Profile: Hwang In-shik

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Profile: Hwang In-shik

Date of birth: 13 September, 1940 (Sunchon, North Korea)

Other names: Whong In-sik, Whang In-sik, Wong In-sik, Whang Ing-sik, Hwang In-shik, Whong Inn-sik, Wang In-sik, Whang In-shik.

Occuption: Hapkido instructor, actor.

Style: Hapkido, Tang Soo Do.

Biography: Hwang In-shik is one of the world’s most prominent Hapkido instructors and a former star of Hong Kong kung fu films who has worked with the likes of Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan and Sammo Hung.

Hwang was born in Sunchon, north of Pyongyang, in present-day North Korea. His family moved to Seoul when Hwang was still young. It was in Seoul where Hwang first discovered his passion for …

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KFMG Podcast S01 Episode 02: Mike Fury

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KFMG Podcast S01 Episode 02: Mike Fury

“I had a lot of emails and tweets from people saying, ‘[the book Life of Action] has really helped me in my training… it has really motivated me and I want to move myself to the next level’. That’s amazing. I’m very glad it has had a positive effect on people.”

Mike Fury is an author, journalist, choreographer and action movie expert. He is also a great guest to have on the Kung Fu Movie Guide Podcast. He is the author of Life of Action, a must-have publication for any fan of action movies, featuring interviews with key industry people like the …

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KFMG Podcast S01 Episode 01: Toby Russell

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KFMG Podcast S01 Episode 01: Toby Russell

“I’d still rather watch an old (kung fu) film I haven’t seen than a new one. I’d get more out of it.”

It was awesome to meet with the great Toby Russell for the very first episode of the Kung Fu Movie Guide Podcast, as Toby is pretty much the perfect guest to have on our debut show.

A writer, director, actor and producer, Toby is the son of legendary British film maker Ken Russell and is probably the most knowledgeable person in the world on the subject of kung fu movies. London-born Toby grew up on his father’s movie sets before …

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Profile: Cengiz Dervis

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Profile: Cengiz Dervis

Occupation: Actor, producer, writer, director, instructor.

Style: Shen Chi Do, kickboxing, MMA, boxing, Muay Thai, taekwondo, Hapkido, Wing Chun, Kuk Sool Won.

Biography: Cengiz Dervis was born in London to an Irish mother and a Turkish Cypriot father. He lived in Fulham until the age of six before moving to north Kensington. At the age of five, Cengiz learnt the style of Shen Chi Do from his uncle, Professor Grand Master Shen. The Korean hybrid style is a combination of Kuk Sool Won, Hapkido and taekwondo. He first started to compete in karate before moving into full-contact kickboxing.

Cengiz is a former three-time …

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Undisputed III: Redemption (2010)

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Undisputed III: Redemption (2010)

Boyka returns to break more bones in this super-charged sequel. He turns from zero to hero as he slowly recovers from his leg being snapped by Michael Jai White at the end of the previous movie. Reduced to a hermit-like existence in a Russian jail with no chance of parole, he steps back into the world of organised prison fighting (it’s a thing) and is marched off to Georgia at the behest of some rich fixers who run a high-stakes international fight tournament. Prisoners are recruited from all corners of the globe in shades of Van Damme‘s The Quest, with …

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Assassination Games (2011)

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Assassination Games (2011)

Competent double-header which pairs Van Damme with The Shepherd co-star Scott Adkins. The duo take equal billing as conflicted assassins who must unite to bring down a Ukrainian criminal. There are shades of The Bourne Identity in a subplot involving a secret division of Interpol (which equates to three dodgy blokes with assorted accents working out of a cupboard) wanting to silence Adkins’ hired hitman over a stash of money. Meanwhile, Van Damme walks sullenly around derelict buildings in eastern Europe in a slightly absent trance, opening his cold heart to a neighbouring prostitute who initially disrupts his violin practice. “I’ve …

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Bruce Lee: The Man, the Myth (1976)

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Bruce Lee: The Man, the Myth (1976)

Picking up the story from when Bruce Lee departs for the USA and ending on his untimely death, this highly fictionalised biopic sees Ng See-yuen exploit the Lee legend tenfold by replacing facts with mad sensationalism. Through a series of fight sequences, Bruce is shown to basically beat up pretty much everyone he meets. Those who disagree with his theories on kung fu get a thump; there are scuffles with a crime syndicate and even brawls on the set of The Big Boss and Enter the Dragon (the latter at least being partially accurate). Yet the most bizarre sections – …

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Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows (2016)

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Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows (2016)

This noisy sequel barrels along at a breakneck speed, whizzing from one brightly coloured giddy confection to the next. It’s a ride, with director Dave Green ensuring plenty of bang for your buck, and somehow managing to keep all of the story’s disparate parts together. There’s a nod to The Secret of the Ooze with the introduction of a new goo which could turn the turtles back into human form; something which sparks a rift between the boys. There’s also the origin stories of new characters like mad scientist Baxter Stockman (Perry) and failed cop Casey Jones (Amell), who provides …

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Bruce Lee Fights Back From the Grave (1976)

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Bruce Lee Fights Back From the Grave (1976)

With a title like that, you would be right to expect something really promising. Even the opening sequence lives up to expectations. A lightning bolt hits Bruce Lee‘s grave and a lookalike leaps out from beneath the soil. Despite the promising start, this quickly becomes a plodding murder mystery in which a Bruce Lee imitator (Chung Jun, credited as Bruce K.L. Lea) lands in California to investigate the death of his brother. The inclusion of a thousand characters doesn’t help, and the film quickly becomes a bore despite the brief moments of Lee-style brawling. Resist any temptation.

AKA: Invincible Bruce Lee; The Stranger; Visitor …

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Kung Pow! Enter the Fist (2002)

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Kung Pow! Enter the Fist (2002)

This one-joke kung fu spoof places the comedian Steve Oedekerk into footage from a 1976 Jimmy Wang Yu film, Tiger and Crane Fists. Alongside new retrofitted scenes, Oedekerk provides all of the dubbed voices and reproduces some of Wang Yu’s movements with the help of a blue screen (this arduous process is shown during the film’s end credits). The story becomes quite preposterous, bolstered by a crude and juvenile sense of humour, which is just what you would expect from the guy who created Ace Ventura. Oedekerk is the Chosen One with a talking face on his tongue, called Tonguey. His family …

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