DJ Emir's Top 50 Kung Fu Movies

This is the first Western produced Kung Fu Movie featuring Bruce Lee and the match between Bruce Lee and Robert Wall and also the re added in beginning scene with Sammo Hung and the added philosophy at the beginning is worth watching the movie all by itself. The scene with Robert (Bob) Wall shows simple Blue and green belt techniques utilized in a black belt manner with great speed and perfect distance and timing. He later in the fight starts using much more advanced and acrobatic techniques as well as simple yet perfectly timed and executed intercepting kicks. Worth a few rewinds for sure!

The fight choreography is very entertaining and the training scenes are superb. While these are not the exact forms for each of the drunken immortals (some are way longer than what is depicted in the movie) Jackie's execution of the forms in the movie and execution of the fighting applications within the choreography are superb! It is a very inspiring movie to watch when learning drunken fist. And Jackie really pushed himself on this movie with the authentic training especially those amazing push ups where he flips his wrist in mid air landing palm down then flipped landing on the back of the wrist... OUCH... And the walnut breaking with the fingertips... I actually tried that for a bit... took forever to finally get the walnuts to start breaking between my fingers and then just when you are getting all proud that you can finally do it one of them breaks in the wrong way and produces a super sharp walnut shell edge that cuts my thumb... do not try this at home LOL...

This is an amazing Kung Fu Movie, very moving story and very fast paced and entertaining fight scenes. The Training on the wooden man is not as intricate as those learned at Shaolin but the Fight choreography and cinematography are superb! This is one of My top favorites for sure. The Part where he takes on 10 Japanese Karate fighters is brutal and very entertaining in a wince away from the bone breaking brutality kind of way. Love this movie start to finish even sad as it gets at times.

This movie was actually released originally as Drunken master 2 and I had a copy of the VHS when I went to the Movie Theaters to see the United States release under the name Legend of The Drunken Master... I just wanted to see it on the big screen because it was one of my favorite Kung Fu Movie Videos of all time. Unlike the first Movie "Drunken Master" This one does not have the classic training scenes that tend to make for many of my own favorite parts of the classic kung fu movies, but this one is sort of set after he's already mastered Drunken Fist so you will see more just straight fight scenes that feature many of the techniques from the various forms. Jackie Chan does repeat certain techniques almost identically in the middle fight scene and the end fight scene, but then that would make sense as many times in sparring and fighting a Kung Fu fighter would use his favorite techniques that tend to have a 60% or higher probability of success versus in any situation. The fight choreography is awesome in this movie... very inspiring when I want to try out some more drunken fist styles in sparring class at the Chinese Shaolin Center.

Ip Man 2 is as entertaining as the first one but I have a few parts of this that pissed me off namely mostly about superior skill getting beaten by pure muscle and size but I guess that does sometimes become a factor, and I can't really go into details without huge spoilers so we'll leave it at that. The Fight between Sammo Hung and Donnie Yen is epic and the matches leading up to that fight are also great.

Another movie about Ip Man (Bruce Lee's Master that Taught Wing Chun Kung Fu) This movie is epic in it's story, fight choreography and cinematography. The scenes are beautifully shot on par with crouching Tiger and Hidden Dragon. The different fighting styles of China are well represented in the restaurant fight scenes.

I know this movie as Shaolin Challenges Ninja aka Challenge of The Ninja and finally as Heroes of The East. This is a highly entertaining movie filled with enlightening Kung Fu Action and philosophies of fighting techniques. Also has some good humor in it. I saw this as a Kid and didn't realize which movie it was until I saw it later as an adult but I have always remembered the way he chose to learn the Drunken Master's Kung Fu techniques by sending in his classmates to fight him and imitating the movements the Drunken master used to easily defeat them. Great Movie with very diverse use of weapons and fighting styles of China and Japan.

This is the Story of Famous Martial artist Hou Yung Jia who was the Teacher of Chen Zen (the main character in Fist of Legend and Fist of Fury aka The Chinese Connection) When I first saw this in the Movie Theaters I already knew what was going to happen in the end because I already knew this was the Pr-equal to Jet Li's Fist of Legend and the original Bruce Lee's Fist of Fury (well that title got exchanged with the incorrect title of The Chinese Connection when it came out here to the West and was never fixed except for a few copies with the correct names A point which always pisses me off being that one is about "the fist of Fury" and the other is about a gang like Boss you would think they could have kept the titles straight... Hope whoever made that mistake got fired.... but I digress.) This movie is a great movie, I prefer the Theatrical release myself. The extended version starts weird in my opinion and is OK to watch if you already have watched it but I prefer how it started in the original version.

Not sure how these two titles got crossed when the two movies came to the United States, but this one Should have been titled "Fist of Fury" and vise versa since they even mention "we just can't beat the Chinese Fist of Fury" in the movie itself and the other movie is about a Chinese Gang hence The Chinese connection... But since this is how they are marked on here lets just go with it. It is titled correctly in Jet Li's "Fist of Legend" which is a remake of this movie. And The prequel to this movie is Jet Li's Fearless as it is the story about the Teacher of the main character (major spoiler for Fearless if you already knew this as I did, you knew where fearless was ultimately heading)

The Remake to the Classic Bruce Lee Fist of Fury (PS Fist of Fury was incorrectly named The Chinese Connection here in The States) The opening Fight scene is worth the price of admission alone as are many of the other fight scenes in this movie. One of the leg breaks was sort of copied in IP Man. Great movie overall with good fight choreography throughout. A worthy remake of a cult classic.

