Tag: Martial Arts

Sixteen years ago, in the year 2000, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon was released and changed cinema forever. I’d say it is hard to imagine any other martial arts movie having as much of an impact as this one. It won Best Foreign Film at the Oscars, a few other awards, and was nominated for a shit ton more. It put Ang Lee on the map, who has gone on to direct Brokeback Mountain, Life of Pi, and yes, Hulk.

It was renowned for its cinematography, changing the way a lot of fight scenes were done for the better. Something shaky cam had tried to kill. It has been referenced in TV shows and films, parodied, and is probably just one of the most well known martial arts films of all time, even if most people haven’t seen it.

So a sequel was finally announced, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: Sword of Destiny, hoping it could recapture all of the magic as the first. And hey, everyone can watch it too, because it was put on Netflix right away and some IMAX theaters. No need to buy a ticket. Can watch in your own home, in Chinese with subtitles or in English dubbed. What a world we live in!

I should note, I totally went the dubbed route. I have been watching a lot of foreign films lately, and I needed a break, damn it.

I’m tired of all these motherfucking Ninjas attacking these motherfucking old ladies.

Set almost two decades after the first film, we only have two characters returning. The first is Yu Shu Lien (Michelle Yeoh), our hero from the first story, and Green Destiny, the sword that people really want, and will want again.

Who wants the sword? Well, everybody.

Including Hades Dai (Jason Scott Lee), a war leader with a large army and a huge tower, looking to take over everything. He is the villain if you couldn’t tell from his name. There is also a mysterious girl, Snow Vase (Natasha Liu Bordizzo) who was trained very young in the cool martial arts stuff, by a mysterious female trainer. And of course we have Tiefang (Harry Shum Jr., yes the dancing Asian guy from Glee), who snuck into Yu Shu’s compound to steal the sword, but who does he work for?!

That’s not it either, though!

We have Silent Wolf (Donnie Yen), who also has a mysterious past and relationship with Yu Shu. He is more interested in stopping Hades, and lucks into his own army to do so! Well, four other people. Silver Dart Shi (Juju Chan), Flying Blade (Chris Pang), Turtle Ma (Darryl Quon), and Iron Crow (Roger Yuan).

Want some magic? Sure, let’s get some magic. We have Eugenia Yuan playing Blind Enchantress.

Ice fighting is a lot like dancing, it makes sense.

In a lot of ways, Sword of Destiny is like a lot of modern products. Actually an old product designed as new in flashy boxes and colorful lights, but of lesser quality so you have to buy another one in a short time.

Practical effects and stunt work are gone for cheaper/easier CGI. Intricate fight scenes are still there, but less impactful than the original and mostly look like a lot of other current martial art films.

The plot is so bad, I can barely even tell you what the hell happened. True, I remember close to nothing about the plot of the first film, but I blame that on time after only seeing it once, and not on it being overly bad.

Yes, some of the fight scenes are still entertaining at least, but they end up being the only occasionally good part of the film. The final battles are laughable, especially the fight scene on the tower. It is so incredibly animated looking, it almost feels like a bad video game.

Hey, at least this movie is free. Too bad if you haven’t seen the first film, for whatever reason Netflix doesn’t have that available to watch. Not that you need to see it to understand the movie. Maybe they realized it wasn’t as good, so they got rid of the better one to force you to see the new one.

Confession time. I did not do my due diligence. But I did almost just say “do do”. If I am ever going to watch a movie part of a pre-existing franchise, I always make sure I have seen all the previous films before it. Just recently I had to watch all the Alvin and Chipmunks before Alvin and the Chipmunk: The Road Trip. I did it with Madagascar 3 and I did it with Ice Age 4.

The theme for all of these are kid movies, but I have to do something similar when Resident Evil: The Final Chapter comes out. Kid movies are easy to do, and honestly, can multi task like a beast through them.

But I did not see Ip Man or Ip Man 2. I have known about them for at least 3 years and heard good things, but never sat down to see them. Getting to review Ip Man 3 was kind of last minute, the kind of last minute that didn’t allow me to put a lot of time into two whole movies full of subtitles. But I read pretty excellent plot outlines on them (Wikipedia), and hey, if I like this one, they are certainly going to be watched within a few months!

Oh I know that guy. This is now familiar and I am no longer afraid.

Alright, Hong Kong! Did you know that something from Hong Kong was called Hong Konese, not Hong Kongian? The more you know.

