So I’m still on a huge kung-fu kick (pun intended) since I was working on a spreadsheet of 100 martial arts movies, which I’ll be posting soon. So all but 2 of the movies I watched this week contained martial arts.
Movies I watched this week behind the cut.
The Prodigal Son
Big fan of Yuen Biao and Sammo Hung and I’ve been meaning to watch this for a long time but just haven’t seen it available anywhere til now, found it on a free streaming channel called TCL on my Roku tv, so I watched it and loved it. My favorite part of this movie is the guy that plays his master Lam Ching-ying, he’s one of those guys that’s ubiquitous in Hong Kong movies but typically in a supporting role. I really thought his performance was really good for what could’ve been (and usually is) a caricature, a lot of the other cares ARE caricatures, intentionally, but Lam Ching-ying plays an effeminate opera troupe leader but he’s nuanced rather than over the top about it. Warning that he is called some homophobic slurs within the movie. Fun movie, great choreography, and a good satisfying story too, will definitely purchase a hard copy of this one.
Martial Arts Master Wong Fei Hung
Found this while looking for more movies featuring Lam Ching-ying, he plays the bad guy in this, a Japanese swordsman bent on defeating dojo masters to prove he’s the best. Chin Ka-lok plays the hero, Wong Fei Hung, who is a Chinese folk hero that has been played by every major Hong Kong action star; Jackie, Jet Li, Donnie Yen, Sammo, Gordon Liu, and so many others. I didn’t know this before but this, Drunken Master, Once Upon a Time in China, Iron Monkey, Rise of the Legend and so many other films are fictionalized stories about Wong Fei Hung in different stages of his life. An interesting thing I’m finding about Chinese culture through film is they treat historical figures really no differently than we treat superheroes. Wong Fei Hung, Ip Man, Huo Yuanjia (portrayed by Jet Li in Fearless among others), and it’s kinda cool and beautiful that after these people have long passed on they have become these epic larger than life characters. Anyway, the movie is cool, has really fun choreography. It kinda ends abruptly, but that’s because it touches on elements of his life that are later explored in other films. Cool movie.
Unlucky Stars
This stars and is directed by Dennis Ruel, on the left, its an independent martial arts film that is on youtube for free, definitely recommend it. The title and the whole film is an homage to 80′s Hong Kong cinema; there’s a “lucky stars” series of films that star Jackie Chan, Sammo Hung, Yuen Biao and others. If you’re bout that life you’ll catch references, if you’re not it’s still a fun little beat em up. It’s not going to blow you away with it’s cinematography, story or acting, but I thought it was really good for a low budget affair of essentially a bunch of stunt performers getting together to make a movie together. Had some good laughs, fights and stunts are great, I hope these guys get an opportunity to keep doing bigger and better stuff.
Undisputed 2
I’ve known about the Undisputed films for a long time and was never too in a rush to watch them, decided to rent the movies on Prime and was not disappointed. When you watch a lot of East Asian action films the choreography in American films, especially straight to video stuff like this, can seem a little slow and boring, but that wasn’t the case with this at all. The fights are fun, the characters are fun, and Scott Adkins kills it. Oh, and by the way Undisputed 1 features Ving Rhames, and I don’t remember else, I saw it eons ago, I don’t think it has any connection to these films other than the concept of fighting in prison.
Undisputed 3
It was such a smart move to turn the franchise’s focus to the villain of the previous film. Boyka has a real Vegeta story arc in these movies, and his super athletic style is just fun to watch. The highlight of this movie to me is when he faces off against a capoeira expert and they’re both just flipping around during the fight. I think this movie is my favorite of the Undisputed series, it has a satisfying end.
Triad Wars
This is a mob movie with Sammo as the boss and Wu-Jing, pictured above as his enforcer. It’s more of a crime movie than an action movie, but the action scenes are crazy, it’s like if you’re watching the Departed than all of a sudden someone starts flipping around and cutting off everybody’s arms. There are some brutal kills in this. I honestly don’t know if I was following the story that well, the weird thing about movies where different crime factions go to war is it’s like… these people are all evil, and we watch them do fucked up shit, and they all have the same motivation; money, so it’s like I’m not really emotionally invested in what happens, I’m just here to enjoy a guy in all white landing on top of car and then proceeding to kill everyone with a sword.
Fighter in the Wind
I had been looking for this movie for a while but forgot what it was called, and it’s hard to search for martial arts movies because what are you going to search “the movie where a guy fights a lot of people”? Anyway I finally found it and it’s a cool movie, another film that’s based on a true historical figure, I don’t know how faithful this movie is but it was enjoyable. This coward who is always being humiliated in fights decides to train himself to become stronger and then challenges every dojo owner in Japan to a fight. It’s a karate movie, so the choreography is not as flash as kung-fu films, and he essentially wins his fights not because he has better technique but because he can take more punishment and hit harder. SIde note: THe lead actor looks so much like Stephen Chow it was distracting.
Judas and the Black Messiah
The hype is real. This was a good ass movie. The performances are all perfect. I knew that Fred Hampton was assassinated, but to see the whole story and how it went down and to get to know him really gave you the full impact of just how fucked up it was on so many levels.
Undisputed 4
Back to Undisputed! Boyka’s back baby! Cool movie, and furthers his character development. I still think I like the previous movie a little better but this was fun too.
Brigsby Bear
Kyle Mooney is the current best member of SNL, he wrote this film and it’s funny and weird and endearing. I guess after watching people fight in prison, the true story of a black radical being assassinated by the government, and countless people dismembered and impaled, I wanted to watch something a little more lighthearted and fun. Kyle Mooney is an awkward manchild who wants to recreate a show he grew up with. I don’t want to say anymore than that, but I enjoyed it.
A Kid From Tibet
Yuen Biao with some Golden Child style mystical action adventure. It’s not mind-blowing in terms of action, but I liked this, it has some precursor to Naruto type stuff in it, doing hand jutsus to initiate powers and stuff like that. My favorite thing about the movie is the main henchwoman played by Nina Li Chi, who I’m not retroactively deciding is one of 80′s crushes. I actually went ahead and bought this on DVD just because it’s such an obscure movie I wanted to have it my physical collection.
hi… ok so here’s a lil update. over the weekend i had a little mental breakdown/depressive episode sorry snl liveblog community i missed you all which was only made worse once i found out that kate, aidy, pete & kyle were leaving snl. but, if you know me at all, you’ll know kate specifically has been a huge inspiration & i’ve loved her ever since her first proper main sketch with sofia vegara, so to say this one hit me a little hard was an understatement i was literally sobbing through the final encounter cold open lmao regardless, i wish all of them the best in the future. i cannot wait to see what their careers have in store for them, they all deserve it!
although i’m gonna miss the aidy & kate duo sketches :’) the random pete update features :’) kyle and his weird little brain :’) they do say that all good things must come to an end, i’m excited for newer cast members to shine, the new ideas, all of it! i’m optimistic about next season.
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