Top 10 Must See Martial Arts Movies
Apr 28
Martial Arts movies 4 Comments
There are tons of other really cool martial arts films, but if I had to pick the Top 10 for me, these would be it.
10. Once Upon A Time In China 2
Asian audiences have known Jet Li well before his Lethal Weapon 4 western debut. In fact Jet Li is arguably was famous throughout Asia for his role as the legendary folk hero Wong Fei Hong. In OUATC 2 he squares off with another famous martial artist Donnie Yen. It will be years later before the 2 would ever meet again on film in the movie Hero.
Warehouse fight scene between Jet Li and Donnie Yen
9. Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon
Although purists would argue that CTHD wasn’t THAT good of a martial arts movie, we cannot discount it’s importance. It successfully introduced the genre of wuxia to Western audiences weaving high quality production, good script, great special effects, and some amazing wire-fu.
The Green Destiny goes through a lot of weapons.
8. Ong Bak
When people think martial arts flicks, Thailand doesn’t come to mind as a hub of action movies, but it’s slowly becoming one. Martial arts idols of the 90′s and 2000s like Jet Li and Jackie Chan were getting old and the audience was ready for a hero. As people were becoming tired of wire-fu, Ong Bak came out of nowhere show casing no-nonsense down and dirty Muay Boran (a predecessor of Muay Thai). Fighting wasn’t something beautiful and balletic, but as effective simple and deadly. Not only were the fights brutal, but the movie also advertised no wires, all stunts done for real by Tony Jaa. Overnight, he became a celebrity and people were hungry for more.
Muay Boran p’wns other styles.
Popularity: 39% [?]
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Pek Pongpaet is the VP of Technology and Product for SpotOn Inc. Pongpaet’s expertise ranges from product design and development, and martial arts. Prior to SpotOn, Pongpaet worked at Accenture Technology Labs in the research department coming up with next generation user interfaces. At Roundarch, a technology and strategy consulting firm, Pongpaet’s work included envisioning and designing the dashboard of the future for the Tesla Model S electric car.
Apr 29, 2008 @ 18:24:00
This is a great list! I just want to reiterate how amazing Tony Jaa is, and I’m glad he made the list twice. While Jackie Chan and Jet Li, and all of the others highlighted in this list, are impressive in many ways, Tony Jaa’s sheer power and control make him stand out as a force to be reckoned with in future martial arts films.
Aug 14, 2009 @ 20:52:55
Hey, does anyone remember these two movies? It’s killing me, old channel 5 karate movies late 70′s I guess, saturday afternoons in New York.
One was where they had this flying guiliteen (sp?), they would throw it on a rope, it would go around the victims head and they’d yank the rope and off with his head.
The other one and my favorite one from a kid was where 3-5 guys went off to different parts of the forest to train, one had a bo staff, one had this contraption where it was a few chain links together witha knife on the end that he’d whip around, then at the end, they all face off against individuals in a one on one fight against whoever they were pissed about, the bo staff I belive fought inthe water and swung the staff back and forth to make the water splash around, and I belive it was like 5 deadly venoms, but they would be called something like Earth, Wind, fire, something else and something else.
Can ANYONE HELP ME PLEASE, it’s been killing me.
May 18, 2010 @ 16:30:24
Not sure you will ever see the answer to this question, but the two movies you are thinking of are The Flying Guillotine with Chen Kuan-Tai and the other is 5 Shaolin Masters with David Chiang, Ti Lung, and Alexander Fu Sheng. Both are classic films and could easily be on any kung fu film list. And before folks talk about the lack of realism of old kung fu films as a reason to leave them off many lists….Chen Kuan Tai was the Asian light-heavyweight kickboxing champion in 1969. Many of these guys could fight!