The Thundering Mantis (1980)
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An American teenager who is obsessed with Hong Kong cinema and kung-fu classics makes an extraordinary discovery in a Chinatown pawnshop: the legendary stick weapon of the Chinese sage and warrior, the Monkey King. With the lost relic in hand, the teenager unexpectedly finds himself travelling back to ancient China to join a crew of warriors from martial arts lore on a dangerous quest to free the imprisoned Monkey King.
Dragon and his madcap pal Cowboy spend their days getting into mischief, frustrating the elders, chasing girls, and competing in the village sport. When Dragon overhears a fiendish plot by smugglers to sell China's national treasures overseas, the pair leap into action. Also, Cowboy's wealthy father is kidnapped by the villainous and lethal Big Boss, and the scene is set for a furious martial arts showdown.
A young man searches for the "master" to obtain the final level of martial arts mastery known as the glow. Along the way he must fight an evil martial arts expert and rescue a beautiful singer from an obsessed music promoter.
Huo Yuan Jia became the most famous martial arts fighter in all of China at the turn of the 20th Century. Huo faced personal tragedy but ultimately fought his way out of darkness, defining the true spirit of martial arts and also inspiring his nation. The son of a great fighter who didn't wish for his child to follow in his footsteps, Huo resolves to teach himself how to fight - and win.
An old gangster is advised that Freddie Mays would leave jail after thirty years in prison. His mood changes and he recalls when he was a young punk, who joined Freddie Mays' gang, a man he both envied and ultimately betrayed.
Four beautiful rivals at an invitation-only martial-arts tournament join forces against a sinister threat. Princess Kasumi (Devon Aoki) is an aristocratic warrior trained by martial-arts masters. Tina Armstrong (Jaime Pressly) is a wrestling superstar. Helena Douglas (Sarah Carter) is an athlete with a tragic past. Christie Allen (Holly Valance) earns her keep as a thief and an assassin-for-hire.
Set in late 19th century Canton this martial arts film depicts the stance taken by the legendary martial arts hero Wong Fei-Hung (1847-1924) against foreign forces' (English, French and American) plundering of China.
A reporter stumbles upon the journal of a murderer replete with plans to butcher specific people, and investigates on his own, finding that every trail leads to a 9-year-old orphan living in a group home.
A young boxer joins a martial arts school to increase his skill so he can enter a martial arts competition. he leaves the school when he hears that a local gangster is terrorizing the town. he comes to the aid of a young singer and brings on the wrath of the local gang. he eventually enters the martial arts competition after learning iron palm technique and takes out all competition.
Falsely accused for cheating in a martial arts competition, two boyhood friends are banished from their Shaolin Temple and go their separate ways. As adults, they join opposing sides in a civil war. When one betrays the other, they settle their differences mano-a-mano.
A "gangster noir" set in the 1970s, when Gangnam, Seoul goes under development. Political powers and darker organizations collide as they seek to grab control of the influential and exclusive area.
When a troubled teen from Cleveland experiences bullying in Cocoa Beach, he soon learns Martial Arts to gain confidence and self-defense skills.
Prominent gang leader Cyrus calls a meeting of New York's gangs to set aside their turf wars and take over the city. At the meeting, a rival leader kills Cyrus, but a Coney Island gang called the Warriors is wrongly blamed for Cyrus' death. Before you know it, the cops and every gangbanger in town is hot on the Warriors' trail.
Frank Dux has entered the "kumite", an illegal underground martial-arts competition where serious injury and even death are not unknown. Chong Li, a particularly ruthless and vicious fighter is the favorite, but then again Dux has not fought him yet.
