Seen any good Kung-Fu flicks of late?

[dvdmike]

I watched Ong-Bak 2 last week, and can see why Jaa went crazy in the head nuts

[Geoff D]

I watched Five Element Ninja (also known as Chinese Super Ninjas) again recently - probably my favourite ninja flick.

[prinnysquad]

Never seen that one. It's a Shaw Brothers one isn't it? A quick look on amazon and it seems quite expensive, region 1 only?

I'm very much a noob at this genre and I'm afraid to say that the list of classics I've never seen is appallingly long - Ong Bak 1 and 2 (despite having 1 for over a year, still shrink wrapped in the dvd cabinet), 36th Chamber of Shaolin, numerous Bruce Lee efforts, Prodigal Son, Iron Monkey, the list goes on...

I've seen loads of cheapy, badly transferred oddities though!

[Geoff D]

Never seen that one. It's a Shaw Brothers one isn't it? A quick look on amazon and it seems quite expensive, region 1 only?

I've got the region 3 Hong Kong release - click which can be had for about a tenner. I've also got a dubbed, pan & scan version somewhere too

[prinnysquad]

Superb, I may order that very soon.

One of the maddest flicks I've seen lately was Ten Tigers of Shaolin. The end battle lasted about 25 minutes and featured all kinds of styles, with about two dozen fighters squaring off. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0079247/ Very entertaining!

But by far the oddest so far has been Blood Treasury Fight. The fights aren't particularly brilliantly choreographed but they do a good job. The story itself has intrigue and twists, in an old setting. The whole tone is very odd, yet different enough to be a good watch.

->Open Spoiler<-

There's quite a brutal fight at the end in a mill, with some fit bird getting her face pressed against a grinding stone.

All in all a decent oddity. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0078877/

[SuperBeatBoy]

I second Shaolin Soccer. I watched it when it first came out, its bloody hilarious.

[prinnysquad]

I'll have to check it out.

So do people have favourite kung fu stars?

Beyond the usual choices - Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan - I really like Hwang Jang Lee (the best kicker ever??), Phillip Ko (this guy can do so many styles), Cliff Lok, Sammo Hung and Casanova Wong. I haven't watched any of Dragon Lee's or Elton Chong's films yet.

As far as the birds go, Sharon Yeung Pan Pan is pretty good.

[QualityChimp]

Glad I'm not the only one who loves a bit of Kung Fu. I prefer modern settings as opposed to creaky old "your gung-fu is obsolete! Fight me!", but they're good for a laugh every so often.

Prinny, I love 80s Jackie Chan and Sammo Hung films. Since Hong Kong Legends went bust though, all those lovely Bey Logan-commentated DVDs have skyrocketted in price. Boo!

I've got a list I'm trying to work my way through to either watch or re-watch:
Drunken Master 2
Invisible Target
Casshern
Volcano High
Exiled
City of Lost Souls
Fulltime Killer
Libera Me
No Blood No Tears
The Tube
Public Enemy
Shiri
Ten Dead Men
Broken Path
Contour
Fatal Contact
Sukiyaki Western Django
Like a Dragon
Sasori
Wicked Game
Legendary Assassin
Good, Bad and the Weird
Winner & Sinners
My Lucky Stars
New Police Story
Ip Man

Can't say if most of these will be pap, but I'll eventually check 'em out.

I'd rather play some games at the mo than sit down on my own for a Kung-Fu flick at the moment though.

Got half-way through Ip Man, but the subs got out of sync and it drove me crazy. Ironically, out-of-sync dubbing makes old skool flicks seem cool!

[prinnysquad]

That's quite a list!

The only ones I've heard of there are the ones I've got myself - Casshern, New Police Story and Drunken Master 2 - although I haven't watched any of them.

Ironically at the moment I probably prefer ye olde settings, but that's because the ones I've watched have been set then.

I've just made a proper count and I've actually got exactly 100 flicks Disgraceful really, but a lot of the Vengeance ones in particular are out of print, and so skyrocket in value, so I thought I'd grab them now. Yeah, it's a shame about HKL, they always produced a good quality product. I've got a few of theirs - The Magnificent Butcher, Project A, Police Story, Police Story 2, New Police Story, Drunken Master, Dragons Forever, Wheels on Meals, Snake in Eagle's Shadow, and Snake and Crane Arts of Shaolin, but they do seem to be shooting up in price. I remember years ago one of those magazine companies - D'Agostini? - brought out a series of magzines with dvds in conjunction with HKL at about 7 or 8 quid each. I didn't bother at the time, but judging by some of the prices now I wish I had.

[QualityChimp]

De Agostini did release some of the HKL DVDs, but they were just vanilla discs and without the Bey Logan commentary and some of the deleted scenes, you might as well source them elsewhere.

HKFlix.com is quite a good site.

I'm itching to re-watch Wheels on Meals, but the double-disc version is about ?20 on eBay these days!

Did you know:

The film's name was actually supposed to be more sensibly titled Meals on Wheels. However, superstitious Golden Harvest executives demanded the name change because their two previous films with titles that began with the letter 'M' - Megaforce and Menage A Trois - were both box office flops.

[prinnysquad]

I got Wheels and Dragons Forever off some guy on kung fu cinema forums, not cheap but certainly cheaper than the cost of importing them (I don't do ebay any more). He also supplied me with a Taiwanese release of Blade of Fury https://www.hkflix.com/xq/asp/filmID...qx/details.htm which seems on the face of it quite difficult to get hold of.

[Finsbury Girl]

Drunken Master II is the pinnacle of Jackie Chan movies (I refer to the original Cantonese version of course) and one of the best if not the best old school kung fu flicks around.

Also check out Prodigal Son - another release by HKL.

[prinnysquad]

That will be checked out too.

Just watched Invincible Armour, with Hwang Jang Lee, John Liu and Philip Ko. Good, regular fights (but not spectacular), lots of different styles, a decent story and lovely setting. Not as good as I'd heard, but that'll be over-hype on my part. The more I think about the various scenes, the more I'm convinced I need to re-watch it. For now, though, I'd give it an 8/10, a very, very solid film with many great aspects to it.

[monel]

Winners and Sinners is great! My favourite of the Lucky Stars series.

Drunken Master 2, the American release was messed up by Miramax.

For kicking action, if you're a fan of Hwang Jang Lee I'd say get some more John Liu action, namely Death Duel Of Kung Fu.

Would recommend all Lau Kar Leung Shaws flicks (he emailed me once, made my day) and the Venoms Shaw flicks.

Can't recommend Knockabout enough, another Sammo and Yuen Biao classic.

[PeteJ]

Ninja Assassin - http://www.traileraddict.com/trailer...sassin/trailer
Looks pretty cool