Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2018/08/20/fascinating-introduction-to-ku.html
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Woo some new to me films in there for me to search out.
I will say you can’t go wrong with a Shaw Brothers KungFu or Wuxia film for good fun on a lazy afternoon.
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My favourite moment in a martial arts film.
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What a relief and joy to see. It has been so painful to watch the BS fight scenes that Hollywood has been cranking out.
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While not shown in this video there are some not so well produced but fun stuff from Taiwan that is worth watching if you like the genre.
For a dose of pure what the hell fun action watch Master Of the Flying Guillotine which uses Tangerine Dream and Can Neu! for the soundtrack.
edit fixed my Krautrock references. The introduction I got in the theater said Can and that has stuck in my head.
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OK, I’m not going to lie, seeing the clip of The 36th Chamber of Shaolin immediately made me think of the Wu Tang Clan and their weird association with Kung-Fu films and Shaolin in particular. To listen to their records, you might think they just were super into 70s Kung-Fu films, but they got really involved with the Shaolin: Rza made a pilgrimage to the Wudang mountains in China, where the abbot allegedly told him that they knew he would be coming. They also became fast friends with Shi Yan Ming, the founder of the Shaolin temple in NYC and made several videos with him. ODB’s manager even had a child with him.
All this is to say that as much as I love WuTang, I’ve never watched the films that influenced them. Maybe now’s the time…
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Damn right it is and any of the movies mentioned are worth it.
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“Master of the Flying Guillotine” is totally my fav Kung Fu flick. It’s one of those ones where you are rooting for the bad guy the whole time, ala “Fists of the White Lotus”. I mean, the bad guy is great. Independent of that there is a tournament, and the tournament… clearly had to inspire fighting video games after it, as one dude is a Thai Kickboxer, and another dude is from India and has stretchy limbs! He also has an owl he throws that scratches someone’s cheek. We haven’t even gotten into the titular weapon and its bee-keeper helmet bladed decapitation thing. If opening narration is to be believed, the dude was a member of a military unit of Flying Guillotine users, which deserved a movie all its own.
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Thank you for this very interesting post.
My martial-arts-film-literacy leveled up from watching this video, and I probably would never have come across it except that it was posted here at bOINGbOING 
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This guy was really cool!
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Okay, the old stuff was my sunday afternoon meat and potatoes as a child, but I have to say that there are some modern inheritors of the mantle that have done a great job as well.
I vote for Stephen Chow, particularly “Kung Fu Hustle”:
Yeah, lots of CG, but it allows the wire-fu and general ridiculousness to be scaled up to a degree I could have only dreamed of as a kid.
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He is very funny and talented. Did you watch this one?
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Too bad Journey to the West and The Mermaid fell flat though.
God of Cookery is probably my favorite.
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Absolutely!
Pretty good, but IMHO not quite as much as Hustle.
He’s got a ton of movies, many of which were pretty big in Asia.
https://www.rottentomatoes.com/celebrity/stephen_chow/ (film list)
Haven’t seen “Mermaid” yet tho.
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Well it was okay for getting the DVD from the library. I wouldn’t go out of my way for it.
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Yes. I tried to watch the mermaid one. It was very, very boring and silly in a bad way.
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This was a great post. I own a few of the movies shown here, but some of them have different titles. I didn’t know that Shaolin Master Killer is the same movie as The 36th Chamber of Shaolin until I watched the clips! I love me some Gordon Liu.
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