Classic Martial-Arts Cinema: Everybody really WAS kung fu fighting.

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HUNDU THE BEAST GOD: Sep 14, 2007; everything is yours

Sprecherscrow posted:

I think the notion of the 36th chamber vs. the 1st chamber, i.e. the political vs. the spiritual, has intellectually shaped the way I view so many things after I watched that movie. I contemplate whether or not San Te would be better off abandoning the outside world and trying to master the 1st chamber. Communal obligation vs. self improvement. It has perhaps never been expressed better.

Can you elaborate on this? What an enigmatic response.

# ¿ Jul 20, 2013 18:34

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# ¿ May 2, 2024 22:45

HUNDU THE BEAST GOD: Sep 14, 2007; everything is yours

Sprecherscrow posted:

I'll try. San Te's purpose in creating the 36th chamber is to teach Shaolin Kung Fu to people outside the monastery for the explicit purpose of resisting the Manchu government. When he expresses his intent to create this chamber, he had just been offered to teach his choice of chambers 35-2 with mention being made that the 1st chamber being the only one he hasn't mastered. The 1st chamber is for meditation and spiritual enlightenment. The film doesn't really take a stance as to which is the superior pursuit, but it does present them as incompatible. San Te's choice is motivated primarily by a grudge he has held for years, by anger. A monk who has successfully mastered the 1st chamber has let go of his anger. It is no longer a motivator and certainly not the primary one.

When presented with the current political reality which I find so frustrating and terrifying, do I attempt to change it or find a healthier way to exist inside of it? Do I head for the 36th chamber or the 1st? If I head for the 36th, is that a futile struggle which will make me unsatisfied and miserable while failing to accomplish what I set out to do? If I head for the 1st, am I being selfish in failing to even try to help other people? Is it a retreat into Solipsism? The film is probably wrong to present these as wholly incompatible, you can try to do both, though I feel that one does undermine the other. I can't help but get angry thinking about politics. I can't help but get impatient trying to meditate.

Has this helped? This movie connected with me emotionally in a way I find difficult to express in words.

That has helped a lot, that's one of the most succinct things I've read here in a while. I feel that typically this would be expressed as if it were a generic take on "modernity" but I think your personal context is much more interesting while not being unrelatable.

# ¿ Jul 21, 2013 14:00

HUNDU THE BEAST GOD: Sep 14, 2007; everything is yours

Drunkboxer posted:

edit: I guess the sequel to Drunken Master is too modern for the theme of this thread? The fight choreography in that is untouchable in my opinion.

A world in which Drunken Master 2 "doesn't count" is not a world I want to live in.

# ¿ Jul 22, 2013 06:49

HUNDU THE BEAST GOD: Sep 14, 2007; everything is yours

What's that one where they're transporting taels of silver across famine stricken land, Masked Avengers? That's got some nasty anti-government stuff in it from what I recall.

# ¿ Sep 1, 2013 22:26

HUNDU THE BEAST GOD: Sep 14, 2007; everything is yours

Who Am I is so loving good. When it came out it was so funny just to make fun of Jackie saying "Who Am I??!?!" but in retrospect it's clearly the best late 90's Jackie Chan movie.

# ¿ Jan 14, 2014 17:48

HUNDU THE BEAST GOD: Sep 14, 2007; everything is yours

teagone posted:

Just want to quote this, because it's so goddamn true. The 2v1 rooftop fight scene is one my favorites ever.

[edit]

This one:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJ5oaBWYzPk

I love how Harold Lloyd it gets in the middle.

Daryl Surat posted:

I don't know if I could call that a GOOD movie, but it's definitely something bizarre. One of the most dangerous of men (and I don't just say this because of his penchant for decorating his place with vintage James Bond movie furnishings), Keith Allison over at Teleport City, did fascinating writeups of both Bastard Swordsman and its sequel Return of the Bastard Swordsman which effectively cover the rise and fall of Shaw Brothers. In true Keith Allison fashion, he compares their path to Hammer Studios AND Elvis.

