>>186 Kung Fu is a complete bullshit martial art. Makes for cool movies I guess but practicality irl as a martial art? You'd be better off learning boxing.

>>187 The great thing about Kung Fu is that it's potentially highly improvisational and tends to employ the full body in its strikes, which makes it a fantastic set of martial arts for film. If you look at boxing matches, for example, you don't actually tend to get a good feel for the fighters' positioning and how it influences their situation without the slowed down and zoomed in replays they do in televised broadcasts. Boxing does not work great on film. Boxing is practical in the real world, but in the real world you're unlikely to enter a fight and if you do chances are your opponent doesn't know shit about how to fight. Kung Fu would be viable in such a situation and the obscurity of its movements may convince your opponent or opponents that you're a better fighter than you are, which may have a more dramatic intimidation effect than if you demonstrated that you're a good boxer. So yes, its strikes are highly inefficient compared to boxing, but there may be some advantages to it in a real-world situation, especially in the situation of making movies. The best boxing movies are dramas that just happen to involve boxers. The best kung fu movies are kung fu movies that happen to involve some drama.

>>195 Very astute.

>>186 >No surf ninjas The fuck is wrong with you.

>>197 Surf Ninjas is excellent. If you liked that, you should also watch 3 Ninjas.

Fencing is a martial art right? Can we talk about Samurai movies in this thread? I miss the samurai movie thread back on 8chan/film/ Anyone seen any good samurai flicks lately? I'm quite partial to the Lone Wolf and Cub movies. Of course there's always the great Kurosawa films, I've seen Seven Samurai, Yojimbo and Sanjuro, and Ran is my favorite goddamn that ending. About to download The Hidden Fortress, I doubt that it's going to disappoint. For more modern stuff, 13 Assassins is a really fun movie. Gory as fuck, has some goofy comic relief moments but mostly a solid samurai action movie with fucking great fights. Also anyone that's seen Harakiri is my Daimyo.

Exactly how many movies feature a flying guillotine of some type?

If you didn't see this last night then you missed a great movie. Man did that movie shit talk clan Ii too. I hope we can have more samurai and martial arts films on movie night in the future.

>>519 It's 'Iyi'. Fuck the Iyi clan!

>>522 That's the name they used in the film but the Iyi's kamon is identical to the real life Ii clan. Additionally that suit of armor from the beginning and climax of the film is almost identical to Ii Naomasa's famous armor. Nioh players will know it as the Red Demon armor, aka the armor that every fucking revenant drops when they're not dropping Kingo's armor.

>>523 You raise a fair point.

>>524 To rub salt in even farther for the "Iyi" clan, Ii Naomasa was the star general in the battle of Battle of Sekigahara on Ieyasu's side. >Naomasa's finest hour was to come at the Battle of Sekigahara, where his unit outpaced those of other generals such as Fukushima Masanori, drawing the "first blood" of that battle. However, as the fighting was dying down, Naomasa was shot and wounded by a stray bullet during his attempt to prevent Shimazu Yoshihiro's getaway, a wound from which he would never fully recover. The wound also prevented his personal involvement in quelling the last vestiges of the anti-Tokugawa faction in the coming months.[1] According to legend, Naomasa was feared so much by his own men, that when he was critically wounded at Sekigahara, not a single one of them committed ritual seppuku, the act of honor killing to prevent a samurai from falling into enemy hands, out of fear of retaliation. As such, Naomasa was able to regain his composure and escape with his life. So the Ii clan wasn't just some clan that managed to navigate the transition to the Edo era by the skin of their teeth., they were an exemplar of the last days of the Sengoku period and were well placed with the Tokugawa shogunate. To show how far such a clan had fallen only 28 years after the death of their leader really adds another on the movie. In fact given how Naomasa was badly injured but fought through and survived, the final fight in the movie could almost be taken as the clan having to fight the angry spirit of their ancestor because of their rampant dishonor.

What's a good entry point to the genre? I've seen a couple of Bruce Lee films but not much else.

