Martial Arts Movies

The fol­low­ing movies should be con­sid­ered part of the train­ing of any qual­ity mar­tial arts pro­gram. No, I’m not kid­ding. Get out of the dojo and do some­thing enter­tain­ing. Watching movies requires very lit­tle work on your part and can seri­ously enrich your enjoy­ment of actual prac­tice. My stu­dents used to love when I would quote Karate Kid after a killer work­out. Anything you do to make your Taido more fun increases your chances of con­tin­u­ing to prac­tice when you may be tempted to slack off. If you need to slack, run down to the video store and pick up one of these:

The Karate Kid

No joke. This movie is great. It’s enter­tain­ing and real­is­tic. Memorize the “mercy is for the weak” speech and under­stand the sub­lim­i­nal teach­ings of all mar­tial arts schools. Resist the urge to watch Karate Kid Two or Three, let alone the much-reviled “Next Karate Kid” movie (though the chick was pretty cute). What can you really get out of a Ralph Maccio movie? Well, as opposed to “Crossroads” (in which we wit­ness young Ralph’s jour­ney to adult­hood as guided by the pithy wis­dom of a middle-aged black man), this movie fea­tures young Ralph’s jour­ney to adult­hood as guided by the pithy wis­dom of a middle-aged Japanese man. Aside from that, they’re about the same — the good guys (who have soul) tri­umph over the bad guys (who have sold their souls to one devil or another). One’s kind of about karate, and the other’s kind of about the blues. Ok, I give up — watch them both.

Enter the Dragon

This is the ulti­mate mar­tial arts movie. Sort of. It’s the arche­type at least. Bruce made the mar­tial arts cool. Before him, fight­ers were always big and ugly and mean-looking. Actually, this remains true for the most part. But this movie made fight­ing sexy in much the same way that Starbucks made it OK to charge $5 for a cup of cof­fee. Besides that, you need to watch this to under­stand why “Fistful of Yen” is so damn funny. However, it does lack the yel­low jump­suit from “Game of Death,” not to men­tion Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.

Kentucky Fried Movie

Specifically the “Fistful of Yen” por­tion, but you may as well go on and watch the rest of the movie while you’re at it. Practice hard enough, and you can be just like Big Jim Slade. We are, after all, build­ing a fight­ing force of Extra-Ordinary Magnitude. Now go back and watch enter the dragon again. Like that? I thought you would. Just be glad you don’t have to watch it in Feel-O-Vision.

The Last Dragon

Also in the com­edy depart­ment. Learn why my favorite English word is “sho-nuff” and how to attain the elu­sive glow of a true mas­ter. Some great music in this one as well. If you have any doubts that Tybok is a true badass, try catch­ing a bul­let with your teeth some­time (or walk­ing around harlem dressed like an extra from “Big Trouble in Little China”).

Big Trouble in Little China

Kurt Russel is the great­est actor of all time. OK, maybe not, but he sure knows how to kick a thousand-year-old Chinese guy’s ass. In addi­tion to pro­vid­ing an unbi­ased cul­tural doc­u­men­tary, free of stereo­types, this movie deals with the impor­tance of hon­or­ing friend­ships (espe­cially when your friends owe you money).

Fight Club

All right. So I don’t like admit­ting that I like this movie because it was so hyped, but it’s unavoid­able. I had orig­i­nally over­looked it as pro­vid­ing any ben­e­fit for the Taido stu­dents, but I’ve recon­sid­ered a lit­tle bit. The thing is, a lot of the stuff that Tyler says is just rehashed psuedo-philosophical crap. But. There is some good stuff there as well. I’ll leave the eval­u­a­tion to you.

Remo Williams - The Adventure Begins

If you can find it, this movie is absolutely clas­sic in its por­trayal of a typ­i­cal asian mar­tial arts mas­ter. Dig the “high-tech”-looking props and sets in some scenes and pay spe­cial atten­tion to the secret teach­ings revealed dur­ing Remo’s train­ing — espe­cially les­son num­ber 23, and remem­ber never to break into any place guarded by dober­mans unless you know some­body with a pros­the­sis. Not bad for a guy who got his name off a bed pan.

any Steven Segal movie

OK, hon­estly, the only thing you’ll really get out of this is the ancient tech­nique of “speak­ing slowly to sound deep.” Martial arts instruc­tors and other self-important ego­ists have used this tech­nique for cen­turies to give the illu­sion that they are putting great thought behind their words. See how stu­pid Segal sounds when he does this and never fall for it again.