This thread, man. Phenomenal stuff.

# ¿ Mar 21, 2014 18:46

HUNDU THE BEAST GOD: Sep 14, 2007; everything is yours

There's always rapes played for chuckles too which I'll never get the stomach for.

# ¿ Apr 23, 2014 00:31

HUNDU THE BEAST GOD: Sep 14, 2007; everything is yours

We can't talk about Sammo, Yuen and Jackie being raised by opera school without talking about the great film Painted Faces, which is a dramatization of their school days with Sammo playing the headmaster.

# ¿ May 1, 2014 15:21

HUNDU THE BEAST GOD: Sep 14, 2007; everything is yours

Man, being a LaserDisc collector seems so cool to me for some reason.

# ¿ May 1, 2014 15:36

HUNDU THE BEAST GOD: Sep 14, 2007; everything is yours

Daryl Surat posted:

That was an interesting time for Asian entertainment, since it coincided nicely with another interest of mine: professional wrestling. That late-70s to mid-90s period was the apex of Japanese women's pro wrestling as well. I have overlapping hypotheses as to why both martial arts cinema and lady's wrestling declined around the same time, but they're mostly just conjecture. Anyway, those are a lot of good movies I just recommended. Pick one or two and check them out.

Go on...

# ¿ May 6, 2014 18:07

HUNDU THE BEAST GOD: Sep 14, 2007; everything is yours

Daryl Surat posted:

As for my similarity conjecture...I don't have everything properly codified since I'm uh, making these posts from work. For instance, if you wanted to go back further from the 1980s you could certainly see King Hu's films starring Cheng Pei Pei (1966's Come Drink With Me being the most famous example, per MechaFunkGodzilla), but I don't really think of those as "martial arts" films and the dude only made a few movies at Shaw Brothers (see above). Cheng Pei Pei never really did much of note on the US side, but people might know her for playing Jade Fox in Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon. If you check out that Wing Chun movie, she's the Buddhist nun instructor lady. She's still making movies when she's not teaching ballet in Los Angeles.

But like so many things the gist of the similarities boils down to "supply and demand" though interpretation of each term in this case is a little different from the norm. On the wrestling side of things, you had some acts that made it so big that they crossed over into "mainstream pop culture," with the result being that you had hundreds upon hundreds of people auditioning for the opportunity just to train. Of those hundreds, they'd accept single digit numbers for the training. Of those in the training, only single digits would pass. Of those who passed, only single digit numbers would become top stars...and they would be the greatest at their craft history had ever seen. An incredibly cruel system, but it worked provided you had the "supply" of aspiring talent. To use goonier language, it was like becoming a Warhammer 40K Space Marine only using teenage girls.

In less specific terms: "demand" for the product is what generates the "supply." If you create entertainment that presents a given demographic in positions of power AND then proceed to present it to said demographic as your primary target audience, then several will conclude "that could be me up there!" The closest equivalent in the modern age is the various talent competition shows: the ones where they have the audition episodes or the dark horse contestant that blows everybody away with their talent, the winners of whom then go on to momentary bouts of fame and fortune. "Momentary" is important, since you have to make room for the next wave of stars in order to keep the dream alive, and the applications coming in. There's only one "top." What was the martial arts movie equivalent to this? Peking Opera, the same thing where Jackie Chan saw the kids doing the flips at and decided "that's what I want to do!" Traditional Chinese theater did allow women to train, which is how you got female martial arts stars like Angela Mao. (Per what I noted before, Shaw Brothers wouldn't really permit her to break out as a star, so Mao got famous through Golden Harvest. She famously had a real small part as Bruce Lee's sister in Enter the Dragon. They paid her $100.)

