Martial Arts Movies

What’s up, Ernie? You’ve got mad martial arts skills and talent. When’re you gonna make something good?

Pretty much everything you made is full of FAIL.

You haven’t made the best business decisions as far as which film projects to involve yourself in.

Then again, you worship L. Ron Hubbard, so that can sort of speak volumes about choices we make in life.

You are incredibly gifted. I know growing up as an Asian American child star and actor in the 80′s hasn’t been easy for you.

We loved you in The Last Dragon, your TV show, Sidekicks, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

It all went downhill when Surf Ninja’s came about. Even though today, Surf Ninjas has great camp value, unfortunately, we’re laughing at the film as a joke.

I don’t know you personally, obviously, but do you have a big ego? Do you find it getting in the way of making good business decisions? Just wondering, because you are filled with talent, skill, experience, and connections, and yet somehow, it’s not working out.

Do a superhero or sci-fi type thing. Go to Hong Kong or get with Tony Jaa and play the bad guy or something.

Anyways, so there’s my rant. Ernie Reyes Jr. – lost potential. An example that talent, skill, experience, and connections (and being of Asian decent) doesn’t guarantee success as a martial arts movie star.

I’m sorry to say all this, because I am a big fan, and idolized him growing up. I think he tends to live in the past, and that things work today the way they did back then. Who knows. Good luck Ernie, I hope you do something cool one day and get your dues.

Kung Faux is brilliant. It’s a show that takes old school Kung Fu movies, cuts them up and edits them video game style, dubbed with Hip Hop artists voices in “hip  hop slang”, with hilarious Hip Hop slang titling here and there, and electrifying urban hip  hop music and sound effects. The stories are totally their own creations, and is fast paced and just downright good fun.

Unfortunately, in its 3rd season, it started getting tired. It was a lot of the same old, and was losing its edge a little bit. Personally, I think the concept could have kept going, they just needed to choose better films, and get more creative with the comedy.

Ever since the hip hop group Wu Tang Clan came around, it solidified the marriage of old school Kung Fu movies and hip hop. Martial arts and martial arts movies and urban culture has a relationship that dates back to the 60′s and 70′s, so it’s not too surprising that it would find its way into hip  hop.

Kung Faux is what I would consider one of the ultimate creative expression of the two worlds. Check out an episode for yourself:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6xhIBbXnE8

Wow, holy crap. Some of the best martial arts choreography I’ve seen in the Kung Fu movies in a looooooooooooooooooooooooong time!!!!

After watching Tony Jaa, especially in the fight scene in The Protector where he breaks all those guys’ bones, Hong Kong Kung Fu action started looking really lame in comparison. Too much of the same ‘ol, same ‘ol.

But in The Tai Chi Master, the choreography was outta sight! It made me love Chinese martial arts choreography again! Combat concepts from pushing and sticking hands, joint & body locking, lock reversals, legitimate throwing and takedown techniques, absorbing energy from attacks & redirecting – this stuff added in with the typical punches and kicks took it to a new level that made me a fan.

This had way more “movie Tai Chi applications” than did Jet Li’s Tai Chi Master and Jacky Wu’s Tai Chi 2. This was non-stop action.

I love the nod to Game of Death where he had to fight his way up floors, each floor with a different style fighter:
Level 1 – The Korean Kicker
Level 2 – The Mongolian Wrestler
Level 3 – The Pole Fighter
Level 4 – The Hard Style Qigong Master
Level 5 – The Japanese Ninja
Level 6 – The Drunken Boxer
Level 7 – The Baguazhang Master

That was incredible. Plenty of fight scenes, just like in a Tony Jaa movie where you’re not bogged down too much with story stuff.

Speaking of story stuff, this was based on some actual historical events on the development of Yang Style Tai Chi. Yang Lu Chan was eventually accepted as a student in the Chen Village to learn Chen Style Tai Chi, and created his own style out of it, named after himself.

I will be very happy if more Hong Kong films have choreography like this and like what you see in Ip Man. The only unfortunate thing is that films like Ip Man and The Tai Chi Master is very style dependent (Ip Man, of course, being Wing Chun).

Can we expect to see choreography like this in a HK buddy cop comedy-martial arts movie? Hmm. I guess time will tell.

Two Thumbs Up for The Tai Chi Master with Jacky Wu. See it!!

Wow, I usually have a high threshold of pain tolerance for watching cheesy and dumb Kung-Fu movies during the weekend, but I don’t have much of a tolerance during the week. I had to click off two deliciously bad Kung Fu movies from ampopfilm’s youtube channel. One was The Spirits of Bruce Lee, and the other was Kung Fu Arts.

