Alternative title: Songstress Red Peony.

The 1st Chinese sound movie. Made in Shanghai China.

I don't believe the film is available today.

Chinese title: Peach Blossom Weeps Tears of Blood (桃花泣血記). English title: The Peach Girl.

For English speakers, 1 of the great thing about watching this Chinese silent film is that you don't need to worry about English subtitle. Not that they don't have dialogues because they're silent. They do have dialogues. It's ...read more

There's also New Women (1934), which IMDB doesn't have a entry in their database.

Many of the early SB's historical costume dramas are done in Huangmei Opera format (also called Huangmeixi) from a period of 1950s up until the mid 1960s.

Huangmei Opera isn't hard to appreciate by newbies who want to ...read more

Although Diau Charn (1958) is the 1st Huangmei Diao ever made, it was this 2nd Huangmei Opera feature that gave the genre a real boost, and gave this art form a good run for almost a decade.

When cars arrived on the streets, people called it ...read more

Chinese title: Liang Shanbo & Zhu Yingtai (in Mandarin)

This is another Huangmexi directed by Li Han Hsiang. When people heard this name, they may say ...read more

As this is the early 1960s, nobody, not even King Hu could escape from making Huangmei Opera for SB. To be fair, this is his 2nd film, and the 1st 4 films he made ....read more

Chinese title: The Great Drunken Xia.

Not a bad wuxia movie in itself. But what I find interesting because it marks ...read more

Chinese title: Dragon Gate Inn.

This is the next King Hu masterpiece that followed on the success of his seminal work, Come Drink with Me that he made in SB the year earlier. This one, however, was made ...more

This movie is the 1st among many that earned Chang Cheh many ...read more

English title: Golden Swallow. I mentioned in Come Drink with Me that it was the 1st wuxia with a nuxia. That's only partly true. Although Cheng Pei-pei was indeed played ...read more

English title: Flying Dagger The movie started with a rape scene. When I watched this picture the 1st time in the early 1990s, my 1st reaction is that this opening scene ...read more

By now, Cheng Pei-pei apparently had a loyal following judging from the number of wuxia flicks she appeared since the seminal Come Drink with Me.

Had no fear, fans of nuxia, even with Chang ...read more

Chinese title: Security Guard (保鏢).

This is 1 of the earliest film where Chang Cheh teamed up his favourite duo David Chiang and Ti Lung in his wuxia flick. Lee Ching also made her early appearance in this wuxia to ptovide the romantic interest in this unrequited love triangle.

English title: Heads for Sale. Chinese title: Nuxia Sells Heads.

Another nuxia flick, and its number could only be matched by the inordinate amount of qing-gong (light or leaping) skills and ...read more

English title: Vengeance (報仇).

This is a departure of Chang Cheh's main stable genre of wuxia for his previous 20 years of film making except for only 2 (and none of the 2 are in the same genre as this film).

This is an action flick that's neither classified as a wuxia nor a kungfu flick ...read more

English title: Lady with a Sword.

"Feng Fei Fei" is the name of our heroine. This is another nice addition to the SB's nuxia subgenre. This time the baton, or more accurately, the ...read more

Unlike The One-Armed Swordsman, where there's only a singular hero played by Wang Yu, this movie has 2 heroes ...read more

Chinese title: Xia Nu (俠女).

This is arguably the most famous flick of the nuxia subgenre, albeit that Cheng Pei-pei ...read more

Alternative English title: The Big Boss. Chinese title: Big Brother From Tangshan (唐山大兄).

it's easy to understand why they wanted to change the Chinese title ...read more

Chinese title: 14 Heroines (十四女英豪). English title: 14 Amazons.

The 2 years period 1971 - 72 saw the greatest change, a turning point in HK martial arts film genre.

In this period, the female embodiment of ...read more

Alternative English title: The Chinese Connection. Chinese title: Jing Wu School (精武門).

This movie has made the Chen Zhen character so successful that both Jet Li and Donnie Yen ...read more

Being made so close after the 2 Bruce Lee's movies, it isn't hard to see that his influence on this flick is ...read more

English title: Boxer from Shantung Chinese title: Ma Yong Zhen (馬永貞).

Some director like the legendary King Hu, who sticks to his ...read more

Alternative English title: Lady Kung Fu. Chinese title: Hap Ki Do

As in One-Armed Boxer, both of these 2 movies are made by GH, and being made right after The Chinese Connection, which is arguably the most important Bruce Lee's movie, it's little wonder this movie got made.

Hollywood had made quite a number of movies ...read more

Alternative English title: The Way of the Dragon. Chinese title: River-Crossing Dragon (猛龍過江).

