Seen any good Kung-Fu flicks of late?

[prinnysquad]

http://hkmdb.com/

Is this it? The thread I was thinking of is on KF Forums and called 'Kung Fu Films Encyclopedia'; taeko posted this:

"HKMDb was originally housed on the Stanford servers and, in the late 90s, Ryan Law moved the database to its current home."

[monel]

Nah, again that's not it. The only way to find out the site would be to ask on KFC forums. There's a good chance it's offline now though.

[prinnysquad]

Return of the 18 Bronzemen

Carter Wong, Polly Shang Kuan - a very odd film. LOADS of plot holes and loose strands, and I mean loads, with the oddest ending I've seen in the genre so far. It seems that the script writer threw a load of storylines into the film then forgot about them, with Polly Shan Kuan's character in particular having very little screen time and motives that weren't clearly explained.

Poor standard of martial arts to begin with, but it soon gets much, much better. The trials themselves are often very inventive and good to watch. Carter Wong's character was an odd one too, was he a good guy or a scumbag? Who knows? The bookends of the film show him to be a bounder, but in the middle he learns dedication and strength. Still, his performance is good.

Just ... bizarre. But I liked it

[monel]

I've never seen the Bronzemen films. Your review makes it sound interesting.

I watched Tiger Cage 2 the other day. I first saw it over 10 years ago and didn't like it for some reason. Watching it the other day I can't understand why that happened, it has the modern day 80s setting which I love and is a Yuen Woo Ping film starring Donnie Yen. The comedic moments take over at times but the fights at the end of the film are great. The film is very similar to In The Line Of Duty 4, a film I gave to my nephew and need to acquire again as I want to watch it after watching Tiger Cage 2. Never seen Tiger Cage or Tiger Cage 3 but I may seek them out now.

[prinnysquad]

Never seen any of those! Damn January and its no-pot-to-piss-in nature!

Yeah, I'd recommend 18 Bronzemen (the first one, er, first) as a decent, solid classic of its type. I wish I'd seen it as a kid because the bronzemen trials themselves have that kind of mystical mechanical oddity that I used to be (and still am really) spellbound to (like Talos in Jason and the Argonauts). Even though most of the Bronzemen are just guys spraypainted

[prinnysquad]

The 36th Chamber of Shaolin

Gordon Liu, Lo Lieh, Wilson Tong - A supposed classic. Does it hit the buttons? Yes, yes and thrice yes!

A Shaw Brothers outing, this is quite a long film by genre standards, clocking in at 1h50 minutes, and I've just finished watching this much-valued Christmas present. I didn't bother with the English dubbing and instead opted for the Mandarin and subtitles combo.
Story is that a young student is sucked into a rebellion against the Manchu government by his teacher. Various comrades get owned and he runs off to Shaolin temple to learn the skills of the 35 Chambers. When he completes his training, he leaves the temple to kick ass.

Sounds very run of the mill, but it's handled in such a splendidly sure-footed way that it seems fresh. The performances are first rate, and Liu's transformation from wuss to azz kikr is really quite believable. The training sequences are absolutely top notch, and are fascinating to watch. It's nice to see them implemented in the later fight scenes, which are short yet explosive.

It's an odd film in many ways because the actual fighting is relatively scarce. Instead, the journey of learning and training takes up the majority of the running time. Maybe that's what makes it seem fresh.

A really enjoyable flick, I haven't seen Gordon Liu in a bad film yet.

[monel]

I saw Tiger On The Beat last night, funnily enough featuring Gordon Liu in a bad guy role. As a big Chow Yun Fat and Lau Kar Leung fan (it was directed by the latter) I was kind of disappointed in the film although the chainsaw duel at the end (you read that right-a chainsaw duel!) made it worth watching. I do love the late 80s setting but with so many big players involved I was left feeling a little underwhelmed.

Prinny, to see Gordon Liu at his best I'd suggest watching Heroes Of The East and Martial Club. Although before watching Martial Club you should probably watch Challenege Of The Masters first as it is the sequel to that film, but you don't need to watch them in order as the stories are pretty much unrelated.

[Baseley09]

Spirit Boxer on Dave last night was good fun, about some trickster fooling townfolk into believing he was possessed by Gods, and he was pretty nifty at kung-fu to boot.