I….just…I just couldn’t. Not tonight….I know, I know. Maybe I’m just not in the right mindframe. I’m currently watching “The Tai Chi Master” starring Jackie Wu (not the Jet Li film). Watching this right now, this looks like a television show – it doesn’t have that special film type filter, it’s too, clean-looking.

It’s another costume drama thing. This looks a lot like Jackie Wu’s other Tai Chi film called Tai Chi 2. It’s got the same stars. Hmm. What’s going on here? I may have to research this a little as I multitask while watching it (ie, half watching it lol).

Actually it is engaging me right now. That’s a good sign. That’s why I like multitasking while watching these films. If it can get me to occasionally stop multitasking and pay attention for a little bit, that means there is some worth to the film!

Hmm, there are lots of similarities to Tai Chi 2, except it seems like there’s more fighting and less love story…I like, I like.

Hmm, I have to say, this tv broadcast quality of high definition kind of takes away from the fight scenes, actually. You can tell the people aren’t hitting hard, and takes away from some of the “epic-ness” of the battles.

Okay, I’m engaged. I’ll report back. But I can say that the fact that it has gotten my attention is a good sign.

I was going to wait until the end of Bruce Lee in New Guinea to review it, but I just can’t wait. There’s still 30 minutes left.

This movie sucks. Definitely not one of Bruce Li’s better films. My favorite Bruce Li film is Dynamo.

So the only thing this movie has going for itself is the fact that it is supposed to take place in New Guinea with this exotic Kung Fu stuff.

But, none of that stuff really delivers. The martial arts action was very slow paced, and the execution of the techniques seemed very much without intent…or “emotional content” as Bruce Lee would say.

Quite a few Bruce Li films have him traveling on a journey somewhere to find something. The concepts are kind of cool. But the infrastructure just doesn’t hold them. I’d love to see in my lifetime, a modern remake of these Bruce Li films, with modern film writing, set design, costuming, choreography, and editing sensibilities.

Or condense each film remake into 45 minutes, and make it into a 1 or 2 season TV series. That would be amazing.

But anyways, with this flick, it was wild, they used the same music that was used in Yuen Woo Ping’s Invincible Armour, right before something wicked was about to happen.

The only entertaining part was towards the end, where we got to see some of that Bruce Lee flair from Bruce Li. But it sucks that I had to wait an hour and 20 minutes for it. Good thing I was multitasking. Oh, there’s a fight between Bruce Li and Bolo – not a great one, but a better one than Bruce Le vs. Bolo in Bruce Lee The Superhero, where it was basically them having a muscle flexing contest!

Here’s another critique – in this film they were using the classic martial arts story line of, this bad guy knowing a crazy martial art style/technique, and so the hero has to train to overcome it, but they really fall short of this, showing what exactly he trained to beat the technique. That is very prevalent in the Shaw Brothers films, where many a time it was all about beating a particular unorthodox style, and the process it takes to be able to.

Best line from this movie by far, “Princess, you’re a slut!”

As a Hong Kong action cinema enthusiast in the 1990′s, I amassed a bit of a collection of publications that review Hong Kong action cinema.

If I am feeling very bored and SEO hungry, I may repost some of the articles and reviews from it, of course, giving full credit to the reviewers. Some of them are just brilliant and fantastic, and not available for anyone to see who doesn’t have the pleasure of owning one of these extremely rare publications.

Some of these publications include:

Hong Kong Cinema Connection
Oriental Cinema
She
Eastern Heroes
Asian Cult Cult Cinema

Of course there’s Bey Logan’s Hong Kong Action Cinema book, but that’s such a mainstream publication, that I won’t bother much with citing from that book.

I’m not an expert on these films by any stretch of the imagination, I’m simply a fan, who is a Kung-Fu teacher/practitioner/school owner. One time, a cool independent video store in my hometown of Champaign, IL asked me to list 23 of my favorite Kung Fu movies, because in the independent arts community, I was kind of seen as the guy who taught Kung-Fu and knew something about Kung Fu movies. Here’s a link to that:

http://www.rentertainment.com/PP-best.asp#9

Bear in mind, this was 1997.

So yeah. There are probably awesome places to go for awesome reviews and such of Martial Arts movies, but I have no idea where that would be. So I’ll have this one, as I tend to give anything I start a little bit of a personality, rather than just your standard stuff.

I’ve heard of this flick before, but I have never seen it. I’m going to watch it right now on the AmPopFilms youtube channel, which is just brilliant!

I love the description:
A boxer is exposed to strange rituals,medieval magic and a mysterious girl in New Guinea.

Who WOULDN’T want to see such delicious B movie magik!! It stars Bruce Li (aka Ho Tsung Dao) and Chen Hsing, who played his mentor in one of my favorite Bruce Li films, called “Bruce Lee, the Invincible”.

I’ll come back later to report on it. It looks freakin amazing.