In order to control all aspects of his movie, he decided to produce, direct and act in this movie. With this film, Chinese kungfu genre has broken out of Asia and gone international.

There's that iconic scene of Bruce Lee and Chuck Norris kicking each other senseless at the Roman Colosseum. At least this movie is very well known in Italy.

A Chinese classic of sweeping epic about 108 men and women who are outlaws. Trying to put the whole book into one movie is like trying to squeeze a harddrive into your camera memory card slot. This film focuses on chapters 64 - 68 of the classic (out of 100. Nice round number to stop writing). Even then, it has some 15 or so characters, most of which are well known to Chinese audience.

For people who has no background about the story, it could be quite confusion, and in fact, quite daunting a task to watch it. Seems like this movie started int the middle of the actions. But it works for Star War, and Crouching Tiger, and Hidden Dragon. You would enjoy this one if you're a Chinese history buff and/or Water Margin fans.

Chinese title: Love Slave (愛奴).

This movie adds somewhat a more lurid twist to the popular ...read more

English title: When Taekwondo Strikes. Alternative English title: Sting of the Dragon Masters. This alternative title tells nothing about the film. In fact misleading.

After the making of Hapkido, it was only fair that the ...read more

Chinese title: Turbulence in the Welcoming Spring Pavilion (迎春閣之風波).

There're 2 title roles in this movie - Lee Khan is the English title role while the inn or tavern ("Welcoming Spring Pavilion") supplies the Chinese title role. In fact, 2 of his previous notable wuxia films have the inn as the focal point where the story takes place. These include Come Drink with Me (1966), and Dragon Inn (1967).

Indeed, the inn appeared nearly twice as ...read more

First sizeable budget kungfu movie made with Hollywood money.

This was his last COMPLETE movie that he made. When he died, the size of the crowd of morners that lined the streets was the biggest before or ever since his death in HK. HK has a colonial Queen from UK, but he was the real, unofficial King that the HK citizen recognize.

I always knew that Bruce Lee's effect on the HK martial arts genre was great before. Now that I have made this list, I realize I was wrong. His effect on the HK martial arts genre wasn't great, it was complete. At least in the decade of the 1970s. If you read everything that related to the martial arts genre in this list in the Bruce Lee decade, you see that no major actors, directors, movies that hadn't touched by him. Some greater than other. His effect on subsequent Wang Yu films are total, which isn't surprising as they were both working with GH at the same time. And the great wuxia film director from SB, Chang Cheh, begun to make kungfu flicks. While King Hu was 1 of the very few martial arts directors who was fairly cool from the whole Bruce Lee Fever.

Warning: you may find yourself kicking your friends and making weird noises uncontrollably after the movie. Please refrain from doing so. If your girl friend is doing that to you, it's far safer to stick with chick flicks on your next date.

There were literally more than 100 works had been made since his death from movies with Bruce Lee impersonators, to movies that based on parts of his lives, movies that were inspired by his movies, flicks made by people who had the cheek to call themselves Bruce Lee, and last but not least, the many docos that chronicled his life.

This 1 is the best docos I have seen on his life. I must admit I have only seen 6 docos about Bruce Lee. So this may not be the most informed choice. Still, it's quite well done.

This is another excellenet doc on Bruce Lee. The name of this doco should be clear what it's all about.

I'm not going to make a laundry list of how Bruce Lee changed the world. You could find out from this movie yourlsef. But I will ...read more

Chinese title: The Angry Youth

Never mind the History Channel's struggling for explanations of the what, how, and when of this exotic, fabled weapon from the East. This movie will supply you with all those answers. If it lacks in acuracy (definitely), it's more than made up for it in fun factor. Plenty of headless, body twitching, legs kicking corpses (if that's your kicks).

The audience liked this form of brainless - I mean headless - entertainment so much that the sequel to One-Armed Boxer (1972) included the baddie who wields this head hunting weapon, and was renamed to Master of the Flying Guillotine (1976) to highlight this Flying Wheel of Misfortune.

a.k.a. One-Armed Boxer II.

Move aside, One-Armed Boxer, make room for the ....read more

English title: Dirty Ho. Chinese title: Rotten Head Ho (爛頭何).

When is a fight not a fight? Watch it and you will know why!

The Chinese title for this kungfu flick is Rotten Head Ho. You could see the herbal medicine patch on his forehead. The more accurate title should be Block Head Ho because ...read more

English title: New Fists of Fury.