Ip Man (Donnie Yen) is living with is wife (Lynn Hung) and youngest son, and he is now a successful martial arts teacher. He is a Master at a big school, where masters work together and have their own disciples, including Master Tin (Ka-Yan Leung).

Despite the police force in Hong Kong, crime is still rampant with many street gangs. An American developer, Frank (Mike Tyson) is trying to muscle in his way to HK and is using locals to do the work for him. He hires a former student of Master Tin, Ma King-Sang (Patrick Tam) to force a school to sell its prime real estate to him. Thankfully, Ip Man’s son goes to that school, and he helps guard the school from the vandals.

But that is not all! No, there is also a Cheung Tin-chi (Jin Zhang), who also studied under the same master as Ip Man. However, he claims to be the better martial artist. Apprently Ip Man teaches a modified version of Wing Chun while Cheung knows and teaches the official way. He wants to challenge for title of Grand master, but first he has to earn money (with the bad guys!) despite morals, and make his own gym a big deal.

Also featuring some wife drama. And featuring Karena Ng as Miss Wong a teacher, Kent Cheng returning as Fatso, and Kwok-Kwan Chan playing a young Bruce Lee, whom Ip Man most famously trained.

I want to wear all of the cool outfits, but have no energy to become a grandmaster. 🙁

I had to take some serious notes throughout the film to make sure I wouldn’t get confused, given my unfamiliarity with the back ground. But thankfully, Wikipedia’s plot outline for the third film is also pretty detailed. It just has a big spoiler in the first few sentences, which is stupid.

I loved the fight scenes in the film. They ranged from elegant (the fight scene between the two Wing Chun masters) to extreme (Ip Man taking on what felt like 1,000 fighters, workers, gang members while protecting his son). And they were all so very good. I enjoy the crap out of a fight scene where I can actually tell what is going on. The actors and stunt fighters (if there are any?) did a wonderful job and every jab, punch and strike is visible and well choreographed. In particular, I also really enjoyed a fight scene down a stair case with a lot of interesting angles.

The biggest problem with the movie is that the whole thing seems messy. I was worried about describing the plot, because it seemed to go so many different ways. It wasn’t one nice and easy to follow story, which I believe the other films might have been. Maybe none of the plots were big enough for a film, or they had all these things they wanted to say and only wanted to do them in a single movie for budget reasons. Who knows. But it is quite crowded and at times it meanders.

Yen has a lot of charm as our lead character and watching him definitely made me want to watch the other films. He is extremely charismatic, but in a quiet way, and it is nice having an honest good person to cheer for in the movies. Too many anti-heroes nowadays. Ip Man is a saint.

I almost watched The Grandmaster a few years ago, but the US release was delayed for some reason. And because of that, I forgot about the film, but it is about the same man. I have to believe he was the coolest dude to have this many movies about his life.

Ip Man 3 was the exact thing to get me back into watching martial arts film. I was planning on re-watching Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon for the first time since I was 11 before the sequel is released, and I think I finally have the energy to do it.

Something happened to Keanu Reeves while he was filming The Matrix. In one pivotal scene, Morpheus ingrained fighting skills into his head, causing him to wake up and give the famous line, “I know Kung Fu!”

I think that one moment in 1999 changed Keanu Reeves’ life forever. He actually had to learn martial arts for that role, so he probably became obsessed with it. Obsessed enough to finally show off some of his talents by directing his own movie. Man of Tai Chi is the directorial debut of Mr. Reeves, and he isn’t even the main character! If you want to see Keanu star in a martial arts movie, you will have to wait a few more months for 47 Ronin.

Can you believe that this is the first time I had to tag Keanu on my website? What have you been doing the last few years Keanu?!

Instead, this film is about Chen Lin-Hu (Tiger Hu Chen), a student of Tai Chi. His master, Yang (Yu Hai), is thrilled at his progress, but is concerned with his power. He is worried he might succumb to a dark way of using Tai Chi and use it for evil. Psha. Evil.

Well, Chen is hurting for money right now. He enters a regular martial arts tournament to show his worth, and prove that Tai Chi can be used for more than just exercise, while also showcasing the greatness of his temple. Unfortunately, that doesn’t put food on the table. Which is why he accepts a job interview from Donaka Mark (Keanu Reeves), an American security company to help pay the bills. What he doesn’t realize is that this interview is for a secret underground fighting ring…to the death! It pays extremely well, puts Chen against many different kinds of fighters, while also being kept secret from his friends and family.