11 Responses to Martial Arts Movies
  1. Arnold

    Hey Andy, while lurk­ing around KU I stum­bled upon your con­tri­bu­tions to Ed’s punch/elbow debate. I then stum­bled onto Taidoblog, which I find visu­ally appeal­ing and ele­gantly writ­ten. I was orig­i­nally plan­ning on leav­ing a com­ment on your recruit­ment arti­cle, until I hap­pened on your movie recommendations.

    Anybody involved in MA has a list of favorite movies: movies that inspire; movies that instruct; movies that enter­tain. My list would also include “The Last Dragon” and “Big Trouble in Little China.” Publishing a list of rec­om­men­da­tions is only doing half the job, don’t you think? Equally instruc­tive, and per­haps more valu­able would be a list of movies to avoid. To this I would add the entire ouvre of Mssrs. Segal, Norris, Wilson (aka the Dragon), and Van Damme as well as any movie con­tain­ing “Octagon” or “Ninja” in the title.

    I look for­ward to read­ing more about your thoughts on Taido.

  2. Corey Myers

    I love your segal com­ment. dead on. I say that van damme had 1 good movie: kick­boxer. It is actu­ally very good except for the last fight. but up till then great movie.

  3. Marc Garduque

    Of the Karate Kid series, I like Part III the best. The “Quicksilver” method is clas­sic. I would also rec­om­mend Fist of Legend and Twin Warriors as two really great Jet Li movies. I would also rec­om­mend the fol­low­ing Akira Kurosawa movies: The Seven Samurai; Yojimbo; and Sanjuro (Sanjuro being my per­sonal favorite).

  4. andy

    ha! nice, mark.

    “if a man can see, a man can’t fight. if a man can’t stand, a man can’t fight.” i think there was a lit­tle more to the quick­sil­ver method, but not much.

    thanks for remind­ing me of that. i also remem­ber lik­ing the line, “make his knuck­les bleed.”

  5. Marc Garduque

    I believe the cor­rect order is:

    If a man can’t stand, he can’t fight.
    If a man can’t breathe, he can’t fight.
    If a man can’t see, he can’t fight.

    What is really scary (to me any way) is that these state­ments are all pretty much true. I par­tic­u­larly liked the part when Daniel states that you can’t punch peo­ple in the face and then Terry says, “Hey that’s not your fault. His face ran into your fist. That means he can’t con­tinue, which means… YOU WIN!!!”

  6. natalie

    I thought Kurosawa’s ‘Ran’ was awesome…

  7. andy

    marc — thanks for clear­ing that up. now i know what to do if i ever end up fight­ing again. i’m sure the cops will under­stand when i explain “he attacked my hand with his face.”

    natalie — i never saw that one. it gets added to the list…

  8. VP_Turpeinen

    I’d like to adver­tise the 70’s kung fu clas­sic “The 36th Chamber of Shaolin”. It’s def­i­nitely a must-see for any seri­ous mar­tial artist (and wannabes too!). The plot is sim­ple: a young man escapes the oppress­ing Manchu gov­ern­ment to Shaolin tem­ple, where he trains to become a mar­tial arts mas­ter. Then he leaves the tem­ple and rises against the Manchus.

    Why is it so good? First of all, there is the influ­en­tial train­ing sec­tion of the movie. It’s funny, inspir­ing, and kicks some seri­ous balls. I’m pretty sure Karate Kid took some inspi­ra­tion of the intense mar­tial art work­outs dis­played here. Then there are the fight scenes, which are sim­ply great. Gotta love the three-sectional staff work. And in a true Hong Kong style, the fights are not (very) overex­ag­ger­ated. It’s also sat­is­fy­ing to watch from an artis­tic per­spec­tive. There’s vision, cool film­ing and cam­era tricks. And for some odd rea­son, I seem to find depth in it. Maybe that’s just because I like the film so much. If you had seen it, I think you would too.

  9. AndyFossett

    @VP_Turpeinen That’s a great rec­om­men­da­tion! I saw it a few years ago at a friend’s house, but I’m going to see if I can find it on DVD.

    A real classic.

  10. flyingZombie

    @AndyFossett Hey Andy, I got one for you. “Shaolin Soccer”. It’s a fun Kung Fu com­edy. A group of Misfits prac­tic­ing Kung Fu get together and form a soc­cer team and com­pete in a tour­na­ment for cash prize. A lit­tle bit of Matrix, Kill Bill and Jackie Chan rolled into one Kickn Movie.

  11. AndyFossett

    @flyingZombie Shaolin Soccer is a great one! That and Kung Fu Hustle are favorites of mine, for sure.

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