Spyderco Forums

From Ran (1985), the attack on Hidetora's castle:
https://youtu.be/qs92nyDDBdQ

Angel (alternate title: Iron Angels; 1987, Hong Kong). Director: Teresa Woo San.

Final Fight: Moon Lee & Elaine Lui vs Yukari Oshima:

https://youtu.be/S_bnmb_OIM0

Jim

My idea of how to fight now that I'm old.

https://youtu.be/_9jLKNP7Oxo

From "the drop" Tom Hardy and James Galdofini in his last movie.

BTW, Ran is an amazing movie!

I’d forgotten how good that film was. Reminds me really how very, very much I don’t want to be a criminal! Tom Hardy is a great actor.

Ran is brilliant. Shakespeare’s King Lear, of course.

Ran is brilliant. Shakespeare’s King Lear, of course.

I love those Japan made epics. Throne of blood is coming on TCM in a week or two. It's also where I saw Ran a few years ago. I subscribe to that channel just because they play those kind of movies.

I’d forgotten how good that film was. Reminds me really how very, very much I don’t want to be a criminal! Tom Hardy is a great actor.

Naomi Rapace does an excellent job portraying someone going into the almost shock like state that comes over people not used to that kind of thing. All in all, never threaten someone's dog. It can be dangerous. :D

Thanks for the contributions, guys!

Jim

Pedicab Driver (1989, Hong Kong & Macau). Director: Sammo Hung.

I remember years ago reading that Sammo Hung suffered broken bones while filming the final fight with Billy Chow. In that era (1980s to early ‘90s) in Hong Kong action films, actors and stuntmen used heavy contact for most blows, especially to the limbs and torso, in order to add more realism to the scenes. Not surprisingly, injuries, some quite serious, were common. Note the back kick and fall on the staircase taken by Yuen Tak at the beginning of the clip.

Final fight: Sammo Hung vs Eddie Maher & Billy Chow:

https://youtu.be/bwCv3Jgn6q4

Jim

Master of the Flying Guillotine (1976, Taiwan). Director: Jimmy Wang Yu. Fight choreography: Lau Kar-Leung & Lau Kar-Wing.

The arch-villain is a blind Manchu killer disguised as a Buddhist monk. Before anyone asks, the swastika on his robe was a religious symbol used in Buddhism and other Asian religions LONG before the nazis appropriated and twisted it. This became the best and most famous (dare I say iconic?) role for actor/martial artist Kam Kang. His portrayal of the blind killer was a menacing presence throughout the film.

Director and star Jimmy Wang Yu was a big martial arts/action star in Asia, both before and after Bruce Lee. Kind of surprisingly, since he was never a good martial artist. Here he plays ‘the one-armed boxer’. In spite of his lack of real-life martial skill, he starred in some good movies, this one being his best (IMO). This movie is great because of the storyline, the characters, and the cinematography, and the many excellent performers, and not because Wang Yu himself was a particularly electrifying performer.

Final fight: Jimmy Wang Yu vs Kam Kang:

https://youtu.be/EkQQdK1Sn2s

Jim

My Young Auntie (1981, Hong Kong). Director: Lau Kar-Leung.

There’s a reason that Lau Kar-Leung was probably the most esteemed kung fu movie director and choreographer in Hong Kong cinema (but not the highest-earning; that honor would go to Jackie Chan). Lau was extremely demanding of his actors/performers, and his movies were famous for having the most complex and difficult choreography in the genre. In the large-scale fight scenes, every person in the shot who is moving, even in the background, is meticulously choreographed. A stuntman and choreographer in movies since at least the early 1960s, Lau Kar-Leung was also the man who revolutionized the “kung fu styles” choreography that influenced the post-Bruce Lee kung fu movie era. Lau’s movies were definitely aimed at a “kung fu” audience, so if you don’t like watching kung fu movies, you might give them a miss. If you like watching different “shapes” (kung fu styles), you will probably be in kung fu heaven. :). As usual when Lau appeared in his own films, he (along with arch-villain Wang Lung-Wei) end up stealing the show at the very end.

My Young Auntie had some of Lau’s most inspired choreography. It’s also one of Lau’s films where nobody is killed. The final battle is multi-tiered and was divided into two parts in four clips; a pre-final fight and the true final fight. In these clips, the brief connecting scene between the pre-final fight (1st and 2nd clips) and the true final battle (3rd and 4th clips) is not included. Featuring: Kara Hui, Hsiao Hou, Yuen Tak, Wilson Tong, Kwan Yung-Moon, Ching Chu, Lau Kar-Leung, Wang Lung-Wei, Lin Hui-Huang, etc.

https://youtu.be/vUxEY6fivmg

https://youtu.be/35M7NoIQ6vc

https://youtu.be/DLc9687hhGk

https://youtu.be/r4X9T8bgn08

Jim

Kung Fu Jungle (AKA, Kung Fu Killer; Hong Kong, 2014). Director: Teddy Chan.

Final fight: Donnie Yen vs Wang Baoqiang:

https://youtu.be/JdnYt2-H-40

Jim

The Good, the Bad, the Weird (2008, South Korea). Director: Kim Jee-Woon.

