A Fistful of Kung Fu (Brad's Picks)

The first Kung Fu Panda really surprised me.  Who knew that the silliness of Jack Black and (at the time) iffyness of Dreamworks animation would produce such a fun Kung Fu flick.  Really looking forward to Po's latest outing this weekend.  Anyway, You might think that this Fistful is a little odd, but this is the Kung Fu that I feel in my heart.

5.  The Kung Fu Treachery of the Fiendish Dr. Wu:  Black Dynamite is not only the perfect spoof of Blaxploitation cinema, it is also the perfect spoof of the Blaxploitation Kung Fu sub-genre.  I love, love, love Black Belt Jones and Michael Jai White totally gets Jim Kelly's "WHAAAA!" love for martial arts and Bruce Lee.  But is Black Dynamite's extra-ordinary Kung Fu a match for the Fiendish Dr. Wu?  Let's find out:

4.  The Final Fight of Iron Monkey:  I love Guillermo Del Toro's Blade 2.  I think I saw it at least three times in the theater and I definitely obsessed over it for about a year.  I remember watching Donnie Yen's Snowman dispatch a few reapers in the Vampire Club and thinking, who is that badass?  Well, the first Donnie Yen flick I tracked down was Iron Monkey and it definitely delivered on the ass-kickery.  But the tops is easily the final flaming pole fight seen below.  

  

3.  The Crippled Masters:  This was one of the earliest Kung Fu films I saw as a teenager.  It was one of those lunchroom flicks you heard about:  "Hey, have you seen that crazy ass flick about the crippled dudes chop-sockying the hell outta some fools?"  Well, when I finally tracked it down it didn't quite live up to its absurdity, but it still ranks high on the list for its concept and fight sequences.  Too bad there's so much plot that gets in the way.

2.  Kung Fu by Curtis Mayfield:  The coolest Kung Fu on the planet belongs to Curtis Mayfield.  It's the story of a child born in the ghetto who should have been named Jesus but he wasn't white enough Momma said.  His moniker gets him through, head held high he walks the streets, just trying to make it.  Kung Fu, you don't have to explain it.  Listen to the truth:

1.  Caine (Kung Fu):   "All can know good as good only because there is evil." – Master Po.  What is Kung Fu?  For me, it's David Carradine's warrior monk Caine traveling the landscape of the American West.  Along the way he has adventures with notables like William Shatner, LQ Jones, Pat Hingle, and Geraldine Brooks.  For the longest time, this (& Bruce Lee) is what American's thought of when they thought of Kung Fu and that goes for my sadsack self as well.  I wish I could put down The 5 Deadly Venoms as my top spot, but I gotta go with this television franchise.

--Brad

A Fistful of Kung Fu! (Matt's Picks)

In honor of the release of Kung Fu Panda 2, we at In the Mouth of Dorkness wanted to tell you about some of our favorite moments of Kung Fu.  This list was actually extremely difficult for me to put together.  There are so many great martial arts fights in film.  I finally simply had to pick a few of my favorites.  But don’t stop here.  Check out some Shaw Brothers films.  Watch some of the modern martial arts films that came after Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon became a worldwide hit and revitalized the kung fu film in Hong Kong.  Watch some of the amazing Zatoichi films from Japan. 

5.  The climactic battle from Master of the Flying Guillotine.  This is just nuts, and everything great about 70s chop-socky.  Bad dubbing, awful sound effects, crappy music and some knock-down drag-out fighting.  Crazy, man. 

4.  Trinity escapes the Agents in The Matrix.  Oh, sure, in the wake of the Matrix, we got inundated by stylistic imitations and it became ‘cool’ to dump on this film and especially on its sequels (though I love all three...yeah, that's right).  However, though its ideas were mostly recycled from cyberpunk novels and films, The Matrix was a watershed event picture that changed movie making, like Pulp Fiction a few years before.  And when I first saw it, I had no idea what I was in for.  The opening fight, where Trinity kicks a bunch of cops to the curb was pretty shocking and intense the first time I saw it.  When she ran across the wall, I got shivers.  The Matrix had me.  I saw it six or seven times in the theater.  Still one of the very few movies I saw more than twice during its theatrical run.

3.  Foxy Brown shows off her black belt skills to some angry lesbians.

2.  The oil fight from The Transporter.  In a movie that is made of crazy, the film makers dialed it to eleven with this slippery fight within a fight.  In this clip, it starts around the 4 minute mark.  Statham is in top form, and the goofy strangeness of the whole thing is no end of fun.

1.  Yu Shu Lien and Jen Yu have a difference of opinion in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.  This film came out at the perfect time for me.  My love of Hong Kong melodrama had just peaked and my love of kung fu film was exploding when Ang Lee’s romantic martial arts epic hit theaters.  Featuring the usually gun toting gangster-type Chow Yun-Fat as a stoic sword master and my longtime crush Michelle Yeoh as his old friend, it also boasted a sprawling storyline with star-crossed lovers, bandits, assassins, a magic sword, some poor bastard named Gou, ancient rivalries, true love, poisoned darts, a rousing score, and stunning cinematography.  I named it my favorite film of the first decade of the 21st century and it ranks among my favorite films of all time.  All of that aside, this sequence is just badass.

-Matt