Archive for the ‘Martial Arts’ Category
Friday, May 9th, 2025
ABSOLUTE DOMINION is the new one from writer/director Lexi Alexander (GREEN STREET [HOOLIGANS], PUNISHER: WAR ZONE), her first feature film in 15 years (she’s been doing television). If you’re like me you’ve been interested in her since her PUNISHER movie, are very aware that she was a German kickboxing champion sponsored by Chuck Norris to immigrate to the U.S., where she portrayed Kitana on a Mortal Kombat live tour, and were excited to hear she was doing a martial arts movie. She’s also known for being fearlessly outspoken, particularly about Palestinian and Arab issues, so it was extra promising that this seemed to have an aspect of social commentary to it.
Well, the results are interesting, at least. The movie is primarily set in 2063 A.D., nineteen years after an era of devastating terrorist attacks by various factions of religious zealots. What changed? A live streamer named Fix Huntley (Patton Oswalt, BLADE: TRINITY) jokingly suggested that each religion should train a fighter to enter a tournament called “The Battle of Absolute Dominion” to decide which religion the world would follow. The idea immediately caught on, now Huntley oversees the tournament and I guess everyone just goes along with the results. World peace. Not bad. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Alex Winter, Alok Vaid-Menon, Desire Mia, fighting tournament, James Adam Lim, Julie Ann Emery, June Carryl, Junes Zahdi, Lexi Alexander, Mario D'Leon, Naya Olinga, Olunike Adeliyi, Patton Oswalt, Philip Tan
Posted in Reviews, Action, Martial Arts, Science Fiction and Space Shit | 2 Comments »
Monday, April 7th, 2025
LOVE HURTS is a trifle, a truffle, a little treat meant to be devoured quickly and forgotten. But that’s much better than I’d heard (one critic called it “nearly unwatchable,” I remember), so I feel kinda guilty that I listened to the conventional wisdom and skipped it in theaters. Ke Huy Quan got his 87North-produced action vehicle, an even greater honor than his Academy Award if you ask me, and I waited for video. For that I apologize.
Quan (BREATHING FIRE) stars as Marvin Gable, a corny realtor who rides his bike to work, toting the heart-shaped cookies he baked for Valentine’s Day, and spreads joy like his name was Ke Huy Quan, so his co-workers would never guess that he was once a brutal and feared assassin. But some old associates and other dangerous people come crashing through his comfortable suburban life when a woman he was supposed to have killed resurfaces to leave them all taunting love notes. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: 87North, Andre Eriksen, Ariana DeBose, Cam Gigandet, Can Aydin, Daniel Wu, Drew Scott, Elisabet Ronaldsdottir, Jonathan Eusebio, Josh Stoddard, Ke Huy Quan, Lio Tipton, Luke Passmore, Marshawn Lynch, Matthew Murray, Mustafa Shakir, Phong Giang, Rhys Darby, Sean Astin
Posted in Reviews, Action, Comedy/Laffs, Martial Arts, Romance | 7 Comments »
Monday, March 10th, 2025
LEGENDS OF THE CONDOR HEROES: THE GALLANTS is the unwieldily titled new Tsui Hark joint, which I was grateful to be able to see in a theater. (This puts my lifetime Tsui Hark theatrical screenings at four, after DOUBLE TEAM, KNOCK OFF and FLYING SWORDS OF DRAGON GATE 3D IMAX). Based on a famous story by Jin Yong (whose books also inspired the SWORDSMAN trilogy), it’s the type of thing I hope for from Tsui these days: a wild and extravagant wuxia epic, expertly put together at a swaggering blockbuster scale. A great time at the movies.
It opens with narration by a guy talking about witnessing many famous battles of Genghis Khan (Baya’ertu, CREATION OF THE GODS I: KINGDOM OF STORMS) and the Mongol army. As you watch these enormous conflicts on screen you wonder how the fuck a guy was witnessing it without getting chopped to bits, and then you find out: he was perched above on a cliff. When the Mongols spot him they shoot arrows at him, but he seems to repel them with some sort of energy shield trick. Okay, good, we got a real one here. This is our protagonist Guo Jing (Xiao Zhan, THE ROOKIES), a martial artist who aspires to greatness and has an interestingly convoluted backstory. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Ada Choi, Alan Aruna, Baya'ertu, Hu Jun, Jin Yong, Tony Leung Kai-fai, Tsui Hark, Xiao Zhan, Zhang Wenxin, Zhuang Dafei
Posted in Reviews, Action, Fantasy/Swords, Martial Arts | 5 Comments »
Tuesday, March 4th, 2025
Lately, with reality increasingly losing its appeal, I’ve had more desire to lose myself in fantastical worlds of animation. Even when those places are horrible in their own right it feels like an escape, because at least they’re made of nice drawings and paintings. NINJA SCROLL transports us to a mystical past of deadly assassins, some with magic powers, others just so skilled that they might as well have ‘em. This is from 1993 and it was legendary in that decade for providing extravagant violence that seemed novel to us Americans when delivered in cartoon form. It still kinda works as that, but more importantly I think it holds up as a pretty entertaining movie.
