Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
Enter the Dragon
Ip Man
Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story
The Last Dragon

I'm a huge martial arts movie fan. But for me personally, it's next to impossible to do a "Best of" list. So many different eras. Shaw Brothers, Golden Harvest, Media Asia and all the modern day movies. And then you have Western martial artists like Chuck Norris, Jean-Claude Van Damme. Just impossible. You have classic actors like Ti Lung, David Chiang, Angela Mao. The library of work to re-examine is insane.

True enough. My list of favourites is likewise huge, and my list of favorite sequences is even bigger, but now that we have a dedicated thread I could see posting a little of both in here as they cross my mind. (perhaps ‘and fight sequences’ could be added to the thread title?)

Speaking of IP MAN, though, two of Donnie Yen’s first three collaborations with Wilson Yip (the fourth was IP MAN) sit higher on my favorites list: SPL (2005) and FLASHPOINT (2007). But IP MAN definitely seemed to hit at the right time, spawning an entire category of films and TV series that eventually became tiresome.

SPL and FLASHPOINT are just lean, mean MF’ers with Donnie at his peak.

But Sidekicks (1992) should be on top of everybody's list.

I know you meant to say "with Wilson Yip" but it still made me laugh. And, yeah, SPL and Flashpoint are badass. The former was originally meant to be a drama/thriller with no fight sequences, called Father's Day. I don't recall when/why the title changed, but it was Donnie Yen who suggested adding fight sequences (which he directed) when he was cast. Also, people mistakenly assumed Flashpoint was either a sequel or prequel to SPL (the ending of the latter was deleted from the Mainland release).

Speaking of Donnie Yen, much love needs to be given to his fights with Jet Li in Once Upon a Time in China II​​​​​​.



Has Ip Man managed to surpass Wong Fei-hung in that regard? Growing up, it seemed to me everyone starred as Wong Fei-hung at some point. Heck, Sammo Hung even played him (complete with classic theme music) in 2004's Around the World in 80 Days.

I have seen less than a dozen martial arts films so I don’t have a lot to choose from but I really like Legend of Drunken Master 2.

You mean Drunken Master II or the alternate title (given to it in 2000), The Legend of Drunken Master. Either way, a solid choice (and another Wong Fei-hung movie).

Despite not being my favourite martial arts movie (although I do think of it fondly overall), Drive has one of my favourite fight scene in a martial arts movie.



Oh and Equilibrium deserves much love, despite being woefully underappreciated.

36th Chamber of Shaolin
Drunken Master
The Prodigal Son
Crippled Avengers
Duel To The Death
Magnificent Butcher (Contains my most favorite fight of all time)

Shaolin Mantis
Avenging Eagle
Heroes of the East
Marco Polo
Shaolin Martial Arts
Shaolin Temple
36th Chamber of Shaolin
Return to the 36th Chamber
Legendary Weapons of China
Five Venoms
The Flying Guillotine
The Five Masters
Men From The Monastery
Executioners of Shaolin
Kung Fu Instructor

Most any Shaw Bros films with Fu Sheng, Ti Lung, David Chiang, Gordon Liu, Lau Kar Leung, the Venoms

Main reason I still have my Cyberhome region free player for all the Celestial DVDs in my collection.

Yup. Typed too fast on my phone. Fixed!

I was trying to think of the an actual four-time Donnie Yen self-collaboration, and this came to mind :


The HK ending was phenomenal, and it was absolutely pathetic – but not surprising – that they altered it to placate the ‘sensitive’ CCP. Of course, if they made that movie now in Hong Kong, the mainland ending would be the only ending.


I doubt IP MAN will reach that level. The Wong Fei-hung movies and tv shows were such a product of their time, when the Hong Kong cinema and television was Chinese cinema and television to most of the world, and when it was so prolific for so long that, yeah, pretty much everyone got a shot at the character. I guess the most famous was Kwan Tak-hing, who did 99 movies. I doubt we’ll ever see that many IP MAN shows, but also because the real guy actually lived until the 1970’s, there are only so many truthful tales to tell about him (not that the WFH movies are overly truthful, of course) and some of the more recent movies and TV shows are just cheap and ridiculous and soaked in cringey mainland nationalism.


