Épicos de Kung-Fu e outros que tal

[Khorazyn]

Convido-vos a colocarem aqui todos os filmes que achem que tenham sido épicos nesse género tão apreciado por todos nós..... "PORRADA"

[Khorazyn]

Most martial artists are renowned for the grace they display, but not Sonny Chiba. Unlike most of his Chinese counterparts, the Japanese Chiba tended to be more brutish than balletic: The star's fighting style resembled nothing more than down-and-dirty back-alley scrapping. His "Street Fighter" Terry, a bruiser-for-hire, will do anything for money... except kidnap an heiress for the Mafia. When the mob ends up holding her for ransom regardless, Terry decides to wage a one-man war the only way he knows how -- by breaking bones, gouging eyes, ripping out throats and, in a scene that earned the film an X rating, splitting an opponent's skull as filmed through an X-ray. The movie was so popular that it spawned three sequels and countless rip-offs that traded in on the star's animalistic rage (one movie, "Karate Bullfighter" (1975), actually paired him against a live bull!). It also earned Sonny a gaggle of fans like the young Quentin Tarantino, who would cast Chiba in his own two-volume "Kill Bill" epic.

[Khorazyn]

Long before Jackie Chan began shilling trash bags on TV, the clown prince of kung-fu flicks was a force to be reckoned with. And while the film that first put him on the map, "The Drunken Master" (1978), is an excellent example of Chan's ability to synthesize athletic dexterity with slapstick stumblebum bits, it's that movie's sequel that truly deserves a place in the pantheon. The star repeats the dangerous-when-inebriated act of the original film. But this time, director Lau Kar-Leung goes all out on the action, choreographing set pieces like the showdown between Chan and Liu himself under a train car, and a fight between Felix Wong and 50 axe-wielding thugs in a teahouse (guess who wins?). Best of all is the jaw-dropping climactic battle where our soused hero fights while being hit with hammers, spitting out flaming hooch and skidding across red-hot coals. It's the type of adrenaline-rush spectacle designed to leave audience members pleasantly intoxicated as well.

[Khorazyn]

A staple of many late-night "Black Belt Theater" TV shows, "Five Fingers of Death" is the first kung-fu film to cross over in the States; its long tenure in 42nd St. grind houses paved the way for the wave that followed. Young student Lo Lieh must win a kung-fu tournament to prove he's worthy of marrying his sifu's daughter. His master's rival covets the trophy, however, and hires some unsavory characters to smash Lieh's hands. Unfortunately for them, it takes more than some crushed mitts to take the lovelorn fighter out of the running, thanks to the mystical "Iron Fist" technique he's managed to learn. It's a certainty that our hero will get the girl, but not before he flattens a number of foes, demonstrates just how lethal those titular digits can be, and knocks his nemesis through a brick wall. Twice.

[Khorazyn]

Picking the best Jet Li film is almost a parlor game unto itself. You could make a strong argument for Tsui Hark's epic "Once Upon a Time in China" (1991) or my personal favorite, the everything-and-the-kitchen-sink smackdown "The New Legend of Shaolin" (1994). Yet only one movie has given this world-class martial artist a proper showcase: "Fist of Legend." Any doubts that Li was up to the task of playing the iconic Chinese hero Chen Zhen are assuaged during the film's first fight scene against a rival dojo, when Li turns into a whirling dervish of furious fists and feet. By the time you get to the final mano-a-mano between Li and a hulking opponent, you know you've seen a true legend. Forget Li's later roles as an accessory to hip-hop artists in second-rate thrillers; this is the one that confirms he's one of the greats.

[Khorazyn]

It's the rare film that makes a star out of its weaponry, but then again, not every piece of hardware can boast of decapitating a man at 50 paces. In the sequel to "The One-Armed Boxer" (1971), director/star Jimmy Wang Yu returns in "Master of the Flying Guillotine" as the famed fighter who can single-handedly (literally) fend off a small army of attackers. But our hero hasn't counted on fighting assassins armed with a saw-toothed hatbox on a rope which, when used correctly, can relieve its target of their heads. Wang Yu outdoes himself here by simply piling on one outrageous martial-arts moment after another. The tournament scene alone -- between a deadly Thai boxer and a yoga master who can magically extend his arms 20 feet, battling for supremacy -- is worth the price of admission.

[Khorazyn]

You don't need to be a video-geek filmmaker or member of the Wu Tang Clan to appreciate "The 36th Chamber of the Shaolin," ace martial artist Gordon Liu's best film. In it, a young student goes through the rigors of learning the ancient art of Shaolin kung fu so he can avenge his family's death. The action that director Chia-Liang Liu and his star cook up is top-notch, but it's the oft-imitated training sequences that have made this movie such a classic. Watching a man skip across logs, carry pails of water uphill and deal with eardrum-shattering bells has never been more blissfully exciting.