>>531 Depends if you're talking about serious films, chopsocky kung fu films, or American made "inspired by Hong Kong" martial arts movies. >Serious Yojimbo and Sanjuro by Akira Kurosawa are a good start. Also Seven Samurai, really it's hard to go wrong with Kurosawa. Onibaba by Kaneto Shindo although it's less of a martial arts movie and more a movie that takes place in the shadow of the Sengoku period. >Chopsocky action There's a lot to choose from. There's One Armed Boxer and it's sequel Master of the Flying Guillotine. Invincible Armor is pretty wild. Tiger & Crane Fist that you probably won't enjoy as much as Kung Pow! Any of the Godfrey Ho movies. The Little Hero of Shaolin Temple which is sometimes mislabeled as Little Ninja Heroes and has nothing to do with ninja if I recall. >American There's the American Ninja films. The Last Dragon. Big Trouble in Little China, which is pretty much responsible for Mortal Kombat. Speaking of which if by some chance if you still haven't seen it the original Mortal Kombat is a really good American made martial arts movie. Bloodsport. Don't watch any of the Steven Segal movies.

Watched One-Armed Boxer (獨臂拳王) yesterday. Had a Shaft-like musical score and the revenge takes a while to get to, but it has its hilarious moments.

>>186 If you wanna see a fun movie go watch Magic of Spell from 1988. You can find it on jewtube and I am always amazed how much weird shit is in there.

>>710 Im tempted. Anything else you can say about the film?

>>711 It's a Taiwanese kung fu fantasy film, allegedly inspired in parts by the Journey to the West and a sequel to a movie called "Child of Peach", but I never saw that one. First time I stumbled upon it, I though it was some kind of acid trip. You have this Peach boy as a main character and he befriends a humanoid Ginseng, who is hunted by an evil Overlord who needs the Ginseng for his Immortality bath. The main character is supported by three female figthers, one of them has a bird head and a wing instead of arms.

I want to watch some ninja movies this weekend. I don't care if the movies are older. So if anyone can recommend the better ones, please do so. Gimme your top 3. >>708 >it has its hilarious moments That drop kick off the cliff at the end is fucking great.

>>948 Just so you know there is a Ninja Gaiden OVA.

>>949 I had no idea. Well I know what I'm watching tomorrow now. Thanks anon.

>>952 Yeah. I want to watch it after finishing the NES Ninja Gaiden games one day.

>>523 I was looking this movie up on IMDB again the other day and I found that I had somehow missed this nugget when we watched this movie earlier this year >The clan featured in the film, the Ii (sometimes spelled Iyi) have produced one of the most important and controversial figures of modern Japanese history: Ii Naosuke, Chief policymaker of the Tokugawa Shogunate best known for signing the Harris Treaty with the United States, granting access to ports for trade to American merchants and seamen and extraterritoriality to American citizens. So it Iyi clan in the movie actually was the Ii clan.

More about Ii Naosuke >Under Ii Naosuke’s guidance, the Tokugawa shogunate navigated past a particularly difficult conflict over the succession to the ailing and childless Tokugawa Iesada. Ii Naosuke managed to coerce the Tokugawa shogunate to the last brief resurgence of its power and position in Japanese society before the start of the Meiji period. Ii was assassinated in the Sakuradamon incident by a group of 17 Mito and 1 Satsuma samurai on March 24, 1860 >Ii became involved in national politics, rapidly rising to lead a coalition of daimyōs. In 1853 Ii put forward a proposal concerning the Japanese negotiations with U.S. Commodore Matthew C. Perry during Perry's mission to open Japan to the outside world. Realizing that Japan was faced with immediate military danger[3][4] Ii argued that Japan should use their relationship with the Dutch to allow them to buy enough time to develop armed forces, which could resist invasion. Ii recommended that only the port of Nagasaki be opened for trade with foreigners[5] Ii, like Hotta Masayoshi, refused to remain silent while shogunal advisor Abe Masahiro appeased the anti-foreign party.[6] Ii led the fudai daimyōs in their effort to bring about the downfall of Abe Masahiro and replace him with Hotta Masayoshi. This alienated many reformist daimyōs, leading them to strengthen their association with the Imperial court.

I saw the original Flying Guillotine movie the other day. While it's probably a better movie than Master or Fatal, I didn't really enjoy it quite as much as either of those. It's still worth a watch to see how the concept got started and it's a fair "martial arts" movie on its own right.

