# Worst martial arts film you have seen?



## qi-tah (Jun 23, 2007)

Hi all;

What is the worst martial arts film that you have ever seen and why?

For me it would have to be "Legend of the Seven Golden Vampires", a very dodgy mix of run run shaw and hammer horror. The paper mache zombie heads and the bats on strings clinched matters for me actually.


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## Drac (Jun 23, 2007)

The Karate Kid..


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## MA-Caver (Jun 23, 2007)

Drac said:


> The Karate Kid..



Blasphemy... but I can see where you're coming from... aww  it wasn't THAT bad ... (was it?) 

anyway for me... any of the "American Ninja" movies... they gave a serious art a bad name.

Bad enough that it took Myth-Busters to clear up some stupid ideas.


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## Drac (Jun 23, 2007)

MA-Caver said:


> Blasphemy... but I can see where you're coming from... aww it wasn't THAT bad ... (was it?)


 
Yes it was...


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## michaeledward (Jun 23, 2007)

I really don't think it was a bad movie. But, if there is a chance to plug it, I'll take it.


..... 18 Fingers of Death .....


See it today.


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## Skip Cooper (Jun 23, 2007)

I don't remember the name of the movie or who the lead actor was, but it had something to do with a blind swordsman in modern day society. I believe his sword was hidden inside his walking stick.

As far as the "Karate Kid" is concerned...it does have its cheese factor (as does (dare I say) "Enter The Dragon"), but for me it brings me back to my childhood when I watch it.  Although, I did like the second one better.

I watched "Enter The Dragon" the other night on AMC (I never miss it when it is on) and I always laugh at the stiff acting and the poorly choreographed fight scenes.  MA in the movies have definitely come a long way.


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## MA-Caver (Jun 23, 2007)

Skip Cooper said:


> I don't remember the name of the movie or who the lead actor was, but it had something to do with a blind swordsman in modern day society. I believe his sword was hidden inside his walking stick.


 You might be thinking of Zatotchi: The Blind Swordsman that was a modern remake of a series of great films by the same name/character but it was not in a modern day setting. The only thing modern about it was the end dance which the director/actor felt might help the film. All in all it was done very nicely (except for that dance sequence which really IMO detracted from the flow of the storyline). 



Skip Cooper said:


> I watched "Enter The Dragon" the other night on AMC (I never miss it when it is on) and I always laugh at the stiff acting and the poorly choreographed fight scenes.  MA in the movies have definitely come a long way.



The "poorly choreographed" fight scenes were done by none-other than Bruce Lee himself (look at the credits). Again I'm going to have to play Siskel to your Ebert by disagreeing that it was/is one of the best MA films to come out of *that* decade. Now "Return of the Dragon" ... while that had great fight scenes again choreographed by Lee (and he kicked Norris' ***) the acting was much to be desired but still a good flick to watch for it's cheese factor.


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## Skip Cooper (Jun 23, 2007)

MA-Caver said:


> You might be thinking of Zatotchi: The Blind Swordsman that was a modern remake of a series of great films by the same name/character but it was not in a modern day setting. The only thing modern about it was the end dance which the director/actor felt might help the film. All in all it was done very nicely (except for that dance sequence which really IMO detracted from the flow of the storyline).
> 
> 
> 
> The "poorly choreographed" fight scenes were done by none-other than Bruce Lee himself (look at the credits). Again I'm going to have to play Siskel to your Ebert by disagreeing that it was/is one of the best MA films to come out of *that* decade. Now "Return of the Dragon" ... while that had great fight scenes again choreographed by Lee (and he kicked Norris' ***) the acting was much to be desired but still a good flick to watch for it's cheese factor.


 
Yes I know that Bruce Lee is responsible for the fight scene choreography. I was not implying that Bruce Lee didn't know what he was doing. Please allow me to correct what I was trying to say, lest I disparage the name of the great Bruce Lee...

I was referring to those who were performing in the fight scenes themselves, not so much the actual choreograpy. Maybe it was the camera angles, I don't know. I just think it is funny. I agree with you that "Enter The Dragon" was one of the best films of *that* decade, but it doesn't mean the movie is lacking in some areas. Besides this, I still enjoy watching it everytime it is on. But this is my opinion, I do not wish to try to change anyone's opinion.  We don't all have to be enamored with the same things.

I don't always go along with what the experts say anyway. I remember a long, long, long time ago when Kurt Cobain died. All the pop culture experts kept saying that he was the voice of our generation (I'm 32 btw). I for one never liked Nirvana and he never spoke for me, but that doesn't mean he didn't speak for other teens and twenty-somethings at the time.

BTW, Siskel and Ebert? Which one was the fat one?