But Sun Jingshi (Karen Mok), captain of the Hong Kong police force, has been chasing Donaka for months, and Chen might be her ticket to finally bringing him down. He just has to wade through some morality issues, as his mind slowly becomes corrupted by Donaka, who might have ulterior motives.

The actor was a stunt man on the Matrix movies. Huh. I wonder how he first met Keanu.

The most remarkable thing about Keanu’s first directed movie is that he chose to direct a movie in 90% Chinese. He may know the language, but it is not his native tongue, so I assume there were a lot of struggles with it. I don’t speak Chinese, so I cannot confirm if the language was clunky or unnatural, but I have heard reports saying so.

The plot itself for the first half of the film isn’t very unique. However, through few twists and turns, I think this movie becomes not your average martial arts flick, with a much more powerful story than what the trailer and plot description promise.

Every fight was filmed and choreographed beautifully. They were both captivating and entertaining. They were also varied enough to not feel repetitive, through the use of different fighting styles and locations. The final fight in the film itself was over eight minutes long, in a classic setting and felt like the perfect way to end this film.

It was strange watching Keanu as the villain, a role he doesn’t often take. The oddest part was his deep voice, kind of an eternal business grunt. Because he was the arbiter of so many fights, he had to say phrases like “Finish Him!” and “Fight!” constantly. I want to assume they did that as a Mortal Kombat reference, as it sounded pretty close to the real thing.

Man of Tai Chi is not the best martial arts film out there, but it does have its own unique style, and is probably one of the best ones that will come out all year. Definitely a great first effort from Keanu, but I hope he doen’t just stick to one genre, like RZA.

After I saw Tai Chi Zero, I was immediately excited for the sequel, Tai Chi Hero. I knew they were filmed around the same time, and part of a planned trilogy (of which the third has not been announced yet, peculiar, hmm).

I was a bit disappointed that the first film wasn’t a “steam punk martial arts” movie as advertised. Only very barely. But to recap the first movie, we got a guy, going to the Chen village, to learn a very special Kung-Fu. He defends the down, despite not knowing the Kung-Fu, and can sometimes turn into a demon when his tiny horn things get hit. Yeah boy. Let’s continue, damn it.

Aw shit. This movie has fancy beat sticks.

Yang Lu Chan (Yuan Xiaochao), formerly The Freak, is ready to learn the famous Chen Kung-Fu! But they still insist that only actual villagers can learn the martial arts, no outsiders. So they set up an impromptu wedding to marry Lu Chan to Chen Yu Niang (Angelababy), famed daughter of Master Chen Chang Xing (Tony Leung Ka Fai), who he is smitten by and totally saved last movie.

Why are they afraid of outsiders? Basically, back in the day, one or more of their former students went total asshole on another village, and hurt a lot of people. They came back pretty mad, embarrassed their students, and promised that if they ever taught any outsiders again, their village would be doomed. So teaching only their own family and kind was a way of protecting against that. So people are still afraid that Yang Lu Chan learning the art will kill their town.

Remember Fang Zi Jing (Eddie Peng)? Probably not, those are sounds that don’t sound familiar. Well he was the bad guy who was from the last movie. He is pissed that he got defeated, so he teams up with the East India Company and Duke Fleming (Peter Stormare), who is upset over the death of that one chick from the last movie. So he is now a governor, has an army, and lots of cannons.

Aw yeah. Can they defeat the threat that is bigger than the last one? Can he learn the Chen Kung-Fu? Because he would totally have to use it to beat a whole mess of new people, a gauntlet type of situation, to prove the fighting style’s legitimacy. That is kind of just tacked on to the end.

The scariest part of this movie is that Peter Stormare is in it. Who the fuck saw that plot twist coming?

Here is the main differences between the two films. The first film is pretty silly, with crazy fighting, video game references, and it was entertaining. The plot was weak. In the sequel, they want to expand the plot, the universe, and so many back stories. There is a lot more drama in this one, enough for me to take out the Comedy tag.

The problem is that this film almost feels like a strange rehashing of the first film. The ending is completely rushed, and unfortunately the most entertaining part. The final fight scene on top of the…small tiny walls (I am not sure what to call them. Partitions?) was excellent.