So what causes these movies/wrestling/TV shows to catch on is that it strikes a chord among a generation of younger people. Thing is, when that group of people being targeted is predominantly female, there's always that other group of people watching too: older men who are into looking at younger ladies. (Turns out there are quite a few such people!) The thing about those guys is that they are numerically far fewer than all those younger ladies...but individually, they have a LOT more spending money. And what always inevitably happens is that producers try to ask themselves "how do we keep both audiences happy?" The answer, basically always, is sexualization. Mickey Mouse Club alumni, pro wrestlers, or action movie stars it's the same deal: show more skin, make the dialogue more suggestive, and then it's not quite as important if they can actually go because you can cover for it in post-production. What originally starts as "if she can already kick, we can teach her how to fight" (a quote attributed to Sammo Hung regarding how they decided to cast Michelle Yeoh, who prior to Yes, Madam! was a ballerina that had never done any martial arts) becomes "who cares if she can kick as long as she looks hot" (that's not a quote from anyone, but if you want to falsely attribute it you can credit Wong Jing). You started to see more beauty pageant contestants in the roles or girlfriends of the producers. Sammo was guilty of that one a few times.

The most important text on the subject of martial arts cinema remains Hong Kong Action Cinema by Bey Logan, who has since moved on to become God of Asian action cinema commentary tracks. He wrote it about 20 years ago though, prior to the Hong Kong handover, but for the purposes of what I'm talking about that doesn't matter: Chapter 9's "Fighting Females: The Far East's Favourite Females of Fury" (alliterative bastard...) focuses specifically on this sub-genre of the 1980s through early 1990s. The book's a decade or so out of date, but there was a chapter or two in the book Reel Knockouts: Violent Women in the Movies also dedicated squarely to martial arts cinema which uses Logan's writing as a jumping off point.

Very true. There was a whole generation of girls that wanted to be Jaguar Yokota. I take it you've seen GAEA Girls?

# ¿ May 7, 2014 01:02

HUNDU THE BEAST GOD: Sep 14, 2007; everything is yours

El Gallinero Gros posted:

Please talk more about this, just noticed it.

He talks about it plenty in his his autobiography, which I no longer have. But I believe his stepdad (?) went to Australia and basically sold him to Peking Opera training school, where he met Yuen Biao, Sammo Hung and a few other friends. They've known each other since the age of 7-8 years old, which is adorable except for the fact that they were basically like the property of a finishing school until they were teenagers.

# ¿ Aug 18, 2014 03:57

HUNDU THE BEAST GOD: Sep 14, 2007; everything is yours

I fuckin' love God of Cookery.

# ¿ Sep 3, 2014 14:49

HUNDU THE BEAST GOD: Sep 14, 2007; everything is yours

G-III posted:

http://youtu.be/5ZtamGgg2_0

Hahaha, this is amazing. Great characterization with the colors and how they wear their sweatsuits, it's almost cartoon-like.

# ¿ Dec 15, 2014 14:00

HUNDU THE BEAST GOD: Sep 14, 2007; everything is yours

HK Action Comedy is just the best.

# ¿ Dec 15, 2014 18:03

HUNDU THE BEAST GOD: Sep 14, 2007; everything is yours

Forty is nothing. He's got six decades of movies left in him probably.

# ¿ Mar 29, 2015 13:35

HUNDU THE BEAST GOD: Sep 14, 2007; everything is yours

Samuel Clemens posted:

Keep in mind, Jackie Chan was forty when he made Drunken Master 2.

Exactly.

# ¿ Mar 29, 2015 15:24

HUNDU THE BEAST GOD: Sep 14, 2007; everything is yours

Abu Dave posted:

I'm going through the list in the OP, really really enjoyed Come Drink With Me, I like the idea of a tiered system of bad guys that the main dude has to kill. With that knowledge, should my next series be Lady Snowblood or One Armed Boxer? I'm mostly looking for ridiculousness instead of seriousness.

More or less every Shaw Bros movie directed by Chang Cheh, almost to an absurd degree.