In the Ming Dynasty, there lives four orphans, Ying, Sao, Yuanlong and Niehu. Raised in Taoyuan Village, the four are as closed as brothers. Their exceptional martial arts skills allows them to reach the highest rank within the imperial guards. After the four successfully killed the Japanese troop leader, the Emperor orders Ying to escort the Golden Wheel of Time from Sindu (now India) back to the capital, which is said to have the power of time travel and foresee into the future. Now in 2013, Squire Tang, funded by a mysterious financer, digs up three ancient icemen from the outskirt of China; they are Ying, Sao and Niehu. As he is transferring the icemen to Hong Kong for further studies, the vehicle involves in a traffic accident which, unexpectedly, defrosts Ying...
A young martial artist seeks revenge on the ninja who kills his martial arts brothers and teacher.
Set on the border, where Mexico becomes the crucible and the fearsome gangs of todayâs Mexican countryside, the gauntlet, to freedom. The stories of a girl living in Honduras and hungering for a brighter future, and two teen gang members, for whom the Mara Salvatrucha is near their entire universe, become interlaced on the train to the border, a journey that will determine the future of their lives
Jones is a secret agent who has gone into semi-retirement, concentrating instead on teaching the martial arts to inner city youths. The karate school is run by a kindly old coot named Pops ,played by Scatman Crothers. His gambling debts, however, bring the local thug, Pinky, down on him. To make matters worse, Pinky is then hired by some white thugs who want to get a hold of the property Pops' school occupies so they can build a shopping mall. When things get heavy, Black Belt Jones leaps into action. Only he's not alone. Pops' daughter, Sidney, shows up to lend a hand, proving herself every bit as agile and powerful a martial artist as Jones.
A confident young cop is shown the ropes by a veteran partner in the dangerous gang-controlled barrios of Los Angeles, where the gang culture is enforced by the colors the members wear.
The illiterate General of Canton, General So, advocates a lazy, happy lifestyle of sex and money. His spoiled and also illiterate son, Chan (Stephen Chow), is his most faithful disciple. For the love of a woman, Chan attends the national exams for Martial Arts Scholar in Peking. Chan is victorious on the physical test, but before he is to be crowned, he is found to have cheated on the written exam. The Emperor sentences Chan to be a beggar. Initially Chan is unable cope with his new role, but with some mystic help, he takes on the position as King of the Beggars Association. Leading this motley crew into battle against an evil warlord in the Emperor's entourage, Chan rescues the Emperor, and gains respect for the beggars.
This South African movie tracks the rise of a once-petty criminal to the heights of the criminal underworld. After cutting his teeth on hijacking, before moving onto bigger game, an ambitious man hits a setback when most of his gang are shot.
Mandy slaves away at two jobs struggling to support her family while dreaming about resurrecting her father's martial arts academy, a once famous school now forgotten since an accident took his leg. When Mandy rescues wealthy businessman Ho Kwan from muggers he offers her a job as his bodyguard, and she agrees when he also offers to support her family and restore her father's academy. Before long, kidnappers appear and despite Mandy's efforts Ho Kwan is abducted, but not before he slips Mandy a box. Upon investigating, Mandy learns Ho Kwan was kidnapped by ruthless gambling impresario Sung. The box contains a key to a mainframe that controls online betting on fights to the death, and in order to reach Ho Kwan, Mandy will have to join the tournament and gamble with her life.
Everyone abuses and humiliates a downtrodden orphan (Chan) until he befriends an old man, who turns out to be the last master of the "snake fist" fighting style. Jackie becomes the old man's student and finds himself in battle with the master of the "eagle's claw" style, who has vowed to destroy the snake fist clan.
This film is a glimpse into the life, love and the unconquerable spirit of the legendary Bruce Lee. From a childhod of rigorous martial arts training, Lee realizes his dream of opening his own kung-fu school in America. Before long, he is discovered by a Hollywood producer and begins a meteroric rise to fame and an all too short reign as one the most charasmatic action heroes in cinema history.
Biker Cary Ford is framed by an old rival and biker gang leader for the murder of another gang member who happens to be the brother of Trey, leader of the most feared biker gang in the country. Ford is now on the run trying to clear his name from the murder with Trey and his gang looking for his blood.
Each year, three brothers Samuel, Jeffrey and Michael Douglas visits their Japanese grandfather, Mori Shintaro whom the boys affectionately refer to as Grandpa, for the summer. Mori is a highly skilled in the fields of Martial arts and Ninjutsu, and for years he has trained the boys in his techniques. After an organized crime ring proves to be too much for the FBI, it's time for the 3 brother NINJAS! To use their martial arts skills, they team up to battle the crime ring and outwit some very persistent kidnappers!
An ex-Marine haunted by a tragic past, Tommy Riordan (Tom Hardy) returns to his hometown of Pittsburgh and enlists his father (Nick Nolte), a recovering alcoholic and his former coach, to train him for an MMA tournament awarding the biggest purse in the history of the sport. As Tommy blazes a violent path toward the title prize, his brother Brendan (Joel Edgerton), a former MMA fighter unable to make ends meet as a public school teacher, returns to the amateur ring to provide for his family. Even though years have passed, recriminations and past betrayals keep Brendan bitterly estranged from both Tommy and his father. But when Brendan's unlikely rise as an underdog sets him on a collision course with Tommy, the two brothers must finally confront the forces that tore them apart, all the while waging the most intense winner-take-all battle of their lives.
The Grissom Gang is a remake of the notorious 1949 British melodrama No Orchids For Miss Blandish. Kim Darby plays a 1920s-era debutante who is kidnapped and held for ransom. Her captors are the Grissoms, a family comprised of sadists and morons, and headed by Ma Barker clone Irene Dailey. One of the Grissoms, played by Scott Wilson, takes a liking to his prisoner, which results in a bloody breakdown of the family unit. Both The Grissom Gang and the original No Orchids For Miss Blandish were inspired by the best-seller by James Hadley Chase, though neither film retains Chase's original ending.
Sent by his parents to study kung fu at the Shaolin temple, folk hero Fong Sai Yuk (Bo Wa Shut) is taught by the finest fighters in the land and must prove himself to a particularly tough instructor in Part 1 of this two-part tale. The young student eventually enters a competition and, in a classic scene, fights off hundreds of monks in the "Swastika Formation." Wing-Ha Chan, Hung-Man Do and Gwok Leung also star in this martial arts extravaganza.
A semi-biographical account of Yip Man, the first martial arts master to teach the Chinese martial art of Wing Chun. The film focuses on events surrounding Ip that took place in the city of Foshan between the 1930s to 1940s during the Second Sino-Japanese War. Directed by Wilson Yip, the film stars Donnie Yen in the lead role, and features fight choreography by Sammo Hung.
Featuring some of the most spectacular, innovative and explosive martial arts ever staged, The Legend Is Born is the remarkable true story of the early life of Ip Man, the formidable kung fu genius who would become Bruce Lee's mentor.Beginning at the start of his journey from his initial training through to the ultimate battle to become supreme master of the art of Wing Chun, The Legend Is Born has already been hailed as one of the greatest martial arts films of all time and features an all-star cast, including Sammo Hung (Enter The Dragon), Yuen Biao and Ip Man's real life son, 76-year-old Ip Chun, as Ip Man's kung fu master.
Two corrupt cops have a successful, seemingly perfect money making scheme- they sell drugs that they seize from dealers, kill the dealers, and blame the crimes on street gangs. Their scheme is going along smoothly until they kill an undercover DEA agent posing as a dealer, and then try to cover-up their crime.
Korea, 1934. During the Japanese occupation, there is open warfare between rival martial arts schools. There is a fight in the marketplace, and three Chinese students can't stand the unfair way of students that side up with the invasors, when they gang assault one of the fighting men. Between the three, they send the aggressors away. Retaliation is heavy: their school is destroyed, and they are banished. They return to China, and start their own school, and set out on good-will visits to the other martial arts schools, only to find that everybody in their neighbourhood is already dominated by the Japanese. They have many kung fu fights to win, before they eventually manage to establish peace.
A martial artist agrees to spy on a reclusive crime lord using his invitation to a tournament there as cover.
In an attempt to save his village from being taken over by brutes, Wah is beaten to a pulp & his mother brutally murdered. Determined to take revenge, Wah learns the art of Wing Chun & enters in a showdown with the nasty villains.
In early Republican China, rumors were going around about the treasure in Wudang Mountain. An American conspirator took his well-trained kung fu daughter to Wudang by sponsoring a Taoist martial arts competition, to steal the treasure. Out of expectation, a disciple represented Wudang to compete with other martial arts masters for the championship. During the competition, resentment incurred against different parties, the relationship became complicated, a Korean female Tai Chi descendant fell in love with the American conspirator and the secret of the treasure had been revealed. The treasure is the key of the magnetic field of Wudang, if it's stolen, Wudang would be devastated. To protect Wudang, a group of young heroes rallied around to defeat grant masters. It's the time the long-lost Wudang martial arts returned
Uncle Tak is famous for using Chinese herbal medicines to cure diseases. A martial arts expert, he also teaches the young how to defend themselves. One of his students, Johnny, dreams of monopolizing the teaching of kung fu throughout the United States. To accomplish this, he tries to kill Uncle Tak. Chuck, Uncle Tak's best student from Hong Kong, comes to Los Angeles to find his master. Chuck is willing to let Johnny have his way, and tries to take Uncle Tak back to Hong Kong. But Johnny and his men will not leave Chuck alone. Chuck, on his way back to Hong Kong, returns for the showdown.
The lone inhabitants of an abandoned police station are under attack by the overwhelming numbers of a seemingly unstoppable street gang.
Youthful master Jackie Chan is searching for his missing brother, when he is mistaken for a criminal on the lam. He must prove his innocence by solving the case himself, while local lawmen and merciless mercenaries are hot on his trail.
Lee Long is a martial-arts champion who the police use as an undercover agent to infiltrate a drug ring responsible for importing heroin from Japan to Hong Kong. When he is identified and imprisoned, the police pressure his sister, Tina Long, to help them locate and free him. She gets the help of Lee's martial-arts school, including the powerful Sonny Kawasaka, for the inevitable battle-royale with the drug gang, which includes masters of many different 'schools' of fighting.
In legendary Chen Village, everyone is a martial arts master, using their powerful Chen Style Tai Chi in all aspects of their lives. Lu Chan has arrived to train, but the villagers are forbidden to teach Chen Style to outsiders, and do their best to discourage him by challenging him to a series of fights. Everyone, from strong men to young children, defeats him using their Tai Chi moves. But when a man from the village's past returns with a frightening steampowered machine and plans to build a railroad through the village at any costs, the villagers realize they may have no choice but to put their faith in Lu Chan... who has a secret power of his own.
In Shanghai, China in the 1940s, a wannabe gangster aspires to join the notorious "Axe Gang" while residents of a housing complex exhibit extraordinary powers in defending their turf.
A wild and rollicking martial arts fantasy extravaganza that features prized swords and swordsmen, a crazy monk attached to a rolling boulder, serious clan and cult rivalries, and lots of magic and flying.
Four fighters different backgrounds come together to train under an ex MMA rising star and then ultimately have to fight each other and the traitor in heir midst.
The anti-Ching patriots, under the guidance of Ho Kuang-han, have secretly set up their base in Canton, disguised as school masters. During a brutal Manchu attack, Lui manages to escape, and devotes himself to learning the martial arts in order to seek revenge.
Kham is the last in long line of guards who once watched over the King of Thailand's war elephants. Traditionally, only the perfect elephants could successfully help defend the throne, after his harrowing quest to retrieve the elephants, Kham returns to his village to live in peace. But for someone as good in martial arts as him, peace is but a wishful thought...
An autistic woman with powerful martial art skills looks to settle her ailing mother's debts by seeking out the ruthless gangs that owe her family money.
Recruits head to the front lines towards the close of the Korean War. The interaction between two of the soldiers...an idealistic newcomer and a psychotic who goes on one-man patrols slitting enemy throats under cover of night...and the orphan boy who comes between them is examined. The Cease-Fire brings the three to a final resolution.
Set in Imperial China, Stephen Chiau plays Ling Ling Fat, one of the elite Emperor's guards in the Forbidden City. However unlike his colleagues he doesn't know anything about Kung Fu or other martial-arts, but instead uses his time to make futuristic inventions. So when the emperor is kidnapped and the world most beautiful geisha comes to town Fat has to use his brain to get things done.
A sequel to Kwak Kyeong-taek's "Friend" in 2001, "Friends 2" is about three men who are gangsters based in the background of the year 1963 and 2010.
Two former ranking figures of the Axis powers (the evil General Von Rudloff and Japanese master Miyagi) schedule a deadly martial arts tournament in Von Rudloff's desert castle. They race to assemble the top competitors from around the world, with the rebellious Steve Hunt being the most sought after.
Jeff, a young delinquent, is enrolled by his father in a kenpo school, in the hopes of teaching the boy some self-discipline. Years later, Jeff's mentor, Kim, is being threatened by one of the Korean mafia families. Jeff tries to help his old friend, but is too late to prevent Kim's death at the hands of an unknown hitman. Vowing revenge, Jeff takes on all of the families, using his martial arts skills to find the man who killed his friend.
When Karthik is given a task by his producer to come up with a gripping gangster flick infested with a heavy dosage of violence, he focuses on Sethu, a ruthless gangster surrounded by quirky yet scary henchmen. Karthik discreetly tries his best to find out about Sethu to develop a film script, but fails miserably in all his attempts. However when he finally gets the chance to gain an insight into Sethu's life, disaster strikes as he gets caught in the mêlée following the discovery of a mole within Sethu's gang.
A movie within a movie, created to spoof the martial arts genre. Writer/director Steve Oedekerk uses contemporary characters and splices them into a 1970s kung-fu film, weaving the new and old together.
As the main character, The Chosen One, Oedekerk sets off to avenge the deaths of his parents at the hands of kung-fu legend Master Pain. Along the way, he encounters some strange characters
Sang-ho is an ordinary high school student. His dream is to enter the military academy under the influence of his father who is an army colonel. As entering high school, he became friends with Jae-gu, Chang-bae, Kyung-chul, Hong-kyu and Sang-sik. They grouped a soccer team called `Tiger`, building up friendship by playing soccer. Sang-ho and his friends ran into group of fight with seniors, these incidents made everybody in school to misunderstand them as they were serious group of gangster. When Sang-ho gets becomes close with a girl whose boyfriend is a boss of another school`s gangster group, things are going worse.
Rebellious Jake Tyler is lured into an ultimate underground fight Scene at his new high school, after receiving threats to the safety of his friends and family Jake decides to seek the mentoring of a veteran fighter who trains him for one final no-holds-barred elimination fight with his nemesis and local martial arts champion Ryan McCarthy.
Shi-Jie is a brilliant martial artist from the Kung Fu School. One day, he encounters a group of youths playing basketball and shows off how easy it is for him, with his martial arts training, to do a Slam Dunk. Watching him was Chen-Li, a shrewd businessman, who recruits him to play varsity basketball at the local university.
Two men, one a businessman skilled in Kung Fu, the other a kickboxer discover they are brothers, and together, both in and out of the ring, they must face a crime syndicate. One of the first films to use the martial art of Muay Thai.
Former Scissor Gang leader Eun-jin (Shin Eun-kyung), who now suffers from amnesia, nevertheless defends Jae-cheol (Jun Gyu Park), a restaurateur who employs her, from a gangster who wants his business.
The archetypical renegade Texas Ranger wages war against a drug kingpin with automatic weapons, his wits and martial arts after a gun battle leaves his partner dead. All of this inevitably culminates a martial arts showdown between the drug lord and the ranger, and involving the woman they both love.
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