Recent Martial Arts/Action Movies (1 Viewer)

[hugh]

I have the urge to watch Asian people beating each other up and I've fallen out of the loop about this stuff. Can anyone recommend some good recent martial arts movies? You know .. ones with fighting and so on? Hong-Kong style. Ideally ones set in the present day rather than "ancient times" ......

I would be much obliged ...

 

[ratmonkey]

Actual Chinese stuff - Ip Man with Donnie Yen does the job. Have a bunch more of Mr. Yen's recent work in a pile waiting to be watched.

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Chocolate is pretty decent too, autistic young wan learns martial arts from watching Tony Jaa and kicks the fuck out of lads who owe her mother money. If you haven't seen the Ong Bak films (Ong Bak 2 is probably the fightingest film I've seen in the last while) and Warrior King, hit those post haste. Also Born to Fight, ridiculous shit where some terrorists take over a village full of athletes who use their sports for fighting purposes against the nefarious terrorists.

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Not Asians, but DTV films from the last couple of years which are actually really good - Isaac Florentine's stuff with Scott Adkins is amazing (Undisputed II & III [don't worry about seeing the first one, that's just plain old boxing mainly, no double spin kicks in that], Ninja). Blood & Bone with Michael Jai White also.

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Kiltro (Chilean thing with Marko Zaror, also in Undisputed III) is worth watching for the fighting, there's a good chunk of pretty tedious non-fighting before it kicks in though.

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[Cormcolash]

I was about to write 'pm Ratmonkey' too

 

[Ferox13]

I need to get IP man..

 

[ratmonkey]

Just watched Flashpoint. Starts out as your standard HK cop film, except the main cop is Donnie Yen, and pretty much at immediately he's suspended for putting too many bad guys in hospital, so you know this is going to be good. More of the brutality in this, less of the stylised jumping around. He does a bunch of UFC type holds and grapples too. Nice shootout scene as well.

 

[ratmonkey]

Kill Zone, with Donnie Yen and Simon Yam as cops, Sammo Hung as the bad guy and Jacky Wu as henchman #1. More about the plot and such than the fighting, but there are a few fights in there. Lots of the family shit that the HK lads like where they're showing the similarities between the good and the bad guys. This is good, but I'd go with Ip Man or Flashpoint first.

 

[hugh]

Thanks for all this ... just checking them out now. I like the look of Chocolate ..... I'm probably less about the brutality and more into "the stylised jumping around" to be honest ... keep 'em coming!!

 

[Ferox13]

Just watched Flashpoint. He does a bunch of UFC type holds and grapples too.

I think you mean traditional judo holds

 

[ratmonkey]

That's probably what they are. There's some extra business about MMA on the DVD which I haven't actually watched so methinks that's the angle they're coming from.

I've noticed (from what I've watched of late anyway) that these films either seem to be set in Hong Kong just before the handover back to the Chinese or else in Macau. Looks like they're not allowed to suggest that there's a whole load of triads and cops running around fighting and having shootouts in Hong Kong under Chinese rule.

 

[ratmonkey]

Merentau, with Iko Uwais, the "new Tony Jaa" according the the box (the box also added Warrior to the title). Indonesian film about silat directed by some Welsh guy Gareth Evans. Really good fight scene in a lift, the other fights are mainly technically good but let down a bit by the filmwork, camera and background music seem to be off at times (although given there's no major background in Indonesian martial arts films and the director has one previous non-martial arts film, can't really fault them too much). Worth watching anyway, it does drag when there's no fighting though.

There's also one really strange bit where Uwais is sparring with his silat teacher before leaving home and he makes a not very convincing growling sound. Was hoping silly animal noises would come up again in later fights, but no.

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[ratmonkey]

Apparently RZA is making a kung fu film starring himself and Russell Crowe.