TOPIC What's your most favorite and least favorite settings and plots for martial arts movies? >most I tend to like period pieces rather than contemporary. My favorite types are the ones where it's rival schools or styles going after each other and also films featuring Shaolin temple shenanigans. Also I like fanciful ones featuring protagonists and antagonists with special gimmicks or weapons. Of course I like Ninja movies too. >least Martial arts movies that take place in modern times. The concept of ancient martial arts and modern settings tend not to jell well with each other. <exceptions Movies where the martial artist are shown to be expressly supernatural by pass most of the problems. So do modern MA films about underground fighting tournaments. Ninja movies also continue to work well, because an AR-15 won't help you if you get shot with a poison dart in the back of your neck from the shadows.

I finally, after several failed attempts, watched Lady Snowblood 2. It's an OK movie but it's not nearly a good as the first. I really wish that if they were going to make a sequel then they would have gone with the ending of the first that halfway sorta implied that Yuki had turned into a yurei/youkai.

I've been trying to navigate my way through the Bronze/Gold Men/Women films recentyl. I guess you would call it a sequence or mini genera or something like that since they're not all in the same continuity nor all made by the same people. The movies themselves are standard martial arts fare other than the really striking centerpiece of the Bronzemen. The first two movies are probably the best of all of them but I've not seen all the movies to confirm. The "sequel" is probably better than the original simply due to having more scenes of the Bronzemen in it.

https://invidious.snopyta.org/watch?v=9NjdAnLV1us&t=138 'Nough said. Movie's mediocre in general by the way. I would not recommend it.

Here's some info about Cambodian actress Dy Saveth, the star of Snake Girl and Snake Girl Drops In as well as many other movies. She's a star in Cambodia and is considered to be something of a living library of Cambodian film making. She barely made it out, of Cambodia with the director and their children before the Khmer Rouge purged everyone. Many of the movies she starred in were destroyed and the actors and actresses killed. https://thebloodypitofhorror.blogspot.com/2020/01/teeda-sok-puos-1974.html https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dy_Saveth https://www.thaiworldview.com/tv/thaihk5.htm I'm on the lookout for some of these movies but even the ones that still exists are kind of hard to find.

Great flying guillotine articles: http://www.coolasscinema.com/2020/06/the-flying-guillotines-history-of-shaw_8.html http://www.coolasscinema.com/2020/06/the-flying-guillotines-history-of-shaw_14.html Long but interesting read.

I'd like to ask, what are the best Kung Fu / Martial Arts movies that you know of? Also what are the best Jackie Chan, Jet Li and Bruce Lee movies?

>>1931 >what are the best Kung Fu / Martial Arts movies that you know of? That's a really broad question and a little hard to answer. My personal ones by region: >HK/Taiwan One Armed Boxer & Master of the Flying Guillotine, Deadly Silver Spear, the One Armed Swordsman movies (in fact I've yet to find anything starring Jimmy Wang Yu that I dislike), Invincible Armor, Eagles Claw, Shaolin Invincible Sticks, Flying Guillotine, Born Invincible, The two original Bronzemen movies for the Bronzemen sections of those movies, Shaolin Red Master, Secret Shaolin Kung Fu. That's probably a good start. I could probably come up with some more. >Western Blood Sport, Big Trouble in Little China, Mortal Kombat (90s version), the "Ninja Trilogy are not "good" films but they're really fun, Double Dragon is the Jojolion of western martial arts movies (lots of buildup but nothing happens by the end) but I'm fond of it, The Last Dragon >Nip Basically any of the serious samurai movies by Kurosawa (such as Seven Samurai, Rashomon, Yojimbo, Sanjuro, Ran, Kagemusha, Throne of Blood) or similar films by other directors (Harakiri, Onibaba, the 2 Lady Snowblood movies, the Zatoichi movies, Samurai Rebellion, etc.) Probably not exactly what you're asking about. >Jackie Chan I'm really not much of a fan of Jackie Chan, mostly because his martial arts movies all seem to share my least favorite trope of the "comedy introduction" where the protagonist spends the first 25-30 minutes acting like a fucktard before the evil white haired guy comes out and kills everyone and he's forced to get serious. Chans best movies are from his Police Story era. I'd say start with those. >Jet Li In all honesty I've not had the opportunity to see a Jet Li movie all the way through so I can't comment. The ones I have seen are the post Hollywood ones too so I don't have a complete picture anyway. I think both of us should check out his Hong Kong era films. >Bruce Lee Just watch them all. His career was cut very short by his death. So much so that the craving for more Bruce Lee lead to an entire sub genera of Brucesploitation movies.