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Streaming providers like Prime Video and Tubi may be the proper supply of weekend leisure for followers of the martial arts film style. Each streamers provide huge libraries of movies based mostly within the martial arts medium, so whether or not you are a Prime member or watch films elsewhere, there isn’t any scarcity of stable choices.
Each streamers have entry to films from the filmographies of lots of the best martial arts stars, together with Jackie Chan, Jet Li, Donnie Yen, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Chuck Norris, and even Bruce Lee. Plus, they’ve movies from studios well-known for his or her nice martial arts films, akin to Shaw Brothers and Golden Harvest.
The character of those films range, on condition that the style is wide-ranging in and of itself. It contains a number of subgenres, from old-school kung fu films to martial arts cop films, to comedies that kung fu and comedy.
In different phrases, they’ve films throughout all eras and kinds within the martial arts film’s style’s historical past, starting from its golden age within the early Seventies to fashionable hits like Ip Man.
Lionheart (Prime Video & Tubi)
Bloodsport is not the one great martial arts tournament movie that Jean-Claude Van Damme made in his profession. He made two others, The Quest and Lionheart, with the latter now streaming on Prime Video (together with Bloodsport.)
Within the 1990 movie, Van Damme performs Lyon Gautlier, a soldier in French Overseas Legion who turns into a deserter to go see his dying brother in Los Angeles. His arrival units off his involvement in an underground martial arts event. In the meantime, he has to evade seize by the French Overseas Legion, with each of those parts making the story eerily just like Bloodsport.
However with Bloodsport being the quintessential Jean-Claude Van Damme film and among the best martial arts films of the Eighties, following the identical components would not essentially really feel like a mistake; it could not provide something notably new, however it has greater than its fair proportion of incredible Van Damme fight scenes and an imposing villain for the hero to battle on the finish.
Drunken Grasp (Tubi)
Earlier than 1978, Jackie Chan was making conventional, severe, old-school kung fu films, a few of which being movies that handled him as if he had been the Bruce Lee. Two of Chan’s 1978 films roles – Snake within the Eagle’s Shadow and Drunken Grasp – successfully put an finish to that failed interval in his profession.
Each films, however Drunken Grasp particularly, lastly confirmed Jackie Chan’s true skills by permitting him to infuse comedy into his appearing model. The truth that it helped launch the actor to stardom speaks volumes about how Drunken Grasp was, mixing nice martial arts motion with slapstick humor that quickly turned integral to Jackie Chan’s onscreen picture.
Drunken Grasp has all of the hallmarks of an excellent, old-school kung fu flick, with Jackie Chan’s martial arts skills and persona making it even higher.
After all, Jackie Chan alone would not make it particular; Yuen Siu-tien’s function because the drunken beggar who trains Chan’s character was acquired so properly that it paved the best way for the actor to painting him once more in a number of unofficial Drunken Grasp spinoffs.
There’s additionally Hwang Jang-Lee, whose spectacular kicking abilities mixed with Chan’s martial arts experience to create one of many best one-on-one showdowns in the martial arts genre.
The Seashore Of The Warfare Gods (Tubi)
An obscure but entertaining martial arts gem deserving of some consideration is The Seashore of the Warfare Gods, one in all a number of Jimmy Wang Yu films you could find on Tubi. Launched in 1973, The Seashore of the Warfare Gods was directed by Jimmy Wang Yu, one of many pioneers of the style.
Along with directing, Wang Yu stars in The Seashore of the Gods as a wandering swordsman who enters a fishing village about to be hit by an invasive pressure of Japanese pirates. The story is actually the martial arts film model of Seven Samurai, the movie that impressed The Magnificent Seven.
In The Seashore of the Warfare Gods, Wang Yu’s hero has to unite a number of warriors – every with their very own distinctive skillset – in time for a large-scale batttle that lasts roughly 45 minutes and utilizies quite a lot of weapons.
The epic nature of the finale in The Seashore of the Warfare Gods has even been acknowledged by critically-acclaimed director Quentin Tarantino, who as soon as stated that Beach of the War Gods‘ ending is “one of many nice battles of all time.“
The Protector (Prime Video)
The mid-2000s noticed a handful of flicks elevate the profile of Tony Jaa, who went to be acknowledged as among the best main martial arts actors over the following decade. That pattern started with Ong Bak: Muay Thai Warrior, and bled into The Protector, a 2006 modern-day martial arts film and a fish-out-water story a couple of tribal warrior who involves Australia to avoid wasting an elephant captured by poachers.
The plot is admittedly skinny, however story has little to do with the attraction of The Protector, which stacks collectively a slew of brutal, well-choreographed battle scenes that showcase the lead character’s relentless efforts to avoid wasting the elephant.
A number of the acrobatic strikes that Tony Jaa makes use of within the film should be seen to be believed, and are made much more spectacular by the truth that it averted particular results and wire work. The lengthy takes and sheer quantity of shifting components in The Protector is paying homage to a bygone period within the style, one the place extremely lengthy battle scenes likes those in Shaw Brothers’ movies had been the norm.
Crippled Avengers (Prime Video)
Shaw Brothers could not have had Bruce Lee or Jackie Chan of their steady of actors, however did not want both to provide a number of the greatest kung fu films ever made. Sadly, the majority of their library is not accessible to look at on-line, with each Tubi and Prime Video solely getting a small portion of their contributions to the style.
One Shaw Brothers movie that may be watched on Prime Video is Crippled Avengers, which represents a sequence of martial arts films that starred 5 actors collectively often known as the Venom Mob. This Venom Mob basic sees 4 of the 5 actors painting males who crew to proper their very own private injustices after every one is wronged by the movie’s villains.
Each member of the titular group faces type of damage or impediment that hinders their capability to battle, and due to this fact has to coach in an effort to compensate. This components units up a number of nice coaching sequences – one for every foremost character – and that segues right into a martial arts team-up of epic proportions.
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