Tian xia, anyone, a.k.a. Storm Riders?

Ong-Bak will do, though.

No Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles?

Oh good martial arts movies.... carry on

(ok, was a guilty pleasure as a kid, but omfg those stupid sequels!)

Kill Bill?

I liked Kung Fu Hustle, reminds me of Kung Fu Theater.

What we need is a top ten american made (or at least financed/produced) list.

I'm off to brainfart... I mean brainstorm.

I would replace Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon with Hero. A far better martial arts movie. Though the fighting style was similarly overblown, the choreography was significantly better.

CTHD was an ok movie, but compared to it's hype I was disappointed. (But not suprised at our culture's taste.)

Lord_Baull: Five Deadly Venoms rocked. However, it was Toad style, not frog. The new DVD has much better sound quality than the VHS I bought some years ago. Awesome kung fu.

I am really disappointed to not see Gymkata on this list...man that is a tear jerker .

what, no VAMPIRE LESBIAN KICKBOXERS?!?!?

Beverly Hills Ninja... that was good KungFu ing

chalk me up as another kung fu hustle fan, awesome movie

Legend of Drunken Master should have topped that list. The best all time fight sequences i have ever seen. Wondering why who am I didnt make the list....

No...Mortal...Kombat...Annihalation?

Useless list!

Big Bruce Lee fan, perhaps the greatest philosopher of the past 40years.

Gym-Kata!!!

Mortis, I grew up wanting to learn the snake and lizard technique after that movie. And you're right about Toad, I wasn't sure, but really didn't care to change it since I doubted anyone else saw the flik.

fragMasterFlash

Haha...hotlinkipwned

hero and batman begins (freakin ninjas)

What about you, string bean Rick James lookin' fool?

Ong-Bak is one of the best martial arts films I've ever seen. It totally pwns anything for the sheer brutality and skill.

Am I the only one that wants to see Tony Jaa learn english and become the ultimate martial arts badass? That kid is Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan rolled into one. Put him in a movie with some good music - and keep the one-kick/three-take thing, cuz that was sweet - and we'd have a martial arts god. It'd be like the Son of Bruce Lee!

/Brandon who?

The '94 Drunken Master was pretty awesome. I don't know what it is, but Bruce Lee movies never really fascinated me all that much. They weren't bad or anything, but I think it may have more to do with growing up as a kid and loving ninja movies and all things Japanese. Sho Kosugi was my hero, heck I even loved Blind Fury (eek) with Rutgar Hauer (probably because of Kosugi's cameo at the end). It wasn't until years later that I began to prefer Kung Fu more, after dabbling in Tai Chi and Wing Chun.

/forgive me, I was a kid!
/whatever happened to Bolo Yeung?

Kill Bill should not be on that list. It should be no where near that list. It was a gory kill fest, it had absolutely no style or form. It was all about chopping limbs off and blood. The only person who had any real style in that movie was Gogo Yubari (might be wrong on name). The school girl with the chained spiked ball. MAYBE Lucy Lui.... no nevermind not Lucy Lui.

And another for Masters of the flying guillotine

Man, I don't understand the Chan hating. He's funny, creative and skilled in his fight scenes. He puts on a great show.

It seems like every Jet Li film I've seen is pure wire-fu. The first I ever saw of him was Lethal Weapon 4, and I loved the final fight. I guess I need to catch one of his earlier films.

I loved CTHD. The fights were grand enough to overcome the wire-fu aspect, and the middle fight between the two women rocked. Plus, it had a real plot, as mentioned by others.

Hero had a great story as well. I thought the fights were rather lame other than the first.

Don't forget the porn version, Crouching Tiger Hidden Sausage.

As for Jackie Chan, "Who Am I" has one of the best fight scenes in ever, in the final climatic battle on the roof. See that first before poo-pooing his work.


I agree and the outtakes from that scene are awesome. That French kickboxer had some reach!

rancidPlasma:

Hell no. That movie is crap, but fun as hell to watch.

Jackie Chan has more talent in his pinky than 99% percent of action stars have in their entire bodies and is probably a better martial artist than Bruce Lee was, though Jackie himself would balk at the comparison.