The writer/director is Yoshiaki Kawajiri, and though I never really made the connection that it was the same guy, I’ve written about several of his works. I talked a little about VAMPIRE HUNTER D: BLOODLUST (2000) in my original BLADE II review, I covered THE ANIMATRIX (2003) when I was revisiting that whole franchise (he did the “Program” segment), I really liked his DTV/OVA HIGHLANDER: THE SEARCH FOR VENGEANCE (2007) when I did my review series Highlanderland. Also he wrote the live action AZUMI 2: DEATH OR LOVE, though unfortunately I was disappointed in that one. I do like his stories on the other stuff, but it’s obviously the drawing and movement that makes them fly (often literally). (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: anime, ninjas, Yoshiaki Kawajiri
Posted in Reviews, Action, Cartoons and Shit, Martial Arts | 12 Comments »
Tuesday, February 25th, 2025
I’m generally a sucker for an international co-production action movie, especially the ones based in Chinese martial arts but with some western stars. For example the one with Milla Jovovich, or the one with Coolio, or NAKED WEAPON. But I’m suspicious of these big period piece ones with an American star or two outside of their usual context. I’ve even hesitated to pull the trigger on the one with Arnold in it. I’m still a defender of THE GREAT WALL, but most of these are not Zhang Yimou joints. It’s easy to assume that the Hollywood guy is phoning it in for a paycheck and the international producers are trying to coast on name value, leaving us to be bored by a bunch of yelling and sword clanging and CG armies.
DRAGON BLADE (2015) also has the hurdle of being a late-period Jackie Chan movie, but it defies the odds. Give or take some of the awkwardness of the format, this is an entertaining (and charmingly corny) story about what happens when a rogue Roman legion link up with a badass squad of disavowed Chinese peacemakers. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Adrien Brody, Daniel Lee, Jackie Chan, John Cusack, Lin Peng, Mika Wang, Sharni Vinson
Posted in Reviews, Action, Martial Arts | 7 Comments »
Monday, November 11th, 2024
100 YARDS was one of my most anticipated movies this year – it’s the latest period martial arts epic from writer/director Xu Haofeng, this time with his brother Xu Junfeng credited as co-director. Junfeng is a newbie but Haofeng is one of my favorite modern martial art directors, a true auteur with a very distinct style and tone and a set of reoccurring themes that happen to be extremely my shit.
This one is about the Tianjin martial arts scene in 1920, so it’s about what was going on there around a decade before his 2015 film THE FINAL MASTER. At this point there is only one kung fu school, Master Shen’s, but the world is changing and the next generation are trying to establish themselves. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Andy On, Bea Hayden Kuo, Duncan Leung, Guo Long, Jacky Heung, Kevin Lee, Li Yuan, Shiyi Tang, Xu Haofeng, Xu Junfeng
Posted in Reviews, Action, Martial Arts | 4 Comments »
Friday, October 18th, 2024
(This review is pretty detailed and spoilery. The movie is great, so consider just watching it and coming back.)
THE SHADOW STRAYS is the latest ultra-violent crime/martial arts epic from writer/director Timo Tjahjanto. Like THE NIGHT COMES FOR US (2018) and the more comedic THE BIG 4 (2022), it was produced by Netflix Indonesia, so you can probly watch it right now wherever you are. (Important subtitle tip: at least on my Roku you have to click “Other” to find the full subtitle menu if you want to choose English instead of English CC.) Like HEADSHOT (2016), it takes place in a world of elite assassins trained (at least in some cases) from childhood. These ones are known as Shadows, and they’re more of a global mercenary agency, like militarized ninjas.
