Seen any good Kung-Fu flicks of late?

[QualityChimp]

This is a bonkers short film about ninjas being crammed into a rom-com,
"Eat, Pray, Ninja"

"A passionate romantic comedy screenwriter must add ninjas to her script in order to sell her script to a major motion studio. In the film we follow Adela, a rom-com screenwriter right out of college, poor, sitting in the studio waiting to sell her screenplay. She worked hard on her script, spent months, years to get it to where it is. Later we meet big man Howard, a studio executive who will buy her script ONLY if she add the "few" changes in the notes."

[k0pp0]

Bizarre. But the 'what the **** are we doing here?' line made me laugh.

[Asura]

One thing I'd say - don't watch Armor of God. I ordered it from Amazon after weeks of thinking about it at random intervals, remembering it as pretty good from the last time I watched it - drunk, and in the middle of CNX's Jackie Chan season in the early 2000s.

It's terrible.

[QualityChimp]

You're entitled to your opinion.
It's wrong, so you're welcome to it.

A kung-fu Indiana Jones in a tiny plane, with hot women, doing a car chase in James Bond car that jumps about 1 mile and has an escape bike, infiltrating an isolated monastery, fighting monks and scary women, blowing the lot up and jumping onto a hot air ballon?

What's not to like?!

[Asura]

You're entitled to your opinion.
It's wrong, so you're welcome to it.

A kung-fu Indiana Jones in a tiny plane, with hot women, doing a car chase in James Bond car that jumps about 1 mile and has an escape bike, infiltrating an isolated monastery, fighting monks and scary women, blowing the lot up and jumping onto a hot air ballon?

What's not to like?!

The action scenes are good. It's just the movie that strings them together

That bike chase you mention is a superb chase scene, though.

[QualityChimp]

The sequence in the house where they keep going in to each other's rooms was funny the first time, but skipped on subsequent viewings.

I just can't believe you would dismiss a film with so many fantastic sequences as "terrible".

[k0pp0]

God I loved this film. First one that showcased loads of weapons (incorrectly but still fun).

[CMcK]

Franco "Django" Nero in a Ninja movie! How did I ever miss this one?

[Finsbury Girl]

Not sure it qualifies exactly, however I watched 47 Ronin. Though not quite enough fighting action there were some pretty good pieces. SFX were pretty good as well. Keanu vs the

->Open Spoiler<-

dragon

was cool if a little brief. I would loved to have seen a mano a mano between Keanu and the big giant samurai dude, the way he went out was an anti-climax to say the least. Overall not a bad film at all, I enjoyed it. 7/10

[Finsbury Girl]

Man of Tai Chi - Have been waiting to see this for ever and my expectations were pretty high. I thought it was pretty good overall. Loads of cool fight scenes, all beautifully done by Yuen Woo-Ping. I quite like the style there is something for everyone, some cool wire assisted stuff (not OTT) some cool looking tai chi moves as well as some brutal takedowns and close hand to hand. I could see Donnie Yen in this movie. The main dude Tiger is pretty good, acting is not going to win academy awards, but hey we're in a Keanu movie folks! Speaking of the wooden one, I like him he's a good bad guy and I thought his fight scene was pretty well done. Some obvious double work but I was impressed with the stuff he does. Overall I thought this was a pretty damn good western homage to a classic kung fu film. I particularly enjoyed the multi lingual aspect, it's so good that Keanu was confident enough in his audience that he was authentic with his use of language throughout. A pity this movie bombed financially (so I understand from the net, reality may be different) as I would love to see what else Keanu can do, he obviously loves kung fu films. Oh and the only downer was the non event of the showdown between Tiger and

->Open Spoiler<-

Iko Uwais

[QualityChimp]

I picked up Man of Tai Chi cheap the other day and I'm looking forward to watching it. There's lots of elements that tick my checklist!
I remember the test footage of filming the action in a new way with a mobile camera rig.



I saw Force of Five (a.k.a. Power Kids) the other night, breaking my run of not seeing a Fu flick for aaaages. (I blame EDF.)

It's about a bunch of kids in Thailand that are friends at a Muay Thai boxing school. Their one friend has a weak heart and ends up in hospital awaiting for a transplant from a boy that has died in a different hospital. All is going well until the hospital gets overrun by TERRORISTS, so the kids set off to sneak into the hospital and steal the heart from under the heavily-armed terrorists' noses!

PROS: Fun and whimsical. The kids are very impressive, both with their acting and their martial arts. It's produced by Prachya Pinkaew and Panna Rittikrai, the Director and Action Co-ordinator of Ong-Bak, Chocolate and all the other Tony Jaa flicks, so it has some pedigree. There's a nice fight in a tight corridor with Johnny Nguyen (The Rebel). There's plenty of dramatic slow-mo flips, kicks and knees. There's a pretty good RC car race.

CONS: The film doesn't know what it wants to be - a kids' film or an adult's action movie. One minute there'll be japes as the kids gang up on a musclebound drunkard, the next he'll be swearing at people. One minute there's a car chase with radio controlled cars, then you have a violent firefight. It's like flipping channels between 3 Ninjas and Ong-Bak. Also, the kids are tremendous martial artists and gymnasts, but the bad guys tend to stand around whilst they wait for the kids to flip, spin and kick them in the face in slow motion every time.

Disappointing as this had real potential, but its identity crisis renders it unsatisfying.

[k0pp0]

Flying knee much? I see a torn meniscus in their future.

[QualityChimp]

Hanuman.

Looks heavily influenced by The Raid, but that's no bad thing!

[chojin]

Haven't watched much recently, until yesterday.. True Legend based on the story of Su Can.. aside from the silly god of wushu sequences I enjoyed it....

I'll have a flick through this thread and see whats what for todays Gung-Fu fest.. KI-HAP!

[prinnysquad]

Tiger of Northland (1976)

I got the lobby poster of this a few months ago so I thought I ought to watch the film. It's ok. No more, no less. I can't think of a single reason to ever watch it again though.

It's the well-worn tale of the Japanese occupation of China forcing a badass fighter to Korea to help organise a resistance movement. The Japanese oppressors have, however, set up shop in Korea too, so it leads to the martial artist going into hiding in a Chinese noodle factory while his buddies try to keep his presence a secret.

It's utterly forgettable stuff. The lead is fine, and competent at his trade. The action is co-choreographed by Sammo, who has a small cameo near the end, but it's nowhere near the standard of his earlier Golden Harvest, or later, stuff. It's only an hour since I watched it and I can barely remember any stand-out moments. While it was on, however, I was mildly entertained.