#jet li
“Learn the form, but seek the formless. Hear the soundless. Learn it all, then forget it all. Learn The Way, then find your own way.” - JET LI
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Way back in my senior year of high school, my friends and I took full advantage of our senior year freedom to go see The Forbidden Kingdom in theaters several times. As far as we were concerned, The Forbidden Kingdom was the long-awaited team-up of Asian action stars Jackie Chan and Jet Li—it didn’t matter to us that the plot included some white guy as the main protagonist. In fact, we were pretty happy about it—we thought the white protagonist would make the movie much more attractive to Americans and thus make more money at the box office, thereby proving that Asians could sell movies. And to be fair, The Forbidden Kingdom did rank #1 at the box office in its opening weekend. But nearly a full decade later, it’s pretty apparent that The Forbidden Kingdom’s flaws in 2008 are the same flaws that Hollywood still has today.
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I had a lot of fun drawing this commission of Wong Fei Hung from Once Upon A Time In China II.
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I’ve made a list of 100 martial arts movies that I recommend watching…
100 Martial Arts Films:https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vSE8r14KZlNpcrhqLGWIdqW5USZipGuc_GULB4ZfR-v8sbikTCc3aPorcNAlVMfeEFsCyzNxFxlcPOr/pubhtml
Why did I do this?
I love film in general but martial arts films, or “beat em ups” as I sometimes like to call them, are my main jam. I’ve always enjoyed a good beat em up, but I don’t think it became a full blow obsession until I saw Jackie Chan’s Drunken Master as a teenager, the original 1978 version, and I’ve been voraciously seeking out and watching these types of films ever since. You can safely say I’m a connoisseur, and like most connoisseurs I never shut up about the thing I’m obsessed with, I’m always blathering on about martial arts movies, so naturally I often have people who are looking to get into the genre ask me what they should watch. I LOVE recommending things, but it’s really hard for me to just give 3 or 4 movies when I’ve watched decades of films and there’s so much variety within the genre, so I thought hey I’ll compile a list of 100 martial arts movies that I recommend. Why 100? I feel like that’s a good big round number that’ll span multiple decades, different stars, different styles, from old period kung-fu films to gritty hyper violent modern stuff, from iconic classics to some hidden gems and indie films.
What is & isn’t on the list?
While there might be a couple of hidden gems even for diehards, the intended audience for this list are people who have maybe only seen some of the more major stuff that has crossed over to the US and are interested in diving deeper into the genre. With that in mind I didn’t include a lot of really popular obvious things (so don’t ask me why there’s no Bruce Lee), and I also didn’t include much American films either aside from a few indie films, so don’t expect to see Van Damme or Jason Statham included. I also didn’t include any pre Jackie stuff, because while I enjoy a lot of it like I said I didn’t become obsessed until post-Jackie films. This list also doesn’t focus on swordplay, mainly films that include hand to hand combat and the occasional knife or blunt object.
Also please note this is not a list of the 100 “best” movies, and not even my 100 favorite, it’s more of an intro to the genre list, something that can hopefully serve as a jumping off point to help you explore on your own. I tried to make this as easy as possible, I included links to the trailer, where you can stream the film, and in some instances a direct link. There’s only a couple of movies on this list that you’d have to pay money to rent and they’re typically independent films that I think are worth supporting so those artists can continue making content. The list is VERY Jackie heavy, because most people I talk to have seen like the Rush Hour films, maybe Rumble in the Bronx, and a lot of his best films are hard to find so I did that legwork for ya’ll. Also since the major streaming services are kinda trash I had to rely on some pretty off the beaten path streaming platforms, most of these are channels I found on my Roku tv or add on channels on Prime.
Anywhoozle…
I put a lot of time and thought into this list, revised it several times, really wanted it to have some balance. There are movies on here that I think are all around masterpieces, and then there others that might have some flaws in terms of story or acting but make up for it in my mind with some really well-crafted action sequences. There are movies I really wanted to include but you just can’t find them online unless you’re going to torrent them or you have a VPN where you can check other countries. I could probably make a 500 martial arts movies list if I wanted because I’m still thinking other films I’d like to include, but like I said this list is not a be all end all, it’s a jumping off point.
I thought about providing some brief thoughts on each film but it would just be too time consuming. But if you have a question about a movie on the list ask away, if you have a question about a movie NOT on the list ask away, I obviously love talking about this stuff.
Hope you find something you enjoy. If you manage to watch all 100 films I guess you can call yourself a connoisseur as well.