Read his autobiography to learn about all the abusive training he went through at a kid in a Chinese opera school.

Lord_Baull, Disdainful::

"36th Chamber of Shaolin" and "Shaolin Master Killer" are the same movie.

It's also sometimes seen as just plain "Master Killer."

That might be the #1 on my list of kung fu films, it is an undeniable classic of the genre.

The original Drunken Master is pretty cool too.

I've seen hundreds of martial arts movies, and the only one I would have put on that list is not there.
"A Chinese Torture Chamber Story"
why? It has a kung-fu farking scene.
Whenever someone tells me about some cool martial arts movie, all I have to say is "does it have a kung-fu farking scene? . . . no? then forget it".
I'm sure many of you have seen that particular scene from that movie, I've noticed it prominently passed around on peer to peer networks. Just search for "kung-fu farking" - somtimes it's labeled "crouching tiger hidden penis"

Three words, friends:

"Circle of Iron"

People hate Jackie Chan because he doesn't perform "realistic" martial arts on screen. In the extras for the American version of Drunken Master II, he comes right out and says that the martial arts he puts on screen aren't practical for street fighting. He says they're more like dancing than fighting.

And that's okay with me. Nothing you see in the movies is "realistic" street fighting. It's all a show; it's all a dance. So why not make it a totally awesome looking and drop any pretense of acting like master of the ring?

As for Jet Li: I don't consider anybody who wears a wire suit in all his movies to be a martial arts star. If I did, I would Keanu Reeves at the top of my list. I have no doubt that Jet Li is a martial arts master, but until he makes a movie with no wires, I won't watch him on-screen.
Exception: Hero, because it was fantasy, so the wire-fu made sense.

rancidPlasma:

Very good. But brick not hit back!

OurManFlint1

Kill Bill?

Not a "Chinese Martial Arts" movie...

No Ong Bak...no list...as mentioned 100 times already.

Bruce Lee is a tiny god. They had to film him at higher framerate and then play it back at normal speed because a regular speed camera could not track his movements.

CTHD is one of my favorite movies of all time.

The way my girlfriend explains why she doesn't like Jacky Chan is that Jacky Chan fight scenes are not serious enough for her. Plus she doesn't like how artistic they are. She would prefer people beating eachother mercilessly than an artistic, sometimes comical, fight scene.

As for crouching tiger, it's Michelle Yeoh's ability that makes the movie impressive (from a martial arts stand point). Here ability to fight with multiple weapons during the scene with Ziyi Zhang and the director's ability to portray that Yeoh is a far superior warrior but that Zhang's weapon simply trumps Yeoh is spectacular.

As for hero, I think it was cool and artistic and all but there was something intangible missing from it. Maybe it simply felt to big budget.

Who would win a fight between Bruce Lee and Jet Li?
/votes for Jet Li

And no love for Sonny Chiba?

Who would win a fight between Bruce Lee and Jet Li?

That depends, does Bruce Lee have his nunchucku?
No, nevermind, wouldn't matter. Bruce Lee owns. He created his own martial art, for the love of god.

I am gonna have to pipe up for The House of Flying Daggers. It's like Shakespeare with Kung Fu!

I can think of many that should be on over the Bruce Lee/Chan stuff..Bride with White Hair, Dragon Inn, Five Deadly Venoms, the first Once Upon a Time in China..oh well. That's why I hate these idiotic lists.

Anyone else read this as "best martial arts MOVES..."?

/monkey grabs the peach

Missing from the list

1) Shaolin Vs. The Wu Tang
2) Ong Bak Thai Warrior
3) Fist of the White Lotus
4) Budhas Fist

oops... the post says "martial arts movies" and the article says "Chinese Martial Arts Movies"... so um... nevermind.

More like "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Crap" except the crap wasn't hidden; it was right out in the open.

I'd vote for "Fist of Legend" with Jet Li. I saw the orginal with Bruce Lee, and it probably was very good for its time, but I believe that Jet Li fit the character better.

Another vote for Kung Fu Hustle, with Shaolin Soccer close behind. Both Chinese martial arts, with CGI -- but excellent stories, and funny as heck.