I figured I wasn’t the only around here with a bunch of those! And I even have a Cyberhome player from back in the day, well-used (it also plays VCDs) but currently safely stored as a back-up to a newer Sony unit (that doesn’t play VCDs, naturally).

I also had a Cyberhome player, which I used almost exclusively to play IVL Shaw Bros and Hong Kong Legends DVDs. The player is LONG gone, but I still have a handful of Shaw DVDs (the ones that I haven't upgraded to blu yet) and all of my Hong Kong Legends.

As for my favorite martial arts movie? I'm not sure I could narrow it down to just one movie. There's so many of them. I will say that while it was far from the first martial arts movie I ever saw, seeing The Legend of Drunken Master (aka Drunken Master II) in a theater in 2000 was almost a religious experience. That was the movie that turned me from a casual fan into a weirdo who was regularly going to the post office to sign for sketchy looking packages from China.

I learned how to climb the ropes in gym class because of that movie!

C'mon Barry, wrap your leg around the rope!

I have a file I made called 100 Kung Fu Classics, but since the OP asked for Favorite Martial Arts Movies, I choose those that emphasize training and martial arts techniques in their narratives. All but two have "Shaolin" in their titles and one of those, THE KILLING MACHINE, features a Japanese martial artist who studied Shaolin techniques in China during the war.

Japan:

THE KILLING MACHINE (1975) Sonny Chiba

Shaw Bros. (Hong Kong):

Jimmy Wang Yu:

THE CHINESE BOXER (1970)

Chang Cheh:

SHAOLIN MARTIAL ARTS (1974)

SHAOLIN TEMPLE (1976)

INVINCIBLE SHAOLIN (1978)

Lau Kar Leung:

EXECUTIONERS FROM SHAOLIN (1977)

THE 36TH CHAMBER OF SHAOLIN (1978)

SHAOLIN MANTIS (1978)

HEROES OF THE EAST (1978)

I've visited Hong Kong 9 times (last in 2017) and on every visit I would pick up hundreds of dollars of martial arts DVDs, VCDs and Blu-Rays. But, soon, I was picking up more than I had time to watch and soon developed a small backlog. There are still probably 20-30+ titles leftover that I still haven't watched yet.

Pray for Death (1985, Sho Kosugi)

Made enough of an impression on me that I replaced my DVD with the Arrow Video Special Edition BD.

I remember renting that on VHS a few times.

Ok, I'll be nice and name some personal favorites via Hollywood/American productions:

Revenge of The Ninja
Bloodmatch (Always liked this concept, but I can never forget how laughably bad Benny "The Jet" Urquidez's acting was )
Tiger Claws (My favorite U.S. Rothrock movie)
Bloodfist III: Forced To Fight (I think this was the only Don "The Dragon" Wilson movie I liked....I mostly thank this one for introducing me to TNT Jackson)
Shootfighter: Fight To The Death (This one should've had a resurgence by now considering that both Martin Kove & William Zabka are re-united rivals in it. Also stars Bolo....As a good guy!)

70's
-Master of the Flying Guillotine
-Five Deadly Venoms
-Game of Death

Modern
-Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon

Haha. Too Many ... Shit. Have to do some posts more to be allowed "sending links" ... but ... I will take attention of some new movies ...


- SHADOW STRAYS
Here in Germany "Codename 13". Timo Tjahjanto at its best ... Still WOW.

- MAYHEM
Here in Germany "Frarang- Schatten der Unterwelt". What a Beast of Film.

- LIFE AFTER FIGHTING
A bit too long, but Bren Foster is awesome. Hope he will get some good Produktions in Future.

- HAVOC
Not really Martial Arts- based, but the "Power" u feel in this kind of "Rage" (mostly Shootouts) ... Gareth Evans did not a RAID 3, but I like the movie a lot.