We begin in a snowy Yakuza fortress in Japan, where seventeen year old Agent 13 (the incredible Aurora Ribero) rises up out of an armor collection to decapitate a sleazy boss. She kills so many guys, almost eliminates the entire clan, but gets distracted by collateral damage and has to be rescued by her mentor Instructor Umbra (Hana Malasan, THE TRAIN OF DEATH). Afterwards, Umbra gets called off to “some shit show in Cambodia,” so 13 is sent alone to an apartment in Jakarta. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Adipati Dolken, Agra Piliang, Ali Fikry, Andri Mashadi, assassins, Aurora Ribero, Daniel Ekaputra, Hana Malasan, Indonesia, Kristo Immanuel, Muhammad Irfan, Taskya Namya, Timo Tjahjanto
Posted in Reviews, Action, Crime, Martial Arts | 12 Comments »
Tuesday, September 24th, 2024
A while ago I reviewed BABY ASSASSINS, the really fun 2021 Japanese action-comedy about two teenage assassins forced by their organization to get an apartment and day jobs. It has a bunch of top notch martial arts action choreographed by the great Kensuke Sonomura (MANHUNT, HYDRA, BAD CITY), but it’s mainly about the friendship, personality conflicts and growing-up-struggles of these two goofballs who have fun killing people but mostly enjoy laying on the couch eating desserts and talking about anime and stuff.
There’s actually a part 3 coming out, it played the New York Asian Film Festival in July and Fantastic Fest yesterday and I’ve seen more than one person saying it’s one of the best action movies of the year. Also, in Japan it’s already continuing as a TV mini-series called Baby Assassins Everyday (I watched the first episode on Youtube, and it’s a delight). So, shit, I better get caught up by finishing my review of part 2! (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Akari Takaishi, assassins, Joey Iwanaga, Junpei Hashino, Kensuke Sonomura, Saori Izawa, Tatsuomi Hamada, Yugo Sakamoto
Posted in Reviews, Action, Martial Arts | 6 Comments »
Wednesday, August 14th, 2024
TWILIGHT OF THE WARRIORS: WALLED IN is the awkward title they ended up with for a movie that’s been in development for like 20 years (originally to be co-directed by John Woo and Johnnie To!) under the title KOWLOON WALLED CITY and DRAGON CITY and maybe some others. I’ve been waiting for it long enough that I already watched a movie called KOWLOON WALLED CITY on Hi-Yah! because I thought, “Oh shit – that finally came out!?” (That one was pretty fun too, I recommend it.)
This one is an event for many reasons, the main one for me being that it’s the latest from Soi Cheang, director of one of my favorite 21st century action movies, KILL ZONE 2, plus other movies I liked including SHAMO and MOTORWAY. The secondary reason is that he’s working with genius action director Kenji Tanigaki (RUROUNI KENSHIN, SAKRA), and the third is that one of the all time greats, Sammo Hung, plays a major character in it.
It’s the story of a refugee in Hong Kong named Lok (Raymond Lam, SAVING GENERAL YANG), who wins an underground fight trying to earn cash to buy a fake ID so he doesn’t get deported. The Triad boss running the fights, Mr. Big (Hung), is also the guy you go to for fake IDs, and when Lok turns down a job offer from him he gets screwed on that. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Au Kin-yee, Cheang Pou-soi, German Cheung, Hong Kong action, Kenji Tanigaki, Kowloon Walled City, Louis Koo, Philip Ng, Raymond Lam, Richie Jen, Sammo Hung, Tai-Lee Chan, Terrance Lau, Tony Wu
Posted in Reviews, Action, Crime, Martial Arts | 14 Comments »
Wednesday, June 19th, 2024
LIFE AFTER FIGHTING is a 2024 indie action movie starring, written, directed, and choreographed by Australian martial artist Bren Foster. He even has writing credits on some of the songs on the soundtrack. That sounds like a vanity project, which I wouldn’t necessarily be against, but if “vanity project” is someone forcing their way onto the screen when they don’t really belong there, this is not that. This guy is a natural, and it’s a good movie, delivering well within the traditions of the genre and occasionally even transcending them a little. I kinda loved it.
Foster is close to my age, and has been on screen since a bit part in the crazy made-for-TNT kung fu movie INVINCIBLE in 2001. More recently I’ve heard he was good as the villain in DEEP BLUE SEA 3 and as Max in the Mad Max video game. I knew the name was familiar, and sure enough I first encountered him as one of the younger co-stars who takes on most of the fighting in a couple of the later Seagal movies. I didn’t mention him in my MAXIMUM CONVICTION review, but in FORCE OF EXECUTION I noted that he’s basically the main character even though on the cover he’s only seen as a tiny reflection in one lens of Seagal’s sunglasses. I praised his fighting but wrote that “when he’s talking instead of kicking ass he lacks the charisma to be captivating. Maybe it’s partly because he fakes an American accent. Shoulda gone full Van Damme and not worried about it.” Here he does in fact get to use his real accent, but also I think he’s just more comfortable in something coming from his heart. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Annabelle Stephenson, Bren Foster, Cassie Howarth, Eddie Arrazola, Luke Ford, Masa Yamaguchi, Mike Duncan
Posted in Reviews, Action, Martial Arts | 12 Comments »