Only complaint is to help put a little weight to their foot stepping when jumping across roof tops. Great story, epic movie. Only thing about this classic story line about Kung Fu manuals being stolen (done to death... think "Jacki Chan's Snake And Crane arts of Shaolin" 18 Bronze Men Part 2 etc... I know it is hard to master a form and fighting techniques when learning from a Master let alone just stealing a book and trying to learn from it yourself without the guidance of a master. And that is where I always call bogus, It;s one thing to learn a style then have the book remind you when needed another to learn solely from the book. Concepts can be taught through books and often a few books do lead to a revelation that takes your Kung Fu to another level but for deep understanding another master is usually involved in the training.

Very beautiful scenery and fight scenes This is just a gorgeous movie to watch with interesting fight scenes and a compelling story.

Great Drunken Fist fight scenes make this a definite addition to this list of top 40 Kung Fu films.

The Tai Chi Master Later renamed Twin Warriors on it's re-release AKA the Legend of Zhang San Feng (it's original movie title who by the way is the man accredited with the invention of the first 13 postures of Tai Chi) My friend lent me his copy of this movie and I had to immediately order it from overseas (before it was made available in the US) This became one of my all time favorite Kung Fu Movies some of the fight scenes are a little over the top and some are silly but overall I loved watching this movie over and over again. This is also one of the only Kung Fu movies my Step son and roommates really got into... we all loved the fight scene with the bo staffs in the great hall of Shaolin.

I have the Edited Down English Subtitled DVD Movie version of the Series as well as the TV series itself without subtitles. It is one of the best movies for watching actual Tai Chi and Bagua Techniques and principles being applied in well choreographed fight scenes. This movie also has a ton of great training scenes and lots of mentions of Tai Chi and Bagua Principles which can help any practitioners out there to hep deepen their understanding of the 2 arts. Similar to the book there are no secrets and the book Yang Style family secret transmissions which as both books have great concepts and principles to help improve your abilities. This movie actually has quite a few of the main principles sprinkled throughout. The one main one that really stuck with me is the concept of "light on top... heavy on the bottom" when I heard that said in the movie it really hit home and reminded me to sink my rooting more while still remaining light and yielding.

This is the IRON MONKEY I knew. I loved this movie because of the great training scenes and of course the vicious Monkey style versus Eagle Claw at the end. I have always wanted to learn Monkey Style Kung fu... and was originally looking for Drunken Monkey This movie is one of 3 that finally got me to join Shaolin to learn kung fu and also influenced my sparring so that I became known at shaolin as The Monkey King and as IRON MONKEY. :) so this film will always hold a place in my heart as one of my favorite kung fu movies.

This is a great TV Mini Series on the life of Bruce Lee. It has great fight scenes as you would expect and gives you some insight into the full timeline of Bruce Lee's life. Includes his meeting up with JuJitsu and Judo Guru Gene LeBell, Ed parker and much more. It is hard to figure out what is fact and what is fiction when it comes to Bruce Lee and as I understand this series also gets a few things mixed up but it does show him developing his theories on martial arts and shows his journey of discovery and that is well worth watching the series for. If you are a Bruce Lee Fan or just a Martial arts film buff this is worth watching even with it;s limited budget.

Awesome series about Wong Fei Hung (Played By Jet Li)

Has some great fight scenes and the clasic Greatings posture pose of Wong Fei Hung... I can't even do greetings posture anymore without thinking about this movie series and thinking the name WONG FEI HUNG! LOL

Another Fine edition to The Once Upon A Time In China Series!

We follow our Hero Wong Fei Hung (Jet Li) from The Once Upon a Time In China series as he now must travel to America. This is a great Chinese Kung Fu meets American Western movie which focuses on the struggles the Chinese people met when moving out west to America. We also get to see Wong Fei Hung pit his Spear fighting techniques against those of Native Americans which just makes for a great and amazing fight scene. Loved this movie even though it had some seriously silly moments and silly characters.

Epic Kung Fu Movie

I knew this one as Fist of The white Lotus and as death of the White Lotus... either way a great kung fu film depicting pressure point fighting skills. It has it's cheesy moments and cheesy fight scenes but also has some serious moments and fight lessons. But this one has one of the best Cheesy Kung Fu macho talk lines out of any other Kung Fu movies out there. "No one has ever surviced my Hundred step death..." "that's because Out of a hundred steps ... I only walked Ninety NINE!" LOL

The Legend of Fong Sai Yuk is an awesome movie. A few fight scene's from this and the second movie have been copied almost exactly... I saw a copy of one of the fight scenes one time in Xena Warrior princess. HA... I was like hey.. they stole that out of Fong Sai Yuk!

The fight where he blindfolds himself is epic and beautiful as the red flower petals fall from trees around him.