The Princess Blade (2001)

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The Princess Blade (2001)

Melodramatic, plodding sword film based on a manga with choreography by Donnie Yen. Set in the near future, a young girl – gifted with exceptional fighting skills – vows to avenge the death of her mother, murdered at the hands of a governmental hit squad. The film has strong artistic intentions: the bleak cinematography gives the action a cold aesthetic and gory fight scenes in warehouses and forests make up the best parts of the film. However, the adventure is hampered by an uneasy romantic subplot which seriously slows the pace.

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Sucker Punch (2011)

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Sucker Punch (2011)

Fresh from the visually ravishing, spandex-heavy adrenaline rush of comic book based hits 300 and Watchmen comes Zack Snyder’s first original thought-piece. The movie – a schizophrenic action film about a group of young women in a mental asylum who imagine themselves as dancers at a twenties-style nightclub as part of a weird therapeutic escapist fantasy – was universally panned by critics. Snyder’s story is a garbled mess and his characters are paper-thin, but the film’s downright craziness kind of works in its favour. Snyder’s great imagination shines during the film’s four key action sequences, all of which centre around increasingly …

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Return to the 36th Chamber (1980)

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Return to the 36th Chamber (1980)

A sort of proxy sequel to The 36th Chamber of Shaolin featuring much of the same cast and crew and directly referencing the original, although in a much more playful manner. The premise centres on the rights of workers, depicting a group of Han Chinese at a Canton fabrics factory who are docked pay by their new Manchurian owners. The staff strike but are bullied into accepting the cut, before taking matters into their own hands. Their opportunistic friend Chieh (Gordon Liu) dresses up as the enlightened monk San Te (who Liu played in the first film) in order to …

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Legend of the Wolf (1997)

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Legend of the Wolf (1997)

Donnie Yen‘s directorial debut is a visually ravishing if borderline pretentious action film with some nice location shots, smart lighting and design. The story uses an extended flashback to recall Donnie’s past as a post-war wondering amnesiac hero known as ‘the Wolf’ who, while in search of a girl in a ransacked village, becomes embroiled in a violent bandit fight. As his memory returns, the Wolf has to face some unpleasant truths when the gangsters slay the townsfolk and kidnap his girl. Hyperactive editing during the fight sequences quickly irritates and ultimately distracts from Donnie’s expert head-kicking. The film was …

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Breathing Fire (1991)

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Breathing Fire (1991)

This engaging action movie set in sunny California starts with a bang. Villain Michael Moore (Trimble), father of bratty martial arts enthusiasts Tony Moore (Saavedra) and adopted son Charlie Moore (Quan, from The Goonies), secretly orchestrates a bank heist with his kung fu cronies and steals millions of dollars’ worth of gold. The boys have no idea their daddy’s a baddie until Vietnam war vet Uncle Dave (Neil) shows up, protecting the only witness to one of Mr. Moore’s crimes. The acting is amazingly bad, the script should have been proof-read, and the directing is pedestrian, but this super low …

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Angel’s Mission (1990)

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Angel’s Mission (1990)

Apparently, this 80s pot-boiler is about a brothel enlisting the help of Yukari Oshima to recover kidnapped Japanese hookers who are suspected of having AIDS. A suited drug baron is investigated by the guerrilla fighter from Eastern Condors (Ha Chi-jan), who shoves cocaine into watermelons and enlists the help of Dick Wei to help protect the cartel. Phillip Ko sports safari shirts to play Chen Kuan-tai’s underling who goes power crazy and recruits some Sicilian mafia types to take over the operation. Following the discovery of his dead sister in his boss’ bathroom, Dick Wei turns on everyone and starts …

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Kung Fu Panda 3 (2016)

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Kung Fu Panda 3 (2016)

This enjoyable third outing for the irrepressible Po and his anthropomorphic buddies is a DreamWorks co-production with China. It is also the first in the series to dive headfirst into the supernatural, featuring a bull from the spirit world who is collecting the qi of kung fu masters past and present. Kai (voiced by J.K. Simmons) crosses into the mortal realm with his jade army in preparation to steal the soul of Po, the ‘Dragon Warrior’ (Jack Black), who must face his adversary against a backdrop of other narrative threads. Red panda Shifu (Dustin Hoffman) wants Po to take charge …

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Executioners from Shaolin (1977)

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Executioners from Shaolin (1977)

As an expert in the Shaolin discipline of Hung Gar, this was Lau Kar-leung‘s first attempt at contextualising the style’s historical and dynastic roots. It is also the first film to delve into the Chinese internal systems via the brilliant character of evil eunuch Pai Mei (meaning ‘white brow’) who first appeared in the original Fong Sai-yuk films and had a small outing in Shaw Brothers’ Shaolin Avengers, but takes centre stage here. The film follows events directly after the burning of the Shaolin temple at the hands of Ching dynasty despot Pai Mei (Lo Lieh). Famed rebel Hung Hei-kwan …

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The Karate Kid (1984)

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The Karate Kid (1984)

This popular film inspired a whole new generation of Americans to take up the martial arts in a similar pursuit of the same ideals personified by the film’s young and ostracized central character, Daniel (Ralph Macchio). Many of the film’s most important scenes have now become iconic: wise Japanese sage Mr. Miyagi (Pat Morita, from TV’s Happy Days) catching a fly with his chopsticks, the “wax on, wax off” scene, and that famous jumping crane kick at the end, all of which now seem to exist extraneously and embedded on the public conscious. Director Avildsen designed the film to be enjoyed …

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Ninja (2009)

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Ninja (2009)

Isaac Florentine‘s third film with Scott Adkins is an impressive, action-packed martial arts caper which bumps the British star into top billing for the first time in his career. The clean-cut Adkins is brilliantly understated, dressed unassumingly in brown leather jacket and jeans before he storms the villain’s clandestine compound and acrobatically smashes up the place, stylishly sending waves of brutish baddies to the ground with his flying fists and feet. Another great, visceral sequence is set on board a New York subway train which shows Florentine (himself a martial arts expert) opting for an intimately handheld approach to the …

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