This isn't 1 of my favourite, but a 'milestone' film in a sense. It's a film that illustrates the whole wave of Bruceploitation that HK martial art film industry gone through ...read more

Jackie Chan, Like Bruce Lee's rise to fame 'seem' to have occured overnight. In fact, both of them had been ...read more

This movie is a classic among kungfu fans because of 2 people. The 1st person is so obvious that I won't name him. The other isn't obvious because ...read more

English Title: Enter the Fat Dragon.

People didn't grow up in the 1970s may still feel the effects and influences of Bruce Lee via ...read more

The birth of this and a few SB's early kungfu flicks since Bruce Lee's death were a direct result of the ...read more

Chinese Title: Chinese Husband.

I have little doubt that this kungfu flick is inspired by Bruce Lee's The Chinese Connection. Before Bruce Lee, the HK film industry shunned away from ...read more

English title: The Magnificant Butcher.

Sammo Hung played Lin Shirong (Lam Sai-Wing), who was 1 of Wong Fei-Hong's student. Wong Fei-Hong on the other hand ...read more

Starring Wong Yue, better known for his title role of Dirty Ho, playing as martial arts student to Gordon Liu.

Don't confuse Wong Yue with Wang Yu. Both are SB's martial arts actors around this period. Wang Yu is better known as the man who single-handedly created the One-Armed Swordsman cult (I never get tired of the one-armed joke). Even an IMDB reviewer on this movie, who obviously knows his stuff, got confused between the 2. And he isn't the only 1. We should call the older SB star Jimmy Wang Yu to avoid any possible confusion.

Wong Yue died quite young (for somebody with his fitness) in 2008. This is the reason we don't hear much from him.

Seasoned audience would probably be able to anticipate the many plot twists in this kungfu flicks. It also has a large cast. Despite this 2 things, the plots aren't at all confusing. Many weapons are being used in this flick, and Wong Yue's weapon is an umbrella that has the words "With Me, Witout You". Translation: "Better You Die Than Me".

English title: The Sword.

This wuxia is made at a time when SB was winding down its studio, which was best remembered the world over for their wuxia flicks, and to a small extent, Huangmeixi. So a new wave of new wuxia directors will be making their presence felt in this new era without SB.

Patrick Tam is 1 of those ...read more

The similarities between this movie and The Magnificant Butcher are many.

They're both comedy kungfu ...read more

Chinese title: The Elder or The Senior.

Both the Chinese and English title provides tantalising clues as to what this story is all about.

Liu Chia-Liang took Gordon Liu ...read more

In terms of plot, characters development, and choreography that looks good and entertainment on the screen, Mainland China is still a long way – even today – in catching up with HK’s kungfu flicks.

Having said that, what this film has distinguished it from ALL HK kungfu flicks ever made BEFORE or ever SINCE is ...read more

The Liu's "brothers" (Liu Chia-Liang, and Liu Chia-Hui) once again teamed up for another kungfu flick.

This movie is slightly unusual for the ...read more

Don't watch this movie late in week nights because it's full of sounds and fury that would wake up your neighbour. And a lot of meelee to match.

Gordon Liu is in his element - or should I say Shaolin - in 2 movies with numbers in its titles. The other is 36th Shaolin Chamber. Another thing these 2 movies share is the patriotic theme.

There're a few unforgetable images such as men die like men - standing up. And Yang Fifth's (played by Gordon Liu) own conversion into monkhood and burning his freshly shaved head with joss sticks. And the Tartars' coiling weapons that I suspect it was invented for this movie.

As Shaolin is a religious order, its weapon of choice is a pole, which has no sharp edges that kill. So Yang Fifth removes the spearhead from his spear, thus turns it into his monogrammed pole before entering Shaolin Temple. The training in this movie is only skimmed over briefly.

If action is what you looking for, this one is non-stop.

They could tone down the emotional intensity. But if you like that, you'll love this historical costume kungfu flick.

English title: Mad Mission. Alternative English Title: Aces Go Places. Chinese title: Best of Partners (最佳拍檔).

This is a milestone film because it's a truly very first HK action flick. What? You say. Of course, there were action flicks in HK cinema before this movie. After all, action has always been the ...read more

English title: Mad Mission 2

This is a milestone film for Jackie Chan.

This isn't JC's best movie by any yardstick, but it's the first HK film that marked his change of direction in the types of ...read more.

Alternative English title: Righting Wrongs.

This isn't the 1st (1 of the earliest), nor the last of Cynthia Rothrock's roles in HK action flicks. It's the best to date in my opinion. This is arguably aso the best in ....

It's good to see that to see that things have come full circle. In the 1970s we had Bruce Lee ......read more

English title: Legacy of Rage. Chinese title: Dragon in Jiang Hu.