# ¿ Apr 19, 2015 02:03

HUNDU THE BEAST GOD: Sep 14, 2007; everything is yours

Abu Dave posted:

I binged through the One Armed Boxer and Flying Guillotine, is there anymore films to those ones?

You could watch all one hundred Wong Fei Hung movies.

# ¿ Apr 20, 2015 05:13

HUNDU THE BEAST GOD: Sep 14, 2007; everything is yours

Mechafunkzilla posted:

Except watch Crippled Avengers first because it's the best film ever made.

Not the best martial arts film, the best film.

Seconded.

# ¿ Apr 20, 2015 15:06

HUNDU THE BEAST GOD: Sep 14, 2007; everything is yours

Fantasy Mission Force is about as crazy as it gets.

# ¿ Apr 20, 2015 15:39

HUNDU THE BEAST GOD: Sep 14, 2007; everything is yours

Abu Dave posted:

Holy poo poo @ Return of the Five Deadly Venoms.

Are there other notable Venom movies? I really like this gang

The best Venom Mob films are:

5 Venoms/Return of 5 Venoms (Crippled Avengers)
Kid With The Golden Arm
Masked Avengers
Killer Army
Magnificent Ruffians
Shaolin Daredevils
Five Element Ninjas
Flag Of Iron
10 Tigers of Kwangtung

I have not seen them all, though. Masked Avengers in particular is real mean and dark and probably the goriest other than Five Element Ninjas. Flag of Iron has got some magnificent stuff in it, Kid With The Golden Arm is probably most like Crippled Avengers (far and away the best of the Venoms films).

# ¿ Apr 21, 2015 23:22

HUNDU THE BEAST GOD: Sep 14, 2007; everything is yours

Almond Crunch posted:

No one has mentioned A Touch of Zen (侠女) (1971) yet?

Like Come Drink with Me (大醉侠) and Longmen Inn (龙门客站) , AToZ is directed by King Hu (湖金铨). It's also by far the longest-- almost 4 hours in total, I think. Xu Feng (徐枫) is pretty cool.

The film itself is really pretty. You could probably lose the subtitles and still watch.

IF you've seen Longmen Inn, you might recognize the scholar-trope, second from the left. This movie sort of serves as his backstory.

King Hu owns.

# ¿ Jun 2, 2015 15:29

HUNDU THE BEAST GOD: Sep 14, 2007; everything is yours

RoboChrist 9000 posted:

Isn't this a thing in other movies, too? I could have sworn there was another martial arts film I once saw where this happened. I mean, like, a hot lady fighter stripping explicitly to distract/subdue/seduce a celibate monk, not the simple act of nudity in a film. I haven't, to my knowledge, seen Duel to the Death, so yeah.

But a 20 foot ninja who explodes into smaller ninja sounds very much like something I need to see, so I'm tracking down a copy as we speak!

It happens in practically every single martial arts movie I've seen with a female ninja in it.

# ¿ Jul 8, 2015 16:26

HUNDU THE BEAST GOD: Sep 14, 2007; everything is yours

Yeah, I hadn't heard that before.

# ¿ Jul 8, 2015 16:51

HUNDU THE BEAST GOD: Sep 14, 2007; everything is yours

Isn't one of them called The Five Fingers of Death?

# ¿ Aug 6, 2015 15:39

HUNDU THE BEAST GOD: Sep 14, 2007; everything is yours

Remulak posted:

The Kid with the Golden Arm is on Netflix, and it looks FANTASTIC. This along with the 5 Deadly Venoms and the # Cripped Masters were always running on local TV when I was a kid. Good times.

The opening credits to that kick rear end. Also anything involving Silver Spear.

HUNDU THE BEAST GOD fucked around with this message at 01:28 on Sep 4, 2015

# ¿ Sep 4, 2015 01:24

HUNDU THE BEAST GOD: Sep 14, 2007; everything is yours

Also everyone should watch ~~The 36 Chambers Of Shaolin~~ Disciples of the 36th Chamber.

