Favorite Martial Arts Movies

[Chance]

My wife was watching me play a video game the other day, and while geeking out on nerd lineage, I made a comment to the effect of, "...Which is a carbon copy of Van Damme from 'Bloodsport'."

"I've never seen 'Bloodsport'."

*pauses game* "You've never seen 'Bloodsport'?"

"Nope."

"What about Bruce Lee? You've seen some of his movies, right?"

"...."

"...."

"...."

"We have some things to watch literally right now."

After making her sit through 'Bloodsport' and 'Enter the Dragon', she found herself intrigued by actual fight choreography. She's pretty much only known the "EVERYTHING IS SHAKY CAM!!1!" fight scenes Hollywood has been putting out the past few decades, and wasn't really aware "martial arts" was basically its own genre of film.

I've discovered there's a wealth of old-school kung fu flicks, as well as plenty of new-school movies from places like Malaysia and Thailand, on Netflix and Prime, many of which I've never seen. So I was curious what folks here would recommend as some of the "must see" martial arts films.

Already watched or added to the list: 'Ong-bak', 'The Raid: Redemption', 'Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon', 'The Matrix', 'Supercop', and 'The 36th Chamber of Shaolin'.

What others should we add?

[JSGlock34]

[Default.mp3]

I quite enjoyed all the Ip Man movies with Donnie Yen (well, 1 through 3, anyway, haven't yet gotten around to the 4th). Nothing deep, but good entertainment; FWIW, Ip Man was Bruce Lee's sifu, and Donnie Yen, like Jet Li and Jackie Chan, is a legend in the martial arts movie scene.

Hero isn't a martial arts movie, per se, but as a wuxia movie, it definitely had a lot of choreography. One of my favorite movies in general, good viewing IMO for anyone that likes a good flick, martial arts or not. It also had the very highly anticipated fight scene between Jet Li and Donnie Yen.

Fearless was suppose to be Jet Li's last dedicated martial arts movie, IIRC, when it released, decently good.

I rather enjoyed Warrior, although it does have a decent amount of quick cuts and some minor shakey cam.

The Grandmaster is another one that's pretty good, definitely the product of an auteur, so a very talky epic and many slow scenes, but has some good action in it. A very different take on Ip Man.

Police Story is probably one of Jackie Chan's greatest action movies, so it's a classic.

[Zincwarrior]

Not a movie but Ali vs. Smokin Joe fight One...

[Bigghoss]

I don't think they count as martial arts movies but I love how pretty much everything Chuck Norris is in, at the very end he gets rid of his gun and kicks the the shit out of the head bad guy. I think it happened in most episodes of Walker: Texas Ranger too. It's so cheesy in the best way, it fits in perfectly with his movies.

I'm not much into martial arts movies but I'm always down to watch Bloodsport. Always.

[olstyn]

Hero isn't a martial arts movie, per se, but as a wuxia movie, it definitely had a lot of choreography. One of my favorite movies in general, good viewing IMO for anyone that likes a good flick, martial arts or not. It also had the very highly anticipated fight scene between Jet Li and Donnie Yen.

House of Flying Daggers is another great one in this vein.

[AMC]

Enter the Dragon, The Big Boss, Fists of Fury for Bruce Lee. Was always a fan of "The Big Brawl" for Jackie Chan.

Jet Li has a number of great films. Shaolin Temple, Fist of Legend, Bodyguard from Beijing.

I did enjoy Donny Yens Ip Man series as well.

Bloodsport should be purged from the memory of mankind. Can't think of a better example of terrible 80's action films. Should only be preserved as an example of what not to do.

[Navin Johnson]

Equal Impact

[45dotACP]

If the Drunken Master isn't on this list you ought to add it to the queue. I remember really liking one that had Jackie Chan and who I later came to realize was kickboxer "Benny the Jet"

[Chain]

@AMC pretty harsh words about Bloodsport; what kind of movie were you expecting?

But to the thread topic, in addition to the movies mentioned thus far, gotta add Best of the Best and Mortal Kombat to the list.