Friday Favorites: Non-kung-fu martial arts movies

Well, I’m not promising that *no* kung fu happens here:

• Seven Samurai. This is actually my favorite movie of any kind and all time. I would say you learn a lot more about bushido (the code of samurai behavior) in the Warring States period and how it impacted the surrounding community than you do about any particular Japanese martial discipline. That being said, Kyuzo’s kendo is a thing of beauty. At the same time, the film reminds me of Rob Roy in its honesty about what it’s really like to fight with a sword, and how messy the application of martial arts can be in an actual battle.
• Flash Point. Peak Donny Yen performing his signature MMA. I heard him say in an interview that Wilson Yip asked him to slow down his moves; they were too fast for the camera to catch. As a reminder, we’re not here for the plot, OK?
• Ong Bak. This thing is a (inter)national treasure. Tony Jaa is like a young Jackie Chan if he had actually trained in martial arts (muay thai in this instance); well, he doesn’t have Chan’s sense of humor, but the director sure does (“Knives for sale….”). You will never look at elbows the same way after this movie. Don’t bother with the sequels; they lose their sense of humor and their coherence along with it.
• District B-13. It’s a little weird to call this a martial arts movie as it’s largely about parkour, but founder David Belle was supposedly heavily influenced by martial arts, and at any rate Belle’s plays here are backed by the stunning Cyril Raffaelli, who does mostly karate with some jiu-jitsu and wushu around the edges. Stylish, gritty, and relentless: this is one of those movies where the subtitles frequently advise [techno continues].
• Dead Lands. This one is quite a bit more violent than I generally like (I’m into martial arts movies for the artistry, not for gore). But it’s on here because it’s the only film I’m aware of to feature maori martial arts: and, it provides cultural context for the violence it depicts, a rarity outside the kung fu film tradition. Most importantly, I learned from watching this film that I never want to wind up on the business end of a jade club.
• Merantau: Less bloody than The Raid, but the silat (Indonesian martial arts) is every bit as good. Iko Uwais is amazing.
• Rurouni Kenshin: Shooting five films here with a single bullet (point). The series adapts a manga I was never a big fan of, but I love the movies. It’s over-the-top chanbara at the birth of the Meiji era. Satoh Takeru does all his own stunts at the age of 40; my knees hurt just watching him. I don’t know how his kendo rates as I’m not an expert, but I’m also pretty confident that’s not the point of these films. The arterial spray in The Beginning is honestly a bit much for me (there’s actually a great line where the female lead says “I thought ‘making it rain blood’ was just a figure of speech…” and passes out in the street; I’m like, right there with you, girlfriend). But I suppose technically it’s not gratuitous given that the films’ job is to dramatize Battousai’s evolution from a ruthless imperial killsword to a samurai who swears to wield his sword never to kill, only for peace. Whatever: I just shut my eyes and plug my ears for the gross parts (BTW I saw a great documentary once where I learned that foley artists sacrifice a lot of cabbages to get good sword-cutting sounds; poor cabbages). Bonus appearance by Sonny Chiba’s son Mackenyu in The Final; his karate is legit. And the OST songs for each movie by One OK Rock are fantastic; I downloaded them all. OK, I’ll stop.
• Furie: It’s harder to find martial-arts movies with female leads outside the Hong Kong industry than it is inside–and that’s saying something. There’s Chocolate, featuring Jeeja Vismistananda’s impressive muay thai, but that movie never grabbed me the way Furie did, starring Vanessa Ngo. Vovinam (a Viet martial art) is beginning to show up more often in mainstream martial art films; this film takes the art and its female lead and uses those elements to put a unique twist on the standard evil-organ-harvesting-ring plot. As you might guess from that description, they don’t skimp on the fake blood, so forewarned is forearmed there.
• Haywire. I don’t cotton to her politics, but Gina Carano sure knows her way around an MMA ring, and this is as good a movie adaptation of that fighting style as I’ve seen. The diner fight scene with Channing Tatum is worth the price of admission.
• Killing Machine. Gotta get at least one Sonny Chiba film on here, and this movie is really smart about Japan’s reckoning with WWII, especially their occupation of China. Sonny Chiba plays Doshin So, the founder of kenpo karate, a Japanese adaptation of the kung fu that So learned while he was stationed in China. The movie wrestles with the thorny question of what manhood and strength should look like in the wake of war atrocities.
• Gotta get two more chanbara entries on here: the Lone Wolf & Cub (“Baby Cart”) series gets quoted so frequently by later productions, from Kill Bill to Samurai Jack to the Mandalorian, that it’s basically required viewing at this point. And Beat Takeshi’s Zatoichi (2003) is already rightfully considered a classic take on the beloved legend of the blind samurai.
• Luc Besson’s Transporter series stars Jason Statham, who competed as a Commonwealth Games diver, believe it or not; it’s that athletic elegance, coupled with a background in karate and wushu, that allows him to make deft work of Corey Yuen’s byzantine fight choreography. I’m not saying these are great films, but the first two are worth wading through for the hose fight and the fight with Jet Li in the pool hall alone.
• Duel to the Death: And…I’m sneaking kung fu back on here at the last second. This movie builds up compellingly to an epic duel between a Chinese jianke (swordsman, played by Damian Lau) and a Japanese samurai (Norman Chui). Stylish, philosophical, and the fight scenes are top-deck.