HUNDU THE BEAST GOD fucked around with this message at 20:16 on Sep 4, 2015

# ¿ Sep 4, 2015 20:03

HUNDU THE BEAST GOD: Sep 14, 2007; everything is yours

Despite the presence of Crippled Avengers, no Drunken Master 2 seems insane enough to invalidate the entire affair.

# ¿ Sep 23, 2015 23:19

HUNDU THE BEAST GOD: Sep 14, 2007; everything is yours

Yeah, who's thinking about Ong Bak 2? What the hell.

# ¿ Sep 23, 2015 23:38

HUNDU THE BEAST GOD: Sep 14, 2007; everything is yours

Remulak posted:

Masked Avengers is on Netflix too, one of the really nice shaw-scope versions that started showing up last month (and that have occupied most of my free time).

I absolutely love the final fight in Masked Avengers. All the clanging will give you a headache but it's a surprisingly mean and gruesome movie for Shaw.

# ¿ Oct 25, 2015 15:00

HUNDU THE BEAST GOD: Sep 14, 2007; everything is yours

DEAD MAN'S SHOE posted:

As a person who loved the unpretentious madness of Tsui Hark and proper balls to the wall HK stuff, I couldn't stand CTHD. So humourless.

When's the last time you watched it? I wonder if you'd feel the same way now.

# ¿ Dec 8, 2015 20:20

HUNDU THE BEAST GOD: Sep 14, 2007; everything is yours

Can't go wrong with Moon Lee:

Killer Angels
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NFBEwAxD47c
Angel Terminators
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sZBfUUNAHL4

# ¿ Mar 20, 2016 04:01

HUNDU THE BEAST GOD: Sep 14, 2007; everything is yours

G-III posted:

I liked Moon Lee best in the Iron Angels series, especially with her facing off against Yukari Oshima in the first movie which is straight up the most brutal woman on woman fight I've yet seen in a HK action movie.

As far as female leads in kung fu features go, you really cannot at all go wrong with watching films starring Pei Pei Cheng or Angela Mao. Although keep in mind these movies, while older, are exceptionally brutal. Take for instance this sequence from the film in which Ms. Cheng bounces into a gang of bad guys, calls out which body parts she will remove from three dudes she cuts in the face, then proceeds to take off those body parts.

Category III baby.

# ¿ Mar 20, 2016 19:35

HUNDU THE BEAST GOD: Sep 14, 2007; everything is yours

Wheels on Meals absolutely does have an insane fight with Benny the Jet.

# ¿ Jun 13, 2016 00:49

HUNDU THE BEAST GOD: Sep 14, 2007; everything is yours

I totally forgot that Shout Factory TV just has a free rotation of streaming movies.

# ¿ Apr 8, 2017 22:02

HUNDU THE BEAST GOD: Sep 14, 2007; everything is yours

RichterIX posted:

It looks like your list is missing Flash Point which is pretty drat good and has the best suplex ever on film.

Flash Point is so sick. I wonder how many people learned about that film via that gif.

# ¿ Apr 28, 2017 20:23

HUNDU THE BEAST GOD: Sep 14, 2007; everything is yours

I wish these fuckers would let you watch those movies with either dubs or subs.

# ¿ Jun 26, 2017 04:32

HUNDU THE BEAST GOD: Sep 14, 2007; everything is yours

What I love about these movies in HD is seeing exactly where the hairpieces are glued on.

# ¿ Jun 26, 2017 14:30

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# ¿ May 2, 2024 22:45

HUNDU THE BEAST GOD: Sep 14, 2007; everything is yours

moller posted:

I hope you mean both the head and the body of the witch, since an exploding witch usually leaves you with an angry, flying head.

Or worse, a Kra-Sue.

# ¿ Sep 4, 2017 19:27

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > Cinema Discusso > Classic Martial-Arts Cinema: Everybody really WAS kung fu fighting.

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