:
For other uses see Martial arts (disambiguation)Martial arts film is a
film genre. A sub-genre of the
action film, martial arts films are characterized by extensive fighting scenes featuring specific
martial arts, often following the training and progress of the protagonist in training a specific style or school of martial arts.
Kung fu films
A notable sub-genre of martial arts films are
kung fu films, i.e. martial arts films featuring
Chinese martial arts. This genre has mainly been produced in
China, peaking in the 1970s, and has been dominated by
Hong Kong action cinema and its
kung fu and
wuxia films. Famous actors include
Bruce Lee,
Jackie Chan,
Jet Li,
Donnie Yen, and
Collin Chou.
During the
1970s and
1980s, the most visible presence of martial arts films was the hundreds of English dubbed kung fu and
ninja films produced by the
Shaw Brothers,
Godfrey Ho,
Joseph Lai, and other Hong Kong producers. These films were widely broadcast on North American television on weekend timeslots that were often colloquially known as
Kung Fu Theater,
Black Belt Theater, or variations thereof.
Boxing films
Films surrounding the martial art of
boxing begin as early as the 1930s with
The Prizefighter and the Lady (1933) and
Kid Galahad (1937). The
Rocky series of five films (1976 to 2006) enjoyed mainstream success.
While the 1989
Kickboxer starring
Jean-Claude Van Damme is nominally about
Muay Thai but features a crossover of
karate with other styles, movies surrounding the sport of
kickboxing appear in the 1990s, with
American Kickboxer (1991),
Kickboxing Kid (1992),
Kickboxing Academy (1997) followed in the 2000s by the films by
Tony Jaa.
Ferocious Female Kickboxing (1981) and
Heavyweight Championship Kickboxing (1990) are not martial arts films in the usual sense but coverage of actual sports competitions.
Ninja films
The mid 1980s saw a proliferation of extremely low budget ninja action films, mostly produced by Joseph Lai and directed by Godfrey Ho. Godfrey Ho was known for his technique of taking footage from little known or unreleased Hong Kong Films (most of them crime or sex thrillers) and splicing them with newly shot ninja footage. This often resulted in films that appeared to have two parallel storylines or sets of characters. Additional footage would be shot so that characters from both movies could appear to interact, usually through phone conversations or editing scenes so that they appear to be in the same room despite not appearing onscreen together. According to Ho, many films were made with the budget of one normal film using this technique. These ninja films regularly employed caucasian actors, most notably
Richard Harrison. These actors were overdubbed by different actors despite having spoken english during the filming. The reason for this is that all the ninja footage was filmed without sound. These ninja films were also noted for the colorful, flashy ninja outfits that were regularly worn. Harrison frequently appeared as a character named Gordon whose role and backstory varied from film to film.
Martial arts in films in general
Beginning in the 1980s, there are many action movies starring Western martial artists such as
Chuck Norris,
Jean-Claude Van Damme,
Mark Dacascos,
Steven Seagal, and
Wesley Snipes.
Action films that do include one or several scenes of hand-to-hand combat without focussing on the nature and background of the martial art are not usually included in the genre. Examples of this include
Catwoman (2004), where lead actress
Halle Berry was trained for the fight scenes by
capoeira mestre
Beto Simas, or
The Bourne Ultimatum (2007), which includes
a realistic fight scene for which
Matt Damon was trained by
Damon Caro, the scene itself being choreographed by
Jeff Imada, both with a
Filipino martial arts background.
war films by their nature often feature armed hand-to-hand combat, in the case of
historical settings also
historical martial arts. A notable example is the duel between
Achilles and
Hector in
Troy (2004), presented as a fight scene including
hoplite armour,
round shield, spear and
Bronze Age sword, choreographed by
Richard Ryan.
A special category are fantasy or science fiction movies featuring
fictional martial arts, such as
The Matrix (1999),
Equilibrium (2002),
Avatar: The Last Airbender (2005), although classical Chinese kung fu films often present fictional extensions of Chinese martial arts in
wuxia or
gun fu style.
List of notable martial arts films
Notable martial arts films:
See also
