

BL thought he/it was cursed and died during the end of film-making I think.

 

[miss giggles]

kung fu for the fighting or just for the cool stuff? bruce lee is excelent for hard core fighting but jackie chan is the way to go for funny but with breath taking stunt fighting

Ah, sounds like I'm gonna be a Jackie Chan person then.

 

[Shippou-Sensei]

jakie chan i belive to be an excelt kung fu star his stunt work is unbelivable i have ofen had to pause and rewind films just because i was very certian no one would do shuch a insane stunt

 

[Shippou-Sensei]

like this

 

[gawkrodger]

if recent years it's got to be the almighty Ong Bak

 

[miss giggles]

if recent years it's got to be the almighty Ong Bak

Oohh, I got that yesterday! Will be watching it this afternoon. Oohh, I'm really excited now, cheers!

 

[gawkrodger]

first martial arts film based around muay thai for aggeeess. so you know it's going to be good!

 

[Kid_Eternity]

It's an old one but the Prodigal Son was excellent the last time I saw it!

 

[Sunspots]

I've just watched "Kung Fu Hustle" and loved it. I've never been into Kung Fu films before but that was brilliant. Can anyone reccomend any more Kung Fu films I should see? The more stylised the better!

Well nobody else seems to have mentioned it on this thread so far, so I'll nominate Shaolin Soccer (Siu lam juk kau).

Directed by the same guy (Stephen Chow), in the same entertainingly OTT comedy style as Kung Fu Hustle. I love it!

 

[upsidedownwalrus]

kung fu for the fighting or just for the cool stuff? bruce lee is excelent for hard core fighting but jackie chan is the way to go for funny but with breath taking stunt fighting

Agreed. Chan's films from before he went Hollywood are excellent - Police story, Armour of the gods, Wheels on meals, etc...

 

[upsidedownwalrus]

jakie chan i belive to be an excelt kung fu star his stunt work is unbelivable i have ofen had to pause and rewind films just because i was very certian no one would do shuch a insane stunt

Although of course he got injured a few times making them...

 

[stereotypical]

Checkl out Jackie Chans Drunken Master and Young Master, both classic kung fu films.

The best Bruce Lee film is Fist of Fury I reckon.

 

[Shippou-Sensei]

Although of course he got injured a few times making them...

i do love that when he formed his own stunt team for filming police story the very first stunt they filmed (the bus stopping) put all of the people involved into intensive care and he was never able to get insurance after that

 

[Bernie Gunther]

kung fu for the fighting or just for the cool stuff? bruce lee is excelent for hard core fighting but jackie chan is the way to go for funny but with breath taking stunt fighting

Jackie isn't so bad at hard core fighting either. There is a real corker of a fight in "Meals on Wheels" (I think) where his opponent is former world kickboxing champ (and human pit-bull) Benny "The Jet" Urquidez. It goes on for about 5 mins and is quite as hardcore as the Lee-Norris Colosseum fight in "Way of the Dragon."

 

[Psychonaut]

can someone tell me the name of the chinese jackie chan film where he walks up the wall, fights with the bench and drinks opium-water at the end to fight this bloke who only uses one leg? Id love to see that again.

& is that the same one with the really tall bloke in the temple?

 

[Bernie Gunther]

He also does a wicked Bruce Lee impersonation right after he drinks the "magic elixir" in "The Young Master".

The bulging eyeballs, the exaggerated shaking fa-jing etc, do a perfect pisstake of that classic Bruce Lee: "provoked beyond all endurance and about to explode/start ripping eyeballs out" shot that you get, about ten minutes before the end of every Bruce Lee movie.

 

[Bernie Gunther]

can someone tell me the name of the chinese jackie chan film where he walks up the wall, fights with the bench and drinks opium-water at the end to fight this bloke who only uses one leg? Id love to see that again.

& is that the same one with the really tall bloke in the temple?

The first one sounds like "The Young Master" and maybe the bench bit from "Drunken Master". The really tall bloke in the temple sounds like Bruce Lee's posthumous "Game of Death" where he fights (his student) mutant basketball player Abdul Kareem Jabar.