Now, I did not know that this (eventual) trilogy was meant to talk about the beginnings of Tai Chi, when it was apparently first just a variant of Kung-Fu. So this is supposed to be a very exaggerated and crazy, true story. Kind of. I guess that is interesting, but it is not something made clear at all in the first film.

I think this is definitely a weaker film than the first, in terms of entertainment. The fight scene at the end was dope. They also decided to get rid of his cool, demon crazy fighting ability half way through the movie. Not sure why. I guess because they never really used it at all. I feel teased. Super teased. Still decently well done though. Hopefully part three is a musical.

I don’t remember /why/ I know about Tai Chi Zero, but damn was I interested. It said steampunk and martial arts! Why not! Seems cool! I like some of those things.

Especially since currently, martial art movies seem to have left realism behind to focus on better things. More exciting things. Like unrealism. Yes. The best type of fights are unreal, we all know that. I assume that every fight type has already happened, so we have to start bending physics to make it interesting again.

This has nothing to do with this movie.

But I am glad that it features Thwaps!

So this takes place sometime in the past in China, like normal. Our main character is a freak. Really. That is his nickname The Freak (Yuan Xiaochao). That is because when he was born he had a tiny mini-horn on his head. He grew up wanting to learn how to fight, but no one took him seriously. That is until he beat up a bunch of kids his age after they hit him in his horn. Once he gets hit in the horn, he goes all demonic on people, gaining skill and destroying everyone.

Well, long story short, his town gets destroyed when he is older and his former master tells him to go learn the Chen Kung Fu, in a town on a mountain outside of civilization. But when he finally gets there, no one will teach him because he is an outsider! Some old laborer (Tony Leung Ka Fai) tries to help him learn it anyway, through repitition. Yay fake Kung Fu Styles!

But the plot comes when a former townsfolk guy Fang Zi Jing (Eddie Peng) has returned from college! He wants to bring the railroad to their town and increase profits. The town doesn’t like electricity, they shun him, he gets mad, and vows vengeance. We also have Mandy Lieu as his white-ish girlfriend, and Angelababy as the future love interest of the Freak, who knows the Kung Fu Style!

But first, he has to fight this little girl. True story.

That is about it plot wise! This stranger might be able to help save their town from the evil western capitalist machine ways! So the story might be super anti-America without explicitly saying it, but I am still fine with it as long as the fights are cool.

And they are cool! But they are also amusing. Easiest way to describe amusing fight to me is a Jackie Chan fight, but they take amusing fight in a new way. Through specia effects! Like some video game shit. Stage 1, Stage 2 stuff. It helps invigorate the experience!. Tons of tiny additional features to add that add to the fights, and well, they are hard to explain, and I find it funny.

What I found annoying? He went Freak mode in the first scene in the movie, before the plot, and never did the rest of the movie. Huh. Why? This might be a planned trilogy, because it doesn’t end with the plot resolved, and the sequel, Tai Chi Hero, comes out to America in June. Also, I should note, that this movie is far from steampunk in any way or form. Even stranger, this movie has Tai Chi in the title, but of course, he has to go learn Kung Fu. Who am I to question that shit. Maybe they are all the same?

If you saw the trailer for The Man With The Iron Fists, you would have immediately thought of “Kill Bill“. Heck, Quentin Tarantino‘s name is plastered all over it. However, that is actually “Quentin Tarantino presents!” What does that mean? Well, he gave some money to the project. Yeah, that is about it.

Instead, consider this a movie by RZA, more famously known as the “leader” of the Wu-Tang Clan.

Set in China? Doesn’t matter, I will show one of the two white people in the movie first.

In Jungle Village, life is crazy. China in general was pretty crazy in the early 1900s. But in this village, it seems like all the weirdest people decided to get together and make a city of sin. It even has the best brothel in the area, lead by Madam Blossom (Lucy Liu). There are two warring gangs, the Lions and the Wolf. The Golden Lion wants peace, but due to sabotage, he is poisoned and killed, leaving the Silver Lion (Byron Mann) in charge, with Bronze Lion (Cung Le) now second in command.

Oh yeah, I hope you like silly names.

The Silver Lion wants to steal the governor’s gold, and live like royalty for the rest of his days, killing any who stand in his way. But his gang needs weapons. That’s where the Blacksmith (RZA) comes in, a man who hates fighting, but needs to get money to buy his love’s freedom (Jamie Chung) and escape the village. Too bad leaving can never be that easy.