IMO, this is the best and most ambitiously-filmed chase scene I’ve ever seen in any movie. Of course, the scene is even better in the context of watching the entire movie. The final showdown between the principal characters is not included.

Final chase scene: Featuring Song Kang-Ho, Lee Byung-Hun, Jung Woo-Sung, etc.:

https://youtu.be/2LcyA2tHzUA

Jim

The Twilight Samurai (2002, Japan). Director: Yoji Yamada.

IMO, one of the truly great samurai films. I’m posting two different clips of the same fight scene, because the longer clip shows more details of the scene, whereas in the shorter clip, the fight itself is much clearer. The Twilight Samurai is not a fight-oriented movie, but this scene shows the main character’s self-confidence combined with a truly humble attitude.

Fight scene: Hiroyuki Sanada vs Ren Osugi:

https://youtu.be/TvxsHqFPj6M

https://youtu.be/ykzpYJvqTeQ

Jim

Rihanna vs Alien

https://youtu.be/v1OYPnWLPXw

The Leg Fighters (AKA The Invincible Kung Fu Legs; Taiwan, 1980). Director: Lee Tso-Nam.

Opening credits:

https://youtu.be/J3yIx5jm4uU

Final fight: Tan Tao-Liang, Hsia Kuang-Li & Chin Lung vs Peng Kang:

https://youtu.be/sTYrx6LYdYs

Jim

Wuxia [translation: Martial Hero]; (alternate international title: Dragon; 2011, Hong Kong/China). Director: Peter Chan.

Jimmy Wang Yu, 68 years old at the time and playing the arch-villain, ironically looks more physically imposing here than he did in his movies as a young man back in his heyday, although it’s clear he had some stunt doubling. Donnie Yen’s character cutting his own arm off is a tribute to Wang Yu, who played the original One-Armed Swordsman back in 1967, and later the One-Armed Boxer). Jimmy Wang Yu’s character is a master of Golden Bell Cover/Iron Cloth or Iron Shirt (Jin Zhong Zhao/Tie Bu Shan), which in the movies renders the practitioner almost invulnerable to blows from hands, feet and non-firearm weapons, except for one “Achilles’ heel”. Just like characters (usually villains) in several earlier entries in this thread (Shaolin vs Lama, Executioner From Shaolin, The Invincible Armour, My Young Auntie, etc.).

Final fight: Donnie Yen & Takeshi Kaneshiro vs Jimmy Wang Yu:

https://youtu.be/5167s6WUs6M

Jim

Everyone's favorite Russian.

https://youtu.be/nJn1LjLaNVQ

https://youtu.be/U584s0qd2aw

one more try

https://youtu.be/JyyGJk51n-0

Hand of Death (1976, Hong Kong; filmed in South Korea). Director: John Woo. Action director: Sammo Hung.

Director John Woo is the same John Woo who later went on to direct such Hong Kong gangster classics as A Better Tomorrow, The Killer, Hard Boiled, Bullet in the Head, etc., before making a few Hollywood films starring Van Damme, John Travolta, Nicholas Cage, Christian Slater, etc. Many Westerners who are familiar with John Woo are unaware that he started out directing kung fu and Wuxia (martial hero) films.

In this film, the arch-villain, James Tien, was another Peking Opera academy alumni from Taiwan. He appeared and starred in many wuxia and kung fu films. He is most familiar in the West for his supporting roles in two of Bruce Lee’s films: The Big Boss and Fist of Fury (AKA The Chinese Connection). He was also in Bruce Lee’s original footage in Game of Death as one of Bruce Lee’s two allies, who got decimated by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. That original footage was not included in the inferior 1978 patchwork posthumous version of Game of Death that was directed by Robert Clouse.

Final fight: Tan Tao-Liang vs James Tien:

https://youtu.be/EG5rVsKCc4E

Jim

Lost footage from Game of Death (filmed in 1972, Hong Kong). Director: Bruce Lee.

AFAIK, this is the most complete lost footage of this fight scene. No doubt had he lived, Bruce would have edited it down. Dan Inosanto was probably Bruce’s best student, but Inosanto was already already an accomplished martial artist before they even met. Inosanto was also the man who taught Bruce Lee how to handle the nunchaku (or, as people like to mistakenly call them, “nunchucks”). Bruce shot raw footage with Inosanto, Hapkido master Ji Han-Jae, and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, but the project was put on hold when Enter the Dragon came along.

I saw Dan Inosanto in person in 1982, and his skills were amazing.

Also in the scene are James Tien and Chieh Yuen.

Bruce Lee vs Dan Inosanto:

https://youtu.be/1KCHKx2ayuc

Jim

Zatoichi Challenged (1967, Japan). Director: Kenji Misumi.

IIRC, out of all films in the Zatoichi series, this was Zatoichi’s toughest opponent.

Final fight: Zatoichi (Shintaro Katsu) vs Master Akatsuka (Jushiro Konoe):

https://youtu.be/qm54jK31LUk

Jim