The 'Dragon' in this Chinese title is obviously a reference to Bruce Lee's Chinese name, as well as 2 movie titles that made by Bruce Lee (Enter the Dragon & The Way of the Dragon).

This is Brandon Lee's 1st main feature, and also his best HK action flick he made.

It seems that in the 1980s, HK was in a trend of importing action stars from the States, some of the well known ones included Cynthia Rothrock & Karren Shepherd in Above the Law (1986), and Brandon Lee & Michael Wong in this one.

Chinese title: Smiling, Proud Wanderer (笑傲江湖), name based on Louis Cha's novel. While the 1970s - what I like to call the Bruce Lee ...

King Hu was the 1st director in HK film industry who introduced us to the crafty cast of secretive castrates on the silver screen in his wuxia masterpiece ...read more

This is the 2nd instalment of The Swordsman Trilogy.

If you're brand new to wuxia genre (where have you been?), or had been only exposed to the old-school wuxia (you're showing your age), you would find the prequel The Swordsman (1990) a bit over the top. It's actually only served as appetiser for this instalment where its wushu action takes on even more fantastic proportion. And it isn't just the martial arts, but the ...read more

Chinse title: New Dragon Gate Inn.

A remake of King Hu's masterpiece made in 1967 (in my list).

In terms of plot, the remake is more elaborate. Some may say ...read more

Somewhat breaks the convention of kungfu genre. The martial arts in wuxia - sometimes called sword play - can and do defy the law of gravity. And these movies take place in ancient antiquity. They all have long hairs ...read more

This is the most noted nuxia flick since A Touch of Zen, and it's the most famous nuxia flick outside Chinese community.

Feminist theme is what gains ...read more

This is Zhang Yimou's 1st wuxia flick, hot on the heels of Crouching Tiger, and given the wuxia genre another leg up in the international awareness. The wuxia genre had finally lept off the air with qing-gong after decades of languishing in the studio of Shaw Bros.

If any director should give a title "Hero" to this movie, Zhang Yimou should. This is one of the few, if not the only movie, where it's featured a hero. All his other movies are about heroines. Not that I have any problem with it, looking at my recommendation of his films in this list. Zhang is clearly a feminist, and from the many earlier movies that he made, a champion of the downtrodden.

With this wuxia film, along with "Hero", Zhang Yimou has proven to himself that he could do commercial wuxia films as well as art-house film, which he was famous for

Ip Man comes to fame as he taught Wing Chun to Bruce Lee. This is the first instalment of the trillogy of his semi-biography. The story takes place in Foshan, China. Foshan is a area in Guangdong that is the mecca for Chinese southern style of martial arts. Many famous Cantonese kungfu practictioners opened schools here, including Wong Fei-hung.

This flick - no, this film, has the best hand-to-hand combat sequences since The Chinese Connection. This is my opinion, but I know many people share it. What's more, it also has the same historical backgrop as The Chinese Connection - i.e. a Chinese kicking the butts of the Japanese invaders. And of course, last but not least, Ip Man just happened to be Bruce Lee's sifu.

So if you put all these things together, this is probably the closest thing of being a remake of The Chinese Connection without actually remaking it. There's no higher compliment one can pay to a kungfu genre movie.

One of the few film where Jackie Chan is given an action, but serious, dramatic role. This is realistic action that is a departure from his usual slapstick, acrobatic choreography.

Anyone expects this to be his typical commercial action flicks rather than a gritty real life drama would be kicking (him/her)self like Jet Li in Lethal Weapon 4

This is the second instalment of the trilogy. The story takes place in Hong Kong.

You get 2 of the finest Chinese martial arts superstars having a vigorous 'sparring'. From the top of my head, I could think only think of 1 other movie where this happens, Kill Zone.

This pair of old hands performed their martial prowess on a removable table top, and the fighting sequeces make them appears almost like 2 Chinese dishes rotating on a lazy sussan in a Chinese restaurant. Wonderfully delectble scene.

What more can a kungfu fan asks?

Original title: The Story of Woo Viet.

Ann Hui makes serious movies. Not commercial genre like heroic bloodshed action movies. I enjoy heroic bloodshed movies, but ...read more

This crime flick started off the so called heroic bloodshed genre.

This genre is going to broaden and deepen by John Woo.

Waiting for the IMDB technical people to revcover the stuff I've written for this description that was lost due to a system bug. It used to be sit on the top of the list.

Chinese title: True Colours of a Hero.