With other characters such as Jack Knife (Russell Crowe), the X-Blade (Rick Yune), Bronze Body (Dave Bautista), Poison Dagger (Daniel Wu), and The Gemini, the fight over Jungle Village will be one that lives in infamy.

But just who is the Man With Iron Fists?

Oh well, probably this guy.

If you like crazy Kung-Fu movies, you will be pleased to know that this movie has some of the craziest I have seen. Goriest too, so hopefully that isn’t an issue. I almost think it could give Kung Fu Hustle a run for its money! The major players in this town don’t just need simple weapons for their battles, they need strong and creative ones. Claws, fists, automatic knives that can shoot saws, suits of armor that throw out blades, you name it.

That is really all this movie is about. Over the top fight scenes, with over the top players. Plot? The plot isn’t even important overall. Which leads to the films biggest problem. Not the lack of plot, but trying to force the plot on us.

Overall, most of the film is pretty fast paced, fight to fight, with enough plot to get the basic story. But halfway through the movie, bam, it slows down and we get stuck with a flash back story. The problem with that story is that it really doesn’t add too much to the overall plot (nor character motivations) yet takes a long time to do so.

RZA felt a bit too laid back in the role for my tastes, trying to seem mysterious, but coming off aloof. A stark difference compared to the rest of the cast. Crowe and Liu were of course brilliant, both causing me to laugh and cringe throughout the movie.

The Man With The Iron Fists is a film that doesn’t take itself too seriously, so neither should you. Instead, enjoy the beautiful fight scenes and the interesting characters.

Champions. Or a film hard to find on IMDB because a lot of movies are called that. This one being a hidden one too, because no one really cares I guess.

It is also super hard to find pictures of the movie for, given that title. So here is something completely “unrelated”.

This movie is inspired by true events, but you know, only inspired. It is the 1930s or 1920s, and China is going to participate in their first Olympic games! Woo! Only like, running, and some karate show, and that is about it. The main character is played by Dicky Cheung (heh), and he is a master at some form of martial arts, and also just a charismatic guy. He wears hats for goodness sake!

This movie is pretty much like an older martial arts movie. Kind of cheesy, and lots of experts. It is just set to a different story. Dicky is in love with the best runner China has, but she won’t marry him. They have to do things like raise money to even make it there (damn cheap government). Not only that, but of COURSE a martial arts tournament takes place to see which group of people should go!

Oh yeah. And one of the gyms is “evil” and wants to fight too much. Also there was a plot about a stolen baby, that came WAY out of no where, and took forever to finish. It was super pointless.

The fighting was decent, but no one really changed or did as good as Dicky Cheung. Good at fighting, was pretty funny, and when necessary, sweet and dramatic.

This film came out in China in 2008 and is clearly just mostly propaganda. Just took a long time for it to come out to the USA on dvd (three years later).

“At this rate, we won’t make the Olympics until 2008!” – Real line, not real scene.

So yeah, unless you really like martial arts, you probably wont find anything exciting about the movie.

1 out of 4.

I should start off by saying I do not hate foreign movies. Subtitles can be annoying if they are barely in a movie (so if I am not watching fully, I might miss something) but if I know it is all subtitles, I should be fine. One of my favorite movies I’ve seen this year was over two hours and subtitled.

But I am soooo bad at Kung-Fu/Martial Art movies. Sure, sometimes the fight scenes are good. But I feel like half of them tell the same story. Especially a story like what Shaolin offers.

A lot of my Shaolin Monk knowledge comes from Mortal Kombat.

So Shaolin is a movie with China and Warlords. Some dude is bad, some bad things happen. Dude goes to a Shaolin Temple after losing everything, to redeam himself. Jackie Chan is in this movie as a smaller role, as the cook for the Monks. Training sequence, attack from gun people for main dude, but everyone wants to protect him still. Eventually finds redemption, a lot of people die, and somehow Jackie Chan is secretly still good at fighting.

But yeah. It all seems unoriginal. It had beautiful scenery, clothing, homes, etc. The fighting was usually interesting, especially the Jackie Chan fight (I guess because it was less serious? You know how he does it).

“What are you talking about? Jackie Chan only does serious fights!” – Response to Review

So yeah. This could be a fantastic martial arts movie. But to me it is just okay. I promise I won’t review these again, hah.