Netflix today has so many choices that it can be a pain to search through their content. So I, being your movie watching guide, have done enough searching for an army battalion for you. As of April 2019, the big genre I would recommend seeking out is Netflix’s host of modern martial arts flicks. I think you can boil them down into 3 categories, of which I will give you 2 recommendations apiece.
THE GRAND EPICS
| Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2001) |
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| In my opinion, martial arts cinema in America has followed a similar path as the romantic comedy. Hollywood’s first romcom era was in the early years of Hollywood, featuring legendary names like Hepburn, Grant, Bogart, etc. Then after a while it disappeared, to be reinvigorated again When Harry Met Sally in 1989. In the US, Bruce Lee is your Katherine Hepburn in this case: the grandfather of karate/kung fu, etc that every martial artist aspired to. After him, you get a smattering of karate films: a Mr. Miyagi here, a Van Damme there, but in my opinion, the genre burst back to cultural consciousness when Michelle Yeoh and Ziyi Zhang flew across those rooftops. The martial arts in this movie is simply stunning, forcing you to go over and over “How the HELL are they doing this?” In addition, the story has a slow, but rarely boring, feel to it, like all great epic films. The themes fit the gigantic scope: love vs duty, retirement vs revenge, youth vs experience. This movie also made Michelle Yeoh, Chow Yun Fat, and director Ang Lee household names in America. If you want to start somewhere, start here. |
| Hero (2004) |
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| A few BIG names are missing from Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon’s host of famous martial arts directors/experts. Turns out they must have all been working on Hero. The obvious starting place are the director and star: Yimou Zhang and Jet Li. Zhang is a legendary filmmaker in China but didn’t really become one in America until 2004, when he released this film and The House of Flying Daggers. His brilliant hands are all over Hero: the action scenes are art incarnate, badass and beautiful. There’s a scene taking place among blazing red leafed trees in autumn that almost made me burst into tears. Jet Li burst onto the scene as the next big thing thanks to hero. He’s stoic and mysterious as ever, befitting the role as “The Warrior.” The plot of Hero is also quite fun: a nameless warrior (Li) claims to have killed 3 assassins trying to murder a king of one of the bigger provinces in a divided China. There’s lots of stuff, all fascinating, going on, including the intrigue of the Warrior and Daoming Chen’s King of Qin, as well as Maggie Cheung, Tony Leung, and Donnie Yen’s assassins as they encounter the warrior. Anytime you get a mixture of great storytelling, direction, and acting, you know any film is going to be good, and Hero has all 3 and then some. |
STEPHEN CHOW’S MARTIAL ARTS SEND UPS
| Kung Fu Hustle (2005) |
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| I’m impressed at China’s speed to realize one of my favorite movie theories. The films of any genre that get remembered are twofold: the film that creates the rules for the genre in question (Snow White, Casablanca), and films that are in that genre but mock the rules of the genre (The Princess Bride, Shaun of the Dead). Kung Fu Hustle is the American send up of martial arts cinema most widely known to audiences here. The general outline is a gang of axe wielders invades a small town for revenge. Sounds like an outline for a martial arts epic right? Except, everything is backwards: the axe wielders get their asses kicked by an old lady landord? Everyone in the village knows kung fu?? Stephen Chow’s Sing continually fails to recognize the girl he loved when he was a kid despite all the obvious clues??? The best parallel I would give for Kung Fu Hustle is Airplane!, which broadly lampooned disaster movies. Kung Fu Hustle broadly sends up the martial arts invader/ quest films, with very delightful humorous results. |
| Shaolin Soccer (2004) |
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| In my opinion, though, Chow’s 2004 movie that put him on the map is his best film to date. (What was going on in 2004/2005 in China by the way? Lots of AMAZING innovative filmmaking, that’s what!). Chow also directs and writes this film, which is a sports martial arts comedy, brilliantly lampooning 2 genres. The jist of the martial arts lampooning is how it affects every single action people do, like parking a car, making bao, or playing football (soccer)! There’s even dance numbers talking about how awesome the martial arts created bao are, which is simply ludicrous. If you’re looking for real soccer here, by the way, you’ve come to the wrong place. The soccer matches are more like if the game was crossed with an anime show. There’s all sorts of other worldly kicking and passing, some of which can conjure fire or rip off people’s clothes in its ferocity. The contests are totally ridiculous, but the spectacle is so bonkers amazing you’re riveted anyway, even though it’s clear that “Team Evil” (no, really) is filled with duplicitous players who cheat to win. There’s never a dull moment in the 85 minute running time, which literally ends with people dancing to “Celebration.” Gotta love it! |
THE ULTRA MODERN….AND ULTRA VIOLENT
| The Raid Redemption (2012) |
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| Martial arts films took a lull after the mid 2000s, waiting for something new to happen. What did happen is the action drifted from showy majestic China to gritty Indonesia. The best martial arts films today are still epic to watch and experience: their stories just reflect a different society: one with more of the action taking place on the ground, in dirty streets. Like all great action movies, The Raid: Redemption is built around a simple concept: good cop invades high rise run by drug dealer. There’s about 5-10 minutes of backstory, and suddenly you are thrust into a 2 + hour movie that’s wall to wall action, as Iko Uwais’s cop rises to the upper floor of the building. Uwais, Yahan Ruhian, and Joe Taslim all put themselves on the map in a real way thanks to The Raid, so much so that they even landed in a Star Wars movie! What differentiates The Raid’s action from previous films is how visceral it feels: there’s lots of blood, broken bones, and repeated attacks on the same foes because they keep getting back up to fight. This was the signaling of a string of great films for our new era, including the 2nd Raid film (not on Netflix, sadly) which might be even better than the first. |
| The Night Comes for Us (2018) |
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| Boy, romcoms and martial arts have lots in common. The newest romcom area has been reborn because of Netflix’s streaming service, with new modern classics like Set It Up and To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before. Martial arts films have now also dipped into Netflix’s unending financing with The Night Comes For Us, starring Joe Taslim and Iko Uwais from The Raid films. This time, Taslim is (sort of) the good guy, leaving the Southeast Asian mafia he was in and sorta declaring war on them. The mafia is pissed, obviously and sends Uwais to stop him among many, many other people using crazy weapons. If this were America, guns would be everywhere, but since gun ownership is heavily discouraged in Asia, the weapon choices are more creative/creepy, like claw hammers or meat wire cutters. Because of this, The Night Comes for Us is as bloody of an action movie as will ever exist. I assume the fake blood budget must have been north of $1 million, because numerous characters are getting bludgeoned, gutted, severed, or decapitated, sometimes in the same scene! Despite this grossness, the movie is still as fun as anything Netflix has produced: no really! It’s my current runner up for the best film they’ve made, because of how viscerally badass this movie is to watch! |