Alternatively, the Chinese title could be shortened to True Colours. Don't know why this title is changed to something rather mild, bland, in fact, lame? This original Chinese title ...read more

All Chow Yun-Fat trademarks in John Woo crime action flicks are in this poster: double barrels action, trench coat, black shades, and the matchstick in his mouth that's probably too small to see (Leonardo diCaprio like that matchstick look so much, he copied it in The Departed. Split out the matchstick to signal the start of a shooting spree. Why not? Since The Departed is a knock off from HK, why not also copy Chow's trademarked move? 2 Birds with 1 stone).

English title: People's Hero.

This is HK's Dog Day Afternoon minus the media circus.

Going from the poster, Ti Lung has almost the same pose as Chow Yung-Fat in A Better Tomorrow in the list just above, one may incorrectly assume that this is one of those ...read more

This HK crime action flick of the heroic bloodshed subgenre had reached a high level of artistry when the 2 seasoned pros Chow Yun-Fat and John Woo had got together to begin a beautiful friendship of making movies of killing and violence looking beautiful, sexy and stylish. The tall Chow who has the shoulders to carry a cool trench coat, and Woo who had the eyes to exploit that coolness. Yeah!

The master of the heroic bloodshed consolidated this subgenre with this flick. Let's shed some blood, hero! Perferably not your own...by now, the term 'heroic bloodshed' has gain so much prevalence that the alternative title for this action flick is Bloodshed of Two Heroes. This is quite close to the literal translation of the Chinese title (喋血双雄). Go figure, right?

Chow is the epitome of coolness. And you know what they say, if you're looking cool enough, you can get away with murder. Well, not only is Chow got away with murder, he did it many times with maximum body counts. Oh yeah, bebe!

This is amother good example of John Woo's heroic bloodshed subgenre movie.

I don't like the name 'heroic bloodshed', not so much because ...read more

An Ode to this and other Hollywood movies (guess which 1. No prizes are given out for getting it right):

I said "Hard boiled, not sunny side up", boy! He's totally shaken, like a stir fry chicken!

Words are cheap, guns are hip! With one gun, he can shoot, with two, he's really a hoot!

No kiss, no kiss, We're Chinese! Just bang bang, thank you Ma'am!!!

Zhang Yimou's directing career could be LOOSELY divided into 2 phases. The 1st phase when he MOSTLY made artsy dramas, and the 2nd part when he made ...read more

Chinese title: Only One Out of the Two Will Live (两个只能活一个).

Patrick Yau Tat-Chi started his career working for TVB, and moved onto working for Johnnie To as assistant director. He left TVB to make this 3 solid, and entertaining crime flicks in barely over 1 year. He made the trio of gems: The Odd One Dies (1997), The Longest Nite (1998), Expect the Unexpected (1998) that could be characterised as ...read more

Alternative English title: Hidden Reward. Chinese title: Dark Flower (暗花).

In term of plot, this story could be described as a game of Cat & Mouse. Sam the Mouse wears a moustache and a bullet proof vest, and is a ...read more

English & Chinese title: Sleepless Town.

Very few people who can watch this movie without subtitle, except for Kaneshiro Takashi, who can understand all the dialogues speaking in its native tongues. Thanks to his ...read more

English title: Beast Cops.

Our dynamic HK cops duo aren't too different from the Odd Couple (1968) played by Jack Lemmon and Walter Maltthau that later ...read more

Chinese title: Gun Fire.

The all-star cast consists of line-up of the usual suspects of the all the old hands in HK crime genre films - every single 1 of them.

There's little doubt that this movie is a prelude (not prequel) to ...read more

This is the definitive undercover subgenre.

This has been made into The Departed by Martin Scorsesee.

Not quite nearly as good as the previous instalment, but still worth a looksee. Don't bother to watch Infernal Affairs III. there're better fishes in the ocean. At least in this list

Chinese title: Big Guy with Big Wisdom. Alternative Chinese title (appears in this poster): Big Guy.

The Big character, played by Andy Lau in a full prosthetic suit, reminds me of superhero from DC Comic. ...read more

It's property thief on the express, and the whole movie pretty much takes place on a train. It's a feel good crime drama.

Wang Baoqiang, who played a naive but good country chap in Blind Shaft, is also playing what he does best in this movie as a victim of a ring of con artists circles over his savings like vultures over a carcuss. 1 of the vultures turns into a stork.

Feng Xiaogang is one of China's well known directors that make commercial films. This could be seen in the casting of 2 leads with star power (Andy Lau, and Rene Liu). I think it's probably aiming for the HK and Taiwan market with these 2 singers/actors from the respective countries (I should say regions).

His directorial standards are quite uneven, with hits as well as unbelievable misses.

This 1 has some interesting ideas and original with a reasonable plot.