martial arts films i have recently watched

Martial Arts Films I have recently watched:
(Please note: films that I have watched that are part of the Melbourne International Film Festival have been prefaced with MIFF)

MIFF Chocolate, Thailand, 2008, directed by Prachya Pinkaew. This film was really good fun and quite well made. It is an honest to god martial arts movie with the structure of the film revolving around a beginning section (in which we are introduced to our characters and the plot gets set up), and then features 3 big fight scenes before being resolved in a final showdown between our heroine and her supporters and the baddies. I liked the way that the 3 fight scenes in the mid part of the film were each set in a different type of factory – I thought that a nice visual theme was set up here. The final, climactic fight is a good looking set piece which takes place in a restaurant and then on the walls and balconies of buildings overlooking a small laneway in a busy Thai city. In this last fight scene I enjoyed the way the choreographer creatively responded to the architecture of the setting to give the movement sequences structure and originality.

What is it about martial arts films? Only in a martial arts film can you get away with a plot premise which is so politically incorrect – an autistic girl has a genius savant gift for learning physical technique and because of this learns martial arts from watching Bruce Lee films and thai boxing. She becomes a debt collector to help her ailing mother (as you do). At the end of this film she even gets to fight another physically disabled youth in a showdown that had the audience cheering.

The Magic Blade directed by Chu Yuan and starring Ti Lung, Ching Li and Lo Lieh. I really enjoyed this film. Each fight scene was more elaborately staged than the last and the film abounds in fabulously contrived set pieces. Many people I know would moan and bitch that this is what is wrong with chop sockies and why they are crap movies but I disagree. The bizarre gimmicks and baroque choreography that drive many of these fight scenes are precisely what I love about these movies, and why I think they are so imaginative, dynamic and just damned good fun.

Lone Wolf and Cub – Baby cart at the River Styx. There are a whole series of the Lone Wolf and Cub films that were made in the 1970s. These are Japanese samurai films with an interesting gimmick. Sorry but I am going to be lazy here and just cut and paste a paragraph I wrote about another film in this same series. The comments stand:
Great title huh! Directed by Kenji Misumi. OKAY CALL THE SOCIAL WORKERS! The toddler in this film is pushed through the countryside in a wooden pram by his assassin dad as he trudges from 1 gory fight to another. The wee tacker is constantly exposed to scenes of death and brutality and this has me seriously worried about his future psychological development. I haven’t been so horrified about the fate of a child since Jet Li’s character tied a rope around his own son and used him as a weapon in My Father is a Hero. Apart from this I actually enjoyed this film – there was a beaut fight scene every 5 minutes and I felt that it was quite nicely filmed.

Also:
The Prodigal Son
Kung Fu Hustle
Revenge of the Dragon
The Spiritual Boxer
The Trail of the Broken Blade
Human Lanterns
Duel of Fists
Dragon Swamp
Duelist
Sword of Doom
The Lizard
Tai Chi Master
Project A.
Golgo 13: Kowloon Assignment
The 12 Gold Medallions
Shaolin Hand Lock
Ong Bak.
Sex and Fury
Female Yakuza Tale
Lone Wolf and Cub – Baby Cart in the Land of Demons.
Bruce Li in Snake Island
Bichunmoo
The Bride with White Hair 2
Duel to the Death