 

[dlx1]

Kiss of the Dragon - Jet Li

er think of name at mo!! gohst somthing it Zombs & kung fu. off to look

 

[Bernie Gunther]

Chinese Ghost Story and Mr Vampire are both hilarious kung-fu comedy horror movies.

I'd also, if you like the Old School stuff, highly recommend "Iron Monkey" and anything else you can find by Chen Kwan Tai or Jimmy Wang Yu - e.g. "One Armed Boxer" and "Master of the Flying Guillotine"

 

[Shippou-Sensei]

Jackie isn't so bad at hard core fighting either. There is a real corker of a fight in "Meals on Wheels" (I think) where his opponent is former world kickboxing champ (and human pit-bull) Benny "The Jet" Urquidez. It goes on for about 5 mins and is quite as hardcore as the Lee-Norris Colosseum fight in "Way of the Dragon."

Wheels on meals i have the dvd of it ... most definatly the most inteanse fight i have seen him in ...

i knew i'd like than film since the point i rewinded it thinking that the rugby tackle way an odd way to dismount a biker and realised he had actully used a flying knee to the face

 

[dlx1]

Found it This is 100% Encounter of the Spooky Kind (1981)

Police Story - Jackie Chan

 

[miss giggles]

Wicked replies everyone! Just finished watching Ong Bak, it was awesome. Can't believe I didn't know these films were so gooooood!!

 

[citydreams]

I loved Kung Fu Hustle

<insert>Dragon Roar</insert>

Thought that Shaolin Soccer was a bit pants though, as is the new Yuen Wo Ping film, "House of Fury". Both have their moments, but they're more films than they are about martial arts.

The Prodigal Son is a classic, as is "Dirty Ho", "Drunken Shaolin", "Drunken Monkey"
and all the old Jackie Chan - Meals on Wheels, Armour of God &c

Welcome to the world of bad dubbing

 

[Bernie Gunther]

Wheels on meals i have the dvd of it ... most definatly the most inteanse fight i have seen him in ...<snip>

I think a lot of that is down to Urquidez. They're pretty much fighting by his rules, and to a certain extent, I'm pretty sure they actually *were* fighting in the sense at least of full-contact play fighting. The kind that leaves you covered in big black lumps even though you're still friends at the end of it.

 

[upsidedownwalrus]

I still haven't seen Kung Fu Hustle... Ridiculous considering I'm living in China. Problem is always finding out which Chinese films are which and which ones have English subtitles...

 

[Bernie Gunther]

By contrast, I've always thought there was a kind of contradiction that flaws the famous Lee - Norris fight in "Way of the Dragon".

In "Wheels on Meals" Chan and Urquidez are having what I'd call a match fight, and they are pretty evenly matched in terms of height, weight, reach and so on. All stuff that really matters quite a bit in a match fight against a switched-on opponent who has his guard up from the start of the bout.

Norris is a match fighter, and he'd pretty obviously (to me at least) wipe the floor with Bruce Lee in a match fight because he's about twice his weight.

Bruce Lee's actual style isn't really about match fighting. It's for dark alleys, and while you can imagine Lee beating Norris, it's not going to be by going toe to toe. More likely it'd be a blitz attack, aiming for the eyes, neck, groin etc. with a deceptive lead-in. The sort of fight that's over, one way or another, in seconds and usually before the loser knows he's in a fight.

His cinematic style in that fight tries to sort of cover up that contradiction, by hyping up the one-inch punch and fa-jing power stuff in a way I find a bit hard to take. It's only the transition from Norris hammering him to Lee getting on top that implies mystic powers though, so I guess it's not too big a deal. Once he gets his breakthrough, does that really nasty trapping thing, leaving Norris working with a broken leg, I think the fight is on much sounder ground and the last couple of minutes, of Norris's last stand, are rather magnificent.

I've always had a bit of trouble suspending disbelief on that one though, even though most people seem to consider it the classic screen fight. For me, the Chan/Urquidez fight feels much more "real" somehow because they'd probably be a fairly reasonable pairing in a no-holds-barred match fight of that kind.