On a quest for martial arts movies that flew under my radar, of which there are going to be a lot, because while I've seen probably more than most, that's not really saying much. Doing this for my dad.
Best I can do here is give examples of what we ended up liking:
The 36th Chamber of Shaolin - Probably the best out of all that we watched. Entertaining zero-to-hero story arc (these are the most fun to watch), light-hearted, and the ending is the big fight payoff you'd expect. No drama school deaths of major characters aimed at pronouncing the movie profound.
Heroes of the East - First half is reasonably entertaining comedy; second half is the payoff, where the various techniques demonstrated in the first half get put into play, one by one. And a happy ending. This is a perfect example of a movie you don't generally hear mentioned in a single paragraph listing off the greats, and yet fit the bill excellently.
This is certainly not to suggest that we prefer comedy. Fist of Legend belongs on that list, but it's maybe a bit recent, relatively speaking. Also, I can feel the recommendations of Shaolin Soccer and Kung Fu Hustle from a mile away, and my frank assessment of those two movies is that they are too deliberately bizarre in too many moments, and my dad would just be confused, having to filter that out in order to be entertained by the rest. I certainly enjoyed them, but I also recognized that I was having to overlook a lot of bizarreness.
Footnote: One movie we watched, I forgot the name of. People who've seen it will recognize it from this description: A zero-to-hero story. Sets out to learn marital arts. Has an overweight companion whom he instructs to occasionally attack him out of the blue, which he does a few times to great comedic effect. Towards the end, the protagonist is being "trained" by two (three?) masters simultaneously, who are also brothers. The final fight is deadly serious and the adversary gets bloodied up pretty badly but not killed. In the end, said adversary shouts something along the lines of the protagonist's name, or a concession of defeat, whatever. The end. Anyway, we enjoyed this movie, but were given whiplash by its constant switching of gears between light-hearted and deadly (people being massacred) seriousness. The ending was also rather ambiguous since I think everyone was basically dead except the good guy and bad guy. Not really sure I would add a movie like this to the list. Worth pointing out.
Submitted June 06, 2019 at 04:18AM by Fredasa http://bit.ly/2XwOdfa