Shanghai 13 (1984)

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Shanghai 13 (1984)

Perhaps the best Shaw Brothers film not produced by the Shaw Brothers, this Chang Cheh ensemble piece comes towards the end of the great man’s illustrious filmography and features a roster of movie stars whose careers he helped to launch. Even this far into his career, he was still finding the time to launch new faces: in this instance, a young Andy Lau, who appears briefly as a hired fighter in rolled-up sleeves and sai swords. Following the closure of Shaw Brothers, Chang Cheh relocated to Taiwan for this revolutionary tale set in pre-war Shanghai. Consideration for the time period …

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The Dragon from Shaolin (1978)

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The Dragon from Shaolin (1978)

Horribly rushed and confusing film pitting a pair of Shaolin fighters against the murderers of their respected fathers, with a load of hokey plot twists thrown in to fill the time. There’s nothing new here. The tawdry, senseless action scenes make it a real slug to get through.

AKA:  Four Clans of Death.

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The Leg Fighters (1980)

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The Leg Fighters (1980)

Simple yet impressive kicking movie – one of the best of its kind – in which a bootmaster cast revel in the delights of virtually non-stop combat. Dorian Tan plays the respected sifu who kills wayward fighter Pan Fei which causes the victim’s brother, Pan Pak, to take revenge. Ha Kwong-li particularly shines as the elder’s daughter, playing a feisty tearaway who can’t stand Tan’s teaching until she is beaten up by two classic clowns, called Ding Dong and Dong Dong. Peng Kang plays Tan’s nemesis Pan Pak: the master of the renowned Ground Kicking technique which is yet to …

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Fight for Glory (1981)

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Fight for Glory (1981)

The mysterious murders of Cheng Li’s father and fiancee at the hands of notorious clan Cold Moon and the 12 Stars causes our heroine to seek out some of the best swordsmen in town to exact her revenge. The catch being that the determined Cold Moon has never shown his face. His cover is almost blown when those in-the-know get about as far as saying, “Cold Moon is…” before they are mysteriously executed. Pondering dramatics slow down this run-of-the-mill costume drama which is otherwise full of sword fighting and extended slow-motion death scenes, but nothing original.

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Profile: Don “The Dragon” Wilson

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Profile: Don “The Dragon” Wilson

Date of birth: September 10, 1954 (Illinois, US)

Full name: Donald Glen Wilson

Occupation: Actor, producer, martial artist

Style: Kickboxing, Goju-ryu Karate, Pai Lum kung fu

Biography: Donald Glen Wilson is a former 11-time World Kickboxing Champion and an action film star. He is the youngest of two sons born to an American father and a Japanese mother. His older brother, Jim Wilson, was born in Japan. When Don was four years old, the family settled in South Florida where his father worked as an engineer at the Kennedy Space Center. Don attended Saint Andrews School in Boca Raton where he excelled at sports, …

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Half Past Dead (2002)

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Half Past Dead (2002)

Another Seagal film in which he stars alongside a rapper as a way of boosting his mainstream credibility. It was DMX in Exit Wounds, now it’s Ja Rule’s turn to feel the stifling burden of acting with the stoic Seagal. The chemistry is about as enticing as a broken swing. It’s hard to decipher who comes out of this worse: the stocky, tired Seagal or his unfortunate co-star. They play best buddies, supposedly. Seagal is Sasha (“Yeah, I’m Russian, you got a problem with that?”) and Ja Rule is Nick (“Man, you’re whiter than I thought.”). They do time in …

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First Strike (1996)

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First Strike (1996)

“This guy moves like a monkey,” grunts a beefy henchman hot on the trail of Jackie Chan, who spends his time leaping over rooftops and kicking butt in the only way he knows how. It’s all in a day’s work for the 007 of the far east, with Chan playing a Hong Kong policeman in shades of Police Story, who is assigned by the CIA to crush an international nuclear weapons racket in Ukraine. A culprit is found and Chan follows them to Australia to lay down some rough justice using poles, stilts, and in the film’s most memorable scene, a …

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Gymkata (1985)

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Gymkata (1985)

A double insult of a film. Not only does this badly serve America’s first gold medal-winning gymnastics champ Kurt Thomas with a bad script and laughable premise, but it is also filmed with all the excitement of a hernia operation. The flawed concept of combining Olympic gymnastics with Karate was the misguided brain-fart of director Robert Clouse and producer Fred Weintraub – the team (believe it or not) behind the seminal kung fu classic Enter the Dragon. It’s flawed, obviously, because most professional gymnastic routines require apparatus, not to mention a leotard. So we get contrived combat scenes involving springboards …

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Wheels on Meals (1984)

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Wheels on Meals (1984)

Jackie Chan and Yuen Biao play brothers working as fast food caterers in Barcelona when they befriend pick-pocketing street dame Gloria (Miss Spain’s Lola Forner) and soon things start to go haywire. They are pursued by a private investigator (Sammo Hung) and a flock of good-for-nothing hoodlums after a plot is revealed to stop Gloria from obtaining her inheritance. The confrontations with western fighters produce the film’s main highlights. The castle-based finale features Jackie Chan’s now-legendary encounter with kickboxing champ Benny “The Jet” Urquidez: a remarkable, hard-hitting fight sequence that, even today, stands as one of the best on-screen brawls …

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The Myth (2005)

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The Myth (2005)

Jackie Chan (playing a character imaginatively called ‘Jack’) wakes up in his oil-rig house after a recurring dream in which he is an Imperial bodyguard for Emperor Qin, protecting the Royal Princess (Kim Hee-seon) against rebel fighters. Jack, a kung fu archaeologist with a slight cinematic resemblance to Indiana Jones, travels to India with his buddy William (Tony Leung) to investigate the source of a special gemstone with magical levitation properties. William takes off with the rock and Jack narrowly escapes a stoning from the village folk, waking up in a Bollywood scene and discussing his dreams with an ancient …

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