[monel]

Spirit Boxer on Dave last night was good fun, about some trickster fooling townfolk into believing he was possessed by Gods, and he was pretty nifty at kung-fu to boot.

Oh no, I missed that! Seen it before but wanted to see the dubbed version.

These are the next ones on Dave in case anyone wants to catch them, they are all remastered Shaw Brothers films:

Disciples Of The 36th Chamber - 1:00 am on Friday, 15th January

Vengeance - 1:00 am on Monday, 25th January

Killer Clans - 1:00 am on Friday, 29th January

[QualityChimp]

District 13

Finally got around to seeing this after having it waiting on Sky+ for ages.
I really enjoyed it and it had quite a driven storyline. The freerunning/parkour scenes are great and there's some well-choreographed fight scenes too.

I really like Cyril Raffaelli. He's in Kiss of the Dragon, Die Hard 4.0, The Transporter and a few others.

Well worth checking out if you get chance as it's good fun.

[prinnysquad]

Prinny, to see Gordon Liu at his best I'd suggest watching Heroes Of The East and Martial Club. Although before watching Martial Club you should probably watch Challenege Of The Masters first as it is the sequel to that film, but you don't need to watch them in order as the stories are pretty much unrelated.

The bold-me-do is tomorrow night's film of choice. Beers at the ready! Challenge is in the ordering process. Martial will be imported soon, I feel.

Spirit Boxer on Dave last night was good fun, about some trickster fooling townfolk into believing he was possessed by Gods, and he was pretty nifty at kung-fu to boot.

Yeah, I was going to watch that, until I realised I already had it on dvd. The others shinobi listed though may require a watch, even though I'll end up with eye bags like old man's knackers.

District 13

Finally got around to seeing this after having it waiting on Sky+ for ages.
I really enjoyed it and it had quite a driven storyline. The freerunning/parkour scenes are great and there's some well-choreographed fight scenes too.

I really like Cyril Raffaelli. He's in Kiss of the Dragon, Die Hard 4.0, The Transporter and a few others.

Well worth checking out if you get chance as it's good fun.

I'm keep any eye out for that one QC.

[Team Andromeda]

What are Tiger Cage and Line of Duty 4 like as films . Some of the clips from them, on youtube , feature some of the most insane stunts I've seen

[QualityChimp]

I watched Broken Path.

It's about a siege on a ranch where the hero has to protect his wife and daughter from masked attackers.

I had high hopes for this as it's directed by Koichi Sakamoto and his Alpha Stunts team who were responsible for the amazing action in Drive, but I've come away unfulfilled.

I'll be honest, I've been watching this in 5-10 min chunks since before Christmas which isn't an ideal way to see it and isn't really fair on it.

There's some pretty impressive fight scenes. Unfortunately, Sakamoto is best known for his work on Power Rangers, lead actor Johnny Yong Bosch was the Black Power Ranger and Daniel Southworth played the Quantum Power Ranger.

Can you see where this is going? Some of the fight choreography felt like it was a Power Rangers episode with punches sending people flying across a room and then spinning 5 times mid-air before landing.

It's made on a budget with a small cast so we see the same people fighting, getting beaten up and then coughing up blood several times, when they'd probably be dead from the first fight.

It's not an awful film and it's a good showcase for the fighting skills of the actors, but I felt a little let down after it. Other fans of Drive may enjoy it to see what else Sakamoto has done outside of Power Rangers, but I can't really give it the QC stamp of approval.

On a lighter note, I picked up the HKL 2-disc edition of Project A, which is aces. I'll try and take that down over the weekend.

[monel]

What are Tiger Cage and Line of Duty 4 like as films . Some of the clips from them, on youtube , feature some of the most insane stunts I've seen

I've seen Tiger Cage 2 and In The Line of Duty 4, both are very similar in terms of casting, director (Woo Ping for both I think) and lead actor Donnie Yen in both. There are some good stunts but I think I've seen better-although they are of a very high level. I would recommend watching both films though and especially if you like the 80s/early 90s modern day HK setting. Tiger Cage 2 was released on VHS in the 90s here but renamed Tiger Cage so there was some confusion about the films, at least to me.

QualityChimp-what was the Police Story box-set like, that you ordered? Any opinions?

[^Katsu]

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