Kung Fu Films

[midboss]

To kick off the off topic section, it's probably a good place to start with Kung Fu movies. Even though we haven't properly been into them for very long, they've rapidly become a mega-hobby for myself and vanpeebles.

We've seen a few over the years, mostly the Bruce Lee classics and stuff like Drunken Master and Snake In the Eagle's Shadow, but a couple of years ago watching a few obscurities kicked off a proper interest. We watched Duel of the Seven Tigers, and loved the long intro featuring biographies of all of the stars. The story was typically one dimensional and lowbrow, but that's missing the point. The action was SO entertaining! Then we watched North Shaolin vs South Shaolin, starring Casanova Wong. Who was this guy? Why had we never heard of him? He's an amazing kicker! We were desperate to find out more about these films and stars.

So we started to buy a few cheapies of amazon, to see what else was out there. Shortly afterwards we started watching Shaws, and even the lowest of the low Godfrey Ho efforts. We usually find that there's something to enjoy even in the most banal, terriible film. It could be a spectacular action scene. Or even a standard one. Either way, we get some enjoyment out of it! If the story, acting and dubbing are excruciatingly dull to watch, we ride out the storm until we reach the fights. If the story et al are good, and the fights are too, then we're in our element!

I reckon the pair of us have probably only seen about 100 of the films. I've got about 500, maybe 600, films waiting to watch. We've seen so many rares and obscurities that many of the classics are still waiting to be watched. Good times!

[vanpeebles]

http://www.youtube.com/v/bHTMlYE5Ffw

Quality action there, I'd love a chair like that for my QL work!

[midboss]

I doubt you'd get it in your room

Mike Wong is a quality white-haired villian, and the lass is a hottie. It's all good.

[Mr_Navigator]

My favourite Kung Fu film of all time that is Not Bruce Lee, is called King Boxer aka Five fingers of Death in the US (I believe), the main character has a series of escapades learning the special technique (glowing palms - the iron fist technique) along the way accompanied by the theme tune from 'Ironside' a detective in a wheelchair played by Raymond Burr.

I had stop laughing at the absurdity of it when I saw it at the pictures way back in the early 70's. Its a cracking film besides that though and took me absolutely years to get hold of a DVD copy. King Boxer was the first and best of the Kung fu films as it does have a story and a reason for all the fight scenes, later the rush of carbon copies thought that all the audience needed was the fight scenes, not so.

This first clip shows one of the earliest fights in the film, a strong man who takes on all comers, here we see two more characters in the film, baldy hairy guy with a lampshade hat and the local tough guy yob Chinese Elvis, these are my names for them as the whole thing was dubbed anyway. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNJOS4Gw ... re=related

If do a little more searching you will find all chapters of this film, cant say its right though, however, there is a small five minute clip on Youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eauaBE9_o_4 of the final fight scene where you get two important things about this film, the first is the invention of flying through the air sound of shaking coats (I have no other way of explaining it) and the second is that walls in the far east are not made very well

[midboss]

Never actually seen King Boxer, shamefully. It's one of those mega-classics that you know you'll get round to watching, but it seems to take an age to actually do so. Lo Lieh is a great MA film star, so it's got WIN stamped all over it already.

Talking of Shaw Brothers, I watched Crippled Avengers the other day, a five Venoms film. It just oozed quality, with some terrific performances by some very agile and skilled stars. It's made its way into my top ten

[Mr_Navigator]

Managed to catch a glimpse of Crippled Avengers, I have to say that I liked it a lot, now on the look out for the full DVD

[midboss]

Plenty of films watched recently. Hapkido with Sammo Hung, Angela Mao and Carter Wong, which is a highly enjoyable Fist of Fury ripoff; The Odd Couple with Sammo Hung and Lau Kar Wing which features some amazing weapon fighting; Iron Fisted Monk, another Sammo film; Wu Tang Vs Ninja with Jack Long; Sleeping Fist with Drunken Master Simon Yuen; The Brave Archer, a Shaw Brothers wuxia; and Eight Diagram Cudgel Fighter. A nice mix of weapons, bashers, shapes and zaniness.

[midboss]

Here's a little blog about some of the more interesting/rare martial arts films/topics I've encountered recently:

http://thechivalrousinn.blogspot.com/

Did you ever manage to see Crippled Avengers, Mr Navigator?

[Mr_Navigator]

Yes, however I have to say the final lengthy (as most KF films were) fight scene has a ballet or music dance feel to it

[midboss]

Oh, most definitely - especially the hoops/jumping exchange. A lot of fans think that this scene takes the ostentatious, elaborate movements too far away from proper fighting. They're probably right - it's far too fancy. But, as a showcase of timing and acrobatics, it's a great scene, and the rest of the film has enough proper fights to make up for it imo!