Hong Kong Cinema/Martial Arts Films: Big Fight in Little Corona

[rabidtictac]

Talk about your favorite martial arts films here. Most of the martial arts films people know, and most of the martial arts films made in "China," were actually Hong Kong films. The Shaw Brothers owned their own studio, lot, actors and everything. They had everyone under contract and owned everything in their movies. They were therefore able to produce a ridiculous amount of movies at a breakneck pace, primarily to serve the local Chinese market.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_S ... hers_films
^Look at this. This shit puts mahvul's assembly line to shame.

In addition to all of those other things Shaw owned, they had their own theaters, which only showed Shaw films. It was like an empire. There were no anti-trust laws at the time to prevent them holding a virtual monopoly on martial arts films.



Chang Cheh was probably the most prolific of the Shaw directors. This most famous film is Five Deadly Venoms imo. I don't have clips of the original audio because it's a lot harder to find the original audio. I do own DVDs of these with the original chink audio, so I don't have to listen to "He was the Snake, master of the Snake style, with the speed of a Snake!" When I watch them. Chang Cheh films tend to be darker than some of the others. There's less humor and the stories are usually about great heroes taking revenge for some kind of massacre. The good guys are frequently killed off in gruesome fashion as a result of treachery.

One of the big reasons I like older martial arts films so much is they can't hide shit like they do now. You get to see people who really can fight. They perform real moves at approximately the speed and power they would be performed in real life. It's never 100/100, but usually close. When they show a guy breaking plates with his kicks, that guy is really kicking those plates. There are a few wires used for supernatural moves, but not nearly so many as in later wuxia films. Most of the action is real, and actually happening onscreen.



36th Chamber in particular uses a lot of very long takes, with multiple passes before a cut. The action is always in frame and in focus, unlike movies made now.

[Guest]

Begins and ends with Drunken Master 2. (I'd post a clip but DHI's shitty mobile link doesn't work.)

[Kugelfisch]

If you're too stupid to post a normal link and tag it despite being a mobile fag (bad enough) I really should just ban you right away.

[VoiceOfReasonPast]

36th Chamber in particular uses a lot of very long takes, with multiple passes before a cut. The action is always in frame and in focus, unlike movies made now.

With a three-section-staff no less, which I imagine to be one of the more annoying prop weapons to use.

Also fuck action movies with shaky cam and/or cuts every 1/2 second.

[Complicity]

This is unironically my favourite movie of all time:

[Moe Bitches]

I love how cartoonishly over the top that movie is

[VoiceOfReasonPast]

That's my kind of torture porn.

[mad bum]

This is unironically my favourite movie of all time:

[Poonoo]

After Christmas I had some vouchers as gifts so I got some Asian Martial Arts DVDs and gave this one a shot. I need to see the original, you don't see movies like this played in theatres anymore outside of John Wick (but it's not the same) and that's a damn shame. Fuck capeshit.

[Kugelfisch]

That scene could do with less camera shaking.