[Khorazyn]

As the leader of the "Poison Clan" draws his last breath, he asks his pupil for one final favor: Track down five former students, each trained in a special "venomous" style of fighting, and make sure they aren't involved with the theft of an inheritance. And thus begins "Five Deadly Venoms," one of the most delightfully delirious kung-fu movies ever to come out of the legendary Shaw Brothers' studio, featuring a quintet in garish Mexican-wrestler masks battling each other with deadly Scorpion, Snake, Lizard, Toad and Centipede styles. Director Cheh Cheng had already secured himself a place in the Hall of Fame thanks to the long list of innovations he brought to the genre (he's credited with, among other things, introducing the whiplash zoom shots and quick pans that would immediately become de rigueur). But the martial-arts mayhem he brews up here almost defies description, and the fight scenes are among the most creatively choreographed chop-socky you'll ever see. The film made stars out of its five main actors, who went on to make a series of successful movies together for the next three years.

[Khorazyn]

The undisputed poet laureate of the genre, King Hu literally set the benchmark for what constitutes a great wuxia pan ("heroic tale") film with early works like "Come Drink with Me" and the original "Dragon Inn" (both 1966). "A Touch of Zen," a historical opus about a Buddhist scholar who will do anything to protect the fugitive woman he loves, however, is his masterpiece. While the fight scenes are spectacular -- especially the bamboo-forest sequence that inspired "Crouching Tiger's" similar set piece -- it's the details and atmospheric touches that make this film great. Those used to hearing the telltale thwacks and pings of kung-fu fighting will be shocked by how the quiet sound of a breeze only makes the film's mystical, superhuman battles all the more powerful. Or, when you consider the wanton use of violence in most action films, how devastatingly the scene of our hero wallowing among the victims of his carnage plays out. Its mixture of Saturday-matinee excitement and novelistic drama puts it in the same league as Akira Kurosawa's great works, and Hu's ability to emphasize the art in martial arts over the usual kinetic sound and fury has never been equaled.

[Khorazyn]

Forget for a second, if you can, the well-worn images we associate with Bruce Lee. Just try to remember the impact of seeing Lee for the first time in this, his last "official" full-length feature: his physicality, his calmness and his self-control. Then think back to the moment in the film when he first attacks an opponent ... and the sense that this person might be both invincible and unstoppable is impossible to shake. "Enter the Dragon" wasn't Lee's first film, but it is the one movie most associated with both the man and his myth, the definitive pinnacle of his career and the genre; all martial-arts films can be categorized as before or after it. The kung-fu movie got its Balanchine, its Valentino and its Cary Grant whenever Lee stepped into the frame, and the sight of Lee near the film's end, poised to attack and scarred from his archrival Han's metal-claw hand, is part of pop iconography. More than any other actor, Bruce Lee is the face of martial arts in America. And more than any other film, "Enter the Dragon" highlights why he remains a legend.

[Rufferto]

Por falar em porrada, para quando o combate entre Fedor e Cro Cop? A humanidade está suspensa à espera desse festim de high kicks e de ground and pound... quase de certeza que o Fedor vai ganhar, mas eu vou estar a torcer pelo Mirko!

[Kanzentai]

"Bloodsport" was a good one

[Rufferto]

O Bloodsport continua a ser bom hoje em dia ("You lose, American asshole"), mas em termos de porrada acho que nenhum se compara ao Ong-Bak. Vi coisas naquele filme que não pensava serem possíveis... e em cenas de porrada a sério, nada daquelas macacadas dos filmes do Jackie Chan.

[Kanzentai]

Bem visto, o Ong-Bak tinha umas coisas muito maradas!

[Rufferto]

Penso que estejam a fazer o 2... Mas outro filme que também promete é o Danny the Dog, com o nosso amigo Jet Li.

[psenes]

Bem... ao menos não começaram a falar da jennifer garner

[Khorazyn]

Quando passei por Bangkok na vinda de Istanbul, vi uns trailers do Ong Bak II no aeroporto. Aquilo é exactamente o que uma sequela devia ser... mais e melhor dentro do mesmo tópico.

Nos trailers, pelo que vi, o filme continua a utlizar as mesmas metáforas e estruturas dialéticas já aplicadas no primeiro. Existe um sublime apelo às mensagens subliminares inerentes em todos os diálogos existenciais do filme. A ver sem dúvida.

[Rufferto]

Nos trailers, pelo que vi, o filme continua a utlizar as mesmas metáforas e estruturas dialéticas já aplicadas no primeiro. Existe um sublime apelo às mensagens subliminares inerentes em todos os diálogos existenciais do filme. A ver sem dúvida.

Foi exactamente disso que eu mais gostei no primeiro filme. Fez-me alguma confusão as cenas de violência, mas apreciei muito as metáforas e as estruturas dialéticas. E sim, todos os diálogos existenciais do filme tinham mensagens subliminares inerentes. É essa, aliás, a marca do bom cinema.