Judging by the DVD cover that has 2 guys fighting on top of a speeding train I had assumed this was more of a martial arts/action movie than what it actually is. While there is a smattering of fighting and a little action here and there(and that train scene does sorta happen) overall this thing plays out more as a drama about a couple who are facing some moral quandries about being thieves. Andy Lau plays the main thief, among many, and wears a wig for some unknown reason throughout most of the movie. Can't say I'd reccomend this to anyone but it did have excellent cinematography and looked well shot for what that's worth.
This one is a very epic Wuxia martial-arts flick. While it looks great and was obviously director well by Tsui Hark I can't say it was all that engrossing and at over 2 and a half hours that can be a bit of a problem. The story deals with kung fu being banned by the emperor and then our 7 heroic swordsmen(or is it swordspeople since one of them is a lady?) have to save a village. It starts out pretty cool with decapitations and limbs flying everywhere but then settles into pretty predictable territory. I've read that it was inspired by THE SEVEN SAMURAI but I don't see much in comparison to the Kurosawa classic.
The first DRUNKEN MASTER starred Jackie Chan back in '78. The 2nd and 3rd(this one) both came out in '94. This is definitely the worst of the 3 and not just because it's missing Mr. Chan. Apparently the backstory here is that director Lau Kar Leung left before completing Part 2 so this was his revenge. I'm not sure how good of a revenge it is to make something like this but I guess he had bigger hopes for the outcome. My main problem, besides all the weird political stuff, is that Gordon Liu, plays the main bad guy and it's hard for me to see him in that role so I spent a good portion of the movie rooting against the heroic Andy Lau. The other problem is that nobody gets drunk even once in this so I'm not sure why it has this title. AKA DRUNKEN MASTER KILLER (trying to capitalize on Gordon Liu's earlier masterpiece).
This is sort-of a kung fu movie version of THE BRADY BUNCH. You see there's the Wu Tang family that has a bunch of girls and the Shaolin kids who are all male and the boys become really keen on joining the 2 groups together so they can finally have a mom in their lives. These parts are pretty silly comedy crap but there is a group of naughty threatening pirate-types looking to do some raping and pillaging that at least gives us a decent showdown at the end. There's a guy with nunchucks that look like they were made out of dinosaur bones, a dude with a spinning shield with blades on it, knives on the end of a rope used as a weapon and all your more standard swords and staffs stuff. Jet Li, who I was never a huge fan of, is fairly good in this. I think I generally prefer his earlier stuff to the more well-known big Hollywood crap that he's famous for.
Apparently the story goes that it was so hot during the filming of this that people passed out while doing their stunts which seems like some terrible child abuse, which I unfortunately feel like isn't all that unusual in Hong Kong cinema from these days.
AKA SHAOLIN TEMPLE 2 ( The first SHAOLIN TEMPLE also features Jet Li but I don't think this is really a direct sequel of any sort. There's also MARTIAL ARTS OF SHAOLIN with Li in '86 which is considered the 3rd movie in this very loosely related trilogy), SHAOLIN BOYS and SHAOLIN KIDS
This is the most recent Jackie Chan film to get released and, even though it's a Chinese production, it unfortunately follows the Hollywood blueprint of using a bunch of awful-looking CGI in an action movie. Even if we overlook that, which is impossible, it's a pretty basic action flick with a your typical explosions and shootouts to cover for anything truly interesting going on. I'll give Mr. Chan credit for still doing some kung fu in his late 60's but I think he should stick to more dramatic roles in the future. Skip it unless you really enjoy those FAST AND THE FURIOUS movies and want to see Jackie Chan in one of them.
Another one of those long-ass modern Asian films. As with most of them I've seen this one is really well-done if not a little slow and drawn-out at points giving it that artsy-fartsy feel that all the "serious" film fans drool over. You won't find any geese in this but you will find gangster antics involving a cop getting shot and killed by our main character(Ge Hu) and lots of gangsters on motorcycles. A guy gets an umbrella shoved through him at one point which I found to be the highlight. A lot of the rest of it seemed to be moving in slow-motion. If you like modern movies that are trying to emulate film-noirs and have a lot of endurance though check it out.
Alright I guess those are geese in the trailer but it's very foggy and they look like flamingos!:
This is pretty generic cop/kung-fu stuff from what I've seen. I guess what makes this one stand out at least a little bit is the combination of UFC-style moves(choke holds and arm-bars etc.) and Jiu-Jitsu mixed in with the more standard punching and kicking stuff. Most of the film is more of a drama with the chop-sockey mostly held off until the big final fight sequence. Donnie Yen does not seem like the greatest action hero to me and I often confuse him with Jet Li but maybe that's just because I don't watch a ton of these more modern Asian action flicks but if that's your scene give it a look.
This is a kung fu flick that focuses on some warring factions(one of which, The Jin appear to be Arabic in the way they dress and the big-ass genie swords they wield) and a Shaolin Buddhist monastery that caught in between. But really it's just a bunch of crazy crap thrown together for your amazement/amusement. You get a little boy thrown on a spike for starters, a guy gets his leg lopped off and in one nutso scene, unlike any I've seen in a martial arts film before, birds and monkeys suddenly attack an army(this contains some animal cruelty bits, like many Hong Kong films, so watch out you squeamish types) after our hero just whistles. The fight bits all seem to be sped up so you get this hyper-kinetic Benny Hill-like feel. The cast has to be one of the biggest in kung fu movie history which may be due to it being a mainland China co-production(I hear there are a lot of people there). Definitely one that stands out from your more typical genre fare. I still have no idea what an Arhat is though.
This modern kung fu flick is a remake of 1972's Shaw Brothers classic BOXER FROM SHANTUNG which I sadly still need to see. I hope in that one everything is not colored different tones of grey and looks so drab that suicide seems like a better option than existing in the world these characters occupy. Since it wasn't shot digitally, like this, but on actual film I'm probably pretty safe. Besides this terrible trait the action scenes here are decent enough, even though they all rely heavily on looking like something from THE MATRIX(thanks to stunt coordinator Yeun Wo-Ping who did the stunts for THE MATRIX) like a lot of modern films do and remind me more of a cartoon than anything I'm supposed to take seriously. Sammo Hung does a good job in what little he gets to do. Main star Philip Ng has a sort of Bruce Lee look(he would go on to play Bruce in the bio-pic BIRTH OF THE DRAGON in 2016) so that helps. The best thing I can say about this is that it has inspired me to go back and catch up on some 70's fu flicks that I've missed.
Even the trailer looks washed-out as hell and practically black & white!:
Probably the most amazing thing to me, after viewing other recent films from Asia, is that this historical epic about the end of the Chinese royal empire, is only a little over an hour and a half. The story here seems so big that I was sure I was in store for another 3 hour plus ass-numb-a-thon, but the gods have smiled on me this time. There's some cool war action scenes and I guess if you're a big history buff this might be more interesting. Not being an expert on the history of China's Imperial rule I wasn't even sure what was so bad about it from this movie except that they had ruled for a really long time. I guess I could just go read a history book but it seems like an important factor that sets things into motion here might have been mentioned. Jackie Chan, as a revolutionary fighter, is the complete opposite of what you might expect from his more common comedic roles and I dig the older more serious Jackie, He does get in one kung fu scene where he shows off some of his more familiar athletic tricks and he is credited as co-director though I'm not sure how much of that he actually did. Overall this might be a good one-time watch for history buffs but action movie fans might be a little overwhelmed and/or put-off by the politics and motivations.
Technically Jackie has been in more than 100 movies but I guess if you don't count a few it makes for a cool tagline!:
