Kung Fu-films

I’m becoming a fan of Chang Cheh’s kung fu and wuxia movies. Crippled Avengers, One-Armed Swordsman, The New One-Armed Swordsman, Five Element Ninja… Great films. Last night I saw Vengeance! - a wonderful pulpy gangster kung fu neo-noir drama (yeah, I know how it sounds!) which is like a John Woo movie, except it was done 16 years before John Wo started his action flicks. Love it.

I watched Enter the Dragon and Game of Death back to back recently. Even though Game of Death is a bit of a mess (re-using clips from Bruce Lee’s other films and so on), I still think it’s one of the better kung fu films. The original footage with Bruce Lee in the yellow tracksuit at the end of the film is excellent. I love the soundtrack and the opening credits, as well:

As for newer flix, stay away from Once Upon a Time in Shanghai. One of those newer generation chinese movies with more CGI than Avatar and lots of superficial “acting”, a bloated story and little originality. Seems to me a lot of modern chinese cinema is little more than feature-length screen tests

First Kung FU (or in fact Wuxia) movie in quite a while:

THE INVINCIBLE (1972)

A fairly unknown Wuxia movie, barely released theatrically in the West. It was saved from oblivion by a German DVD called "In der Gewalt des Roten Drachten“. The Red Dragon from the German title must be the Kahn, the leader of the Mongols and their Chinese allies from the North who want to subjugate all Chinese people and therefore attack the southern provinces and start a reign of terror. Wang Yu is the invincible swordsman from the English language title; he saves the life of a woman not knowing that she is the Kahn’s sister. He wants to commit suicide because he didn’t recognize an arch enemy, but his sovereign knows the Kahn cannot be stopped without Mr. Invincible.

There’s some romance (the Kahn’s sister falls for the Invincible) and even a couple of musical moments. And before I forget: there’s some nudity as well, very rare in a wuxia movie from the early Seventies. This is no genre classic, but the swordplay is quite spectacular and the cinematography is nice, with a few cute angles angles and compositions.

6/10

It can be watched, in Chinese (dialogue changing to German for a few seconds or minutes on a couple of occasions) with English subtitles on You Tube:

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Maybe you can help me sort a few things out.

So there is the one you just posted, which seems to be this one

there is also Bruce Lee the Invincible - The Grindhouse Cinema Database
and The Invincible Fist - The Grindhouse Cinema Database
and Der Schlaghammer aus Shanghai (1972) - IMDb
and slightly related Kung Fu: The Invisible Fist (1972) - The Grindhouse Cinema Database

I wanna know which are which and make sure they’re all correctly put into the GCDb along with all their alternate titles and an IMDb link as reference. Can you help?

Bruce Lee the Invincible: Not the same film
The Invincible Fist: Not the same film
Imdm link (Rivals of Shaolin): Not the same movie
The Invisible Fist: Not the same film

The Chinese title of the film I reviewed, is: Zong heng tian xia
Lots of Kung Fu/Wuxia movies with the word ‘invincible’ in the title, so problems are to be expected

The film is mentioned on this page, a list of movies starring Jimmy Wang Yu, but I can’t find a page for the movie. As said it’s not too well-known

https://www.grindhousedatabase.com/index.php/Jimmy_Wang_Yu/Films

Thanks, I am working on sorting all these out, and also thanks for pointing out that this list doesnt have the titles linked

You can use my text if you wish, I could also develop it a little

Sure, then we had a review! That would be great.

Got the confusion now sorted out I think, sometimes these titles are very similar
https://www.grindhousedatabase.com/index.php/Kung_Fu:_The_Invincible_Fist
The Invincible - The Grindhouse Cinema Database (the one you watched)
Bruce Lee the Invincible - The Grindhouse Cinema Database
The Invincible Fist - The Grindhouse Cinema Database

Okay, I develop the text a little and send it to you by mail

Et voila

https://www.grindhousedatabase.com/index.php/The_Invincible_review

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BluRay release calendar

https://www.grindhousedatabase.com/index.php/BluRay_Release_Calendar

I’ve was hammering spags so hard in 2020 (I have seen around 200 titles so far) so I decided to take a bit of a break from them, and dig a bit deeper into other genres that I enjoy. Besides Eurocrime I’ve been going crazy about old school Kung Fu flicks, I had seen the Bruce Lee stuff and some Jimmy Wang stuff aswell but not much more. Just like with Spaghs, so many movies was made, so it’s a real djungel to get into, but I used the GCDB list (Master Killers and Dirty Basterds) which really got me started! After that I listened to the 2 hour Pure Cinema Podcast episode hosting Tarantino and Dan Halsted (It’s on Spotify or at New Beverly homepage) - that gave me another great handful of titles to check out!

Since I love lists, I decided to now make my own top 20 - and revive this thread for discussion :grinning:

1.Master of the Flying Guillotine
2.King Boxer
3.Fist of Fury
4.The Chinese Boxer
5.Beach of the War Gods
6.Eight Diagram Polefighter
7.Master Killer
8.Snake in a Monkey’s Shadow
9.The Hot, The Cool and the Vicious
10.The Invinsible Armour
11.The Leg Fighters
12.The One-Armed Boxer
13.Shaolin VS Lama
14.Five Element Ninja
15.The Five Deadly Venoms
16.Enter the Dragon
17.The Big Boss
18.Clan of the White Lotus
19.Exit the Tiger, Enter the Dragon
20.Street Fighter

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Back when sun Coast Video was Still Open
I used to buy every Shaw Bothers Movie With the Venoms or Gordon Liu
And Some Others
I still have them
Great movies

I have every movie on your list
With the exception of 2 or 3

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New review of the amazing IRON MONKEY as presented on the excellent BluRay by Eureka

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I’ve just seen this rather magnificent Bruce Lee BD boxset online, which is due to be released by ‘Arrow’ Video UK on 17th July this year…

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Yes, it has been a hot topic in the chat. :laughing:

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problem with this box is that Enter the Dragon is not the UHD (warner will release that on their own) so one would have to dish out another 20 bucks or so to also upgrade that movie to 4K separately, it’s therefore not the ultimate, perfect box :slight_smile:

It’s also 120 quid for a handful of films. Too rich for my blood I’m afraid

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