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## MA-Caver (Jun 23, 2007)

Skip Cooper said:


> Yes I know that Bruce Lee is responsible for the fight scene choreography. I was not implying that Bruce Lee didn't know what he was doing. Please allow me to correct what I was trying to say, lest I disparage the name of the great Bruce Lee...
> 
> I was referring to those who were performing in the fight scenes themselves, not so much the actual choreograpy. Maybe it was the camera angles, I don't know. I just think it is funny. I agree with you that "Enter The Dragon" was one of the best films of *that* decade, but it doesn't mean the movie is lacking in some areas. Besides this, I still enjoy watching it everytime it is on. But this is my opinion, I do not wish to try to change anyone's opinion.  We don't all have to be enamored with the same things.
> 
> ...



Ebert... but I'm not implying that you're fat... hell, I haven't seen ya! :lol: 

Probably the best actor they had in the film ...wait...the most experienced actor was John Saxon, then Lee followed by the rest in descending order. Little trivia here the guy who played Han, Kien Shih does not speak English, so his lines were overdubbed by Chinese-American actor Keye Luke (aka Master Po from the Kung Fu tv series). 
Lee also had set up the camera angles along with the cinematographer and director... at least for the said fight scenes. 
As far as the rest of the acting, well it was a mix of Chinese and American (and a couple of Brits  )movie actors doing what they knew how the best way they knew how. 

Anyway we're dangerously close to straying off topic here...


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## Kensai (Jun 23, 2007)

> I don't remember the name of the movie or who the lead actor was, but it had something to do with a blind swordsman in modern day society. I believe his sword was hidden inside his walking stick.



Zaitoichi was great. Riiiight up until that stupid dance scene at the end, then it became retarded in a micro-second. Oh, and the CG'd blood through-out the film was a little... pants?

For me, probably anything with JCVD in it. Mullets and jeans may have been in in the early 90's, but is just pure cheese now.


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## Xue Sheng (Jun 23, 2007)

Gymkata

Nuff said


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## Sukerkin (Jun 23, 2007)

I think the film mentioned above that involved a blind swordsman in a modern setting may have been "Blind Fury" starring Rutger Hauer?

As to the fight choerography in Enter the Dragon ... may I just say to the naysayers ... are you crackers? :lol:.

That film is right up there as a candidate for the Best MA Movie of All Time and, other than the mass brawl towards the end, has some of the best hand-to-hand cinematic fighting ever filmed.


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## Marginal (Jun 23, 2007)

Dragon and the Hawk. A locally made film that wants to be campy and be taken seriously at the same time. Bad editing, boring fights and rounded out with horrible acting by all involved. (There's a guy who apparently only looks meanicing when shot from a certain angle so he'll shuffle into scenes sideways in order to keep his evil pose etc.) It's terrible in the too bad to even be enjoyed ironically class.

Fists of Legend 2. A vague continuation of Fist of Legend except it's completely incoherant. Involves Sun Yat Sen wandering about while random people try to kill him. (Not sure if that's the primary story or a sub plot.)


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## Skip Cooper (Jun 23, 2007)

Sukerkin said:


> I think the film mentioned above that involved a blind swordsman in a modern setting may have been "Blind Fury" starring Rutger Hauer?


 
Yes, "Blind Fury", I think that's it. It sounds right!



Sukerkin said:


> As to the fight choerography in Enter the Dragon ... may I just say to the naysayers ... are you crackers? :lol:.


 
I must be...


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## Marginal (Jun 23, 2007)

MA-Caver said:


> The "poorly choreographed" fight scenes were done by none-other than Bruce Lee himself (look at the credits). Again I'm going to have to play Siskel to your Ebert by disagreeing that it was/is one of the best MA films to come out of *that* decade. Now "Return of the Dragon" ... while that had great fight scenes again choreographed by Lee (and he kicked Norris' ***) the acting was much to be desired but still a good flick to watch for it's cheese factor.


Not all of Lee's stuff was gold. Enter the Dragon's one of his best, but it does feel a little stiff in comparison to the films that followed later on. Lots of little things tug at my attention when I watch Lee's stuff, like his akward double leg to nut punch in RoD. 

In terms of cinematography and fluidity of the fights etc, Fist of Legend blows Lee's original (Fists of Fury?) out of the water for example. Lee's stuff there got outright silly, like his fight in the church basement where he ends up twirling two stuffed dummies above his head. Terrible pacing killed that one in general.


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## Skip Cooper (Jun 24, 2007)

Marginal said:


> Not all of Lee's stuff was gold...


 
Tread carefully, Marginal...


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## Grenadier (Jun 24, 2007)

Xue Sheng said:


> Gymkata
> 
> Nuff said


 

What he said.  

It's so bad of a movie, that you can't help but to watch the darn thing when it comes up on TBS / TNT once in a while.  The sound effects are horrible...

