The Best of the Martial Arts Films

A pretty cool documentary, featuring a lot of Jackie Chan stuff, not to mention a bunch of other good stuff. Very entertaining for a taste of HK action cinema...It even features some "American" stars fighting in some Hong Kong flicks, which only goes to show how much better the HK choreographers are...

The Best of the Martial Arts Films is so cool. It has some of the best fight scenes ever put on film. There's actors like Jackie Chan, Bruce Lee, Chuck Norris, and many asian martial artists you've never heard of, but need to check out. This video open my world up to films that I never knew were ever out there. They should make a part 2!!

Talk about underrated! This film is great! If you want " The best of Acting movies", or "The best of Plot driven movies", this is not for you (and you probably can't read too good either). What you will get from this film is a very professionally made documentary that showcases an excellent and incredibly varied selection of martial art fight scenes. In addition, we are also treated to interviews with some of the top actors in martial art films such as: Jackie Chan, Samo Hung and Cynthia Rothrock.

The film begins with the list of stars we're are about to bare witness to. Everyone from Bruce Lee to Van-Damme is here and you know we're in for a treat! After the opening credits there is a fantastic 3 minute or so scene which edits together out-takes of the film (which, of course, are themselves out-takes of other films) under Lalo Schifrin's ingenious score from "Enter The Dragon". Then John Saxon (Bruce Lee's co-star from "Enter The Dragon") takes the floor and gives us a brief overview of what martial-arts are and how they evolved. From then on its action, action, action!

The film is very well paced in that as soon you feel like you've just about had enough of a kung-fu fight scene, it will switch to something more kickboxing based or an interview segment, or even something comedic. You'll learn a lot about some of the lesser known talented stars in the industry and, unless you're already a hardcore fan, probably a lot you didn't know about the bigger stars too.

The only thing that stops this film from getting a straight 10 out of 10 is its slight out datedness and tendency to focus perhaps a bit too exclusively on the Hong Kong industry. It would have been nice to see some of todays stars and up-and-comings like Jet Li or Mark Dacascos, and to be fair Van Damme isn't the only Martial Art star Hollywood has to offer (surely Seagal could've had a mention). But these slight set backs should in no way deter you from seeking this film out. Highly recommended!

A rather odd video in that it doesn't actually have a plot. Well maybe not that unique. Instead it is set as a documentary style feature dealing with the numerous aspects of martial arts videos. It's narrated by an amusingly serious man in a bizarrely dark room, where it cuts to footage of stars such as Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan et al.

Unfortunately as it is quite old it doesn't feature Jet Li or any other of the up and coming martial arts stars. But it a good way to be introduced to the genre and the more experienced among you will get to see some bit's of movies you probably haven't seen.

This is the definitive documentary about classic pre-1990 martial arts films.

It's a beautifully paced look at some of the best fight scenes of the 70s and 80s, and it's a great starting point for anyone looking to get into the genre. It's elegantly presented and narrated by John Saxon, whose voice adds some real gravitas and glue to the flow of the clips.

It's a very Golden Harvest heavy selection, but there are also scenes from other Hong Kong movie companies such as Seasonal Films which add to the variety. A few Shaw brothers clips wouldn't have gone amiss, but I think that would have been too complicated due to rivalries and licencing.

A martial arts classic in its own right, and a tremendous source for the very best in which films to seek out.