I'm finally going to post my list and comments on the martial arts films that I've seen. This should be a multipart series as I remember more. Here's the ones that I can remember seeing. In order of how much I liked them....What have you liked? Obviously, I haven't seen that much.
Films / TV Programs
Kung Fu. The TV Program starring David Carradine.
The martial arts craze of the 70s was fueled in large part by the 'Kung Fu' program on TV (I recently purchased the first season on DVD). The TV series ran from 1972–1975 (I graduated from high school in 1976). It was a huge hit putting a pacifist idealistic kung fu master in the rough old racist US west. It hit the trends well riding both the enthusiasm for Westerns and the interest in Eastern philosophy and the martial arts. I learned about kung fu and Eastern philosophy from it.
Red Belt. By David Mamet.
The Human Weapon. A series on the History Channel in 2007-08.
Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story
The Karate Kid. Original.
The Karate Kid. Remake 2010.
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
Legend of Drunken Master. Jackie Chen.
Kung Fu Panda.
Foot Fist Way.
Boxing
When we were Kings
Mike Tyson
Thrilla in Manilla
And a bunch of others on Mohammed Ali.
BTW, I wrote about my martial arts reading list a few years ago.
3 comments:
Good list! What about the Martial Arts episode of Penn & Teller's "Bulls**t!" on Showtime? Controversial but good stuff nonetheless.
I think most martial arts movies are seriously flawed. The reality isn't as "sexy" on the screen to most folk as it would be to those of us who actually practice martial arts, so everything has to be superhuman or wire fu acrobatics - which is fun to watch but I'm always having to suspend too much of my disbelief, and it ruins it for me.
What about the story of, say, a TKD or judo player going for the gold at the Olympics? There's got to be a ton of good stories there.
"The Foot Fist Way", while a parody, is unfortunately rooted in truth - we've all known or heard of dojos, teachers, and artists like that, haven't we?
--Her
Kung Fu is what first created my interest in the Martial Arts. I was thriteen and here I am 37 years later still in love with the Martial Arts!
Awww! So disappointed that "Kill Bill" and "Kuro Obi" didn't make your list! But I like the ones that did :-)
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