Also, it just happens to be that he's trapped in a village full of insane, cannibalistic loonies, and just happens to find a gymnastics "horse" as well as a high bar.  

I always wondered why it was never shown on Mystery Science Theater 3000?


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## Xue Sheng (Jun 24, 2007)

Grenadier said:


> I always wondered why it was never shown on Mystery Science Theater 3000?


 

That is a REAL good question.


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## Marginal (Jun 24, 2007)

Skip Cooper said:


> Tread carefully, Marginal...


I'm just sayin'...  Though Fists of Fury is forever colored to me since I bought a cheapo version ages back that features a guy with the deepest voice of all time dubbing *all* the characters. (He even voices the women in an affected femalish voice!) Hearing Bruce Lee screaming about his dead teacher loses all gravity in the version I have since it sounds like Dikimbe Mutumbo with a mouthfull of marbles screaming "Teacher! Teacher! Noooooo!"





 
4:14 is beyond silly.

Compared to 






The editing and the way the action flows is stronger in the remix.


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## elder999 (Jun 24, 2007)

"Kill or be Killed," and it's equally excrable sequal, "Kill and Kill Again"

Some topnotch JKA people were in it, too......


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## Steel Tiger (Jun 25, 2007)

"Kill or Be Killed" and "Kill and Kill Again" are truly aweful but they pale into insignificance beside a film I saw in the early eighties called "The Instructor".  Of my God!  The Instructor was a short, potbellied, hairy fella who could outrun cars.  The fight scenes were dire and the sound effects comical.  If you can ever find it, watch it.  But be warned you may die from laughing.


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## qi-tah (Jun 25, 2007)

Great, that's my comedy veiwing lined up for the next month! 
	

	
	
		
		

		
			





I'd probably nominate any movie based on a computer game as well - if i could remember any of their names! Hang on, wasn't there a movie made out of an old game where you could kill yr opponents once you'd defeated them? And is it my imagination, or was Kylie Minogue in it?


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## Hand Sword (Jun 25, 2007)

To be completely honest...I liked them all back in the day. I would watch anything Martial Arts back then, and still do-pretty much. I will say that the genre from China, with all of the wire stuff gets on my nerves now. It wasn't as bad back then. I can't wait to see Spike TV's kung fu week coming up. I haven't seen one since back in the day.


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## Blindside (Jun 25, 2007)

Gymkata with honorary mention to The Crippled Masters


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## elder999 (Jun 25, 2007)

qi-tah said:


> Hang on, wasn't there a movie made out of an old game where you could kill yr opponents once you'd defeated them? And is it my imagination, or was Kylie Minogue in it?


 

*MORTAL COMBAT!*


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## Drac (Jun 25, 2007)

Xue Sheng said:


> Gymkata
> 
> Nuff said


 
Ohhhhhhhhhhh I fogot about that one..That was a real stinker...


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## Marginal (Jun 25, 2007)

Mortal Kombat is terrible just because it blatantly plagarizes Enter the Dragon. The sequels, those are a whole other level of terrible. (Hey, look, I want to move from point A to point B? How shall I accomplish this? Why, by backflips. The first motion you learn as a human after crawling.)


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## Xue Sheng (Jun 25, 2007)

And the second Mortal Combat was worse.


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## Blindside (Jun 25, 2007)

Marginal said:


> Mortal Kombat is terrible just because it blatantly plagarizes Enter the Dragon. The sequels, those are a whole other level of terrible. (Hey, look, I want to move from point A to point B? How shall I accomplish this? Why, by backflips. The first motion you learn as a human after crawling.)


 
But everybody plagarizes from Enter the Dragon, Van Dammit's movies alone have Bloodsport, Kickboxer, and the Quest.


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## DavidCC (Jun 25, 2007)

Good grief you people really need to expand your bad movie horizons! The karate Kid, Enter the Dragon as WORST ever??? Puh-lease.






 The Dragon Lives Again (1976)

So indescribably weird and bad...  Bruce Lee is in some kind of strange Chinese hell, he teams up with Popeye the Sailor, James Bond, and the High Plains Drifter to fight Dracula, Zatoichi and host of other movie icons in a battle to free hell from tyranny.  Plenty of awkward nudity, butt-jokes, and really really crappy MA.  It makes the karate kid look like Citizen Kane.  

You will bow down and thank the ghost of Bruce Lee for allowing you to see American Ninja after you see this.

http://www.superstrangevideo.com/ca...ype=middle&keywords=&pageSize=20&prodCatID=10


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## Marginal (Jun 25, 2007)

Blindside said:


> But everybody plagarizes from Enter the Dragon, Van Dammit's movies alone have Bloodsport, Kickboxer, and the Quest.


None of those approach the blatant line for line transfer that MK went for. 

The changes were only slight.
"A woman like that can teach you things about yourself."
"When a woman looks at you like that, it usually means something."


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## Yeti (Jun 25, 2007)

OK...I'm glad someone threw in Gymkata, but what about Karate Kid 3? 
I feel dirty just saying it!


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## Drac (Jun 25, 2007)

Yeti said:


> OK...I'm glad someone threw in Gymkata, but what about Karate Kid 3?
> I feel dirty just saying it!


 
I said that Karate Kid shortly after this thread was started...


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## DavidCC (Jun 25, 2007)

Karate Kid 3 is a classic if American Cinema compared to just about any of the Bruceploitation films.  For real you need to rename this thread "worst high budget American Film MA film" becasue you guys are walking in the park compared to some of the stuff I've got on my shelf.  Chinese Hercules anyone?  Shaolin vs Ninja?  spare me ROFL  Gymkata and JCVD are not very good, but they are just movies with bad acting and bad fights.  That doesn't come close to the level of horror in Dragon Lives Again.  Where else are you going to see two geisha girls (in hell) giggling over what appears to be a huge erection under the sheet covering the dead Bruce Lee, and when the sheet is pulled back it is only his 'chucks.  Oh man, that's priceless.

now if they made gymkata with 1/4 the money and made it in 2 days, then it will approach this level of badness.  Because that is a pretty bad movie.


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## Steel Tiger (Jun 25, 2007)

DavidCC said:


> Good grief you people really need to expand your bad movie horizons! The karate Kid, Enter the Dragon as WORST ever??? Puh-lease.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


 
Haven't seen this one, but I did recently acquire a 50 MA movie pack and it has some absolutely incomprehensible Chinese flicks in it.  Some of those '70s films out of HK are scary bad.


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## Xue Sheng (Jun 25, 2007)

Drac said:


> I said that Karate Kid shortly after this thread was started...


 
Mr. Miyagi would not be pleased :uhyeah:


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## Gordon Nore (Jun 25, 2007)

Has anyone mentioned, "The Next Karate Kid," the fourth installment of the series? It co-starred Hilary Swank, who would go on to do "Million Dollar Baby." It was terrible. 

"Gymkata" was a big-time stinker. Another standout was "No Retreat, No Surrender." The ghost of Bruce Lee coaches a teenage karate student who finds himself friendless in Seattle. {shudder}


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## Steel Tiger (Jun 25, 2007)

Gordon Nore said:


> Has anyone mentioned, "The Next Karate Kid," the fourth installment of the series? It co-starred Hilary Swank, who would go on to do "Million Dollar Baby." It was terrible.
> 
> "Gymkata" was a big-time stinker. Another standout was "No Retreat, No Surrender." The ghost of Bruce Lee coaches a teenage karate student who finds himself friendless in Seattle. {shudder}


 
Did you find that the ghost of Bruce Lee looked a lot like Roy Orbison?


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## Drac (Jun 25, 2007)

Xue Sheng said:


> Mr. Miyagi would not be pleased :uhyeah:


 
Ohhhhhh I'm scared......He might hit me with one of his Bonsai trees..


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## Steel Tiger (Jun 25, 2007)

Drac said:


> Ohhhhhh I'm scared......He might hit me with one of his Bonsai trees..


 
He could make you paint his house or sand his boardwalk!


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## Drac (Jun 25, 2007)

Steel Tiger said:


> He could make you paint his house or sand his boardwalk!


 
The horror...The horror...


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## Gordon Nore (Jun 25, 2007)

Steel Tiger said:


> Did you find that the ghost of Bruce Lee looked a lot like Roy Orbison?



I must have blocked it from memory. I think I saw the film on cable in the mid-eighties.


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## Drac (Jun 25, 2007)

Steel Tiger said:


> Did you find that the ghost of Bruce Lee looked a lot like Roy Orbison?


 

Great, now I'm gonna have nightmares..


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## qi-tah (Jun 25, 2007)

Steel Tiger said:


> Haven't seen this one, but I did recently acquire a *50 MA movie pack* and it has some absolutely incomprehensible Chinese flicks in it. Some of those '70s films out of HK are scary bad.


 
Woah! So there are other film delights than blue movies available in Canberra then? 
	

	
	
		
		

		
			





There are also a lot of more recent CGI-heavy HK films that have great trailers and then turn out to be giant snore-fests. "A Man Called Hero", anyone?


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## Steel Tiger (Jun 25, 2007)

qi-tah said:


> Woah! So there are other film delights than blue movies available in Canberra then?
> 
> 
> 
> ...


 
Well actually I got the movies from Amazon, so I guess porn is still the capital's great contribution.

I know what you mean about "A Man Called Hero".  It was boring and didn't make sense, like half the film had been left out.  The big film before it, "Stormriders" is much better as is the one that followed it, "The Duel".

AS to the movie pack, I would say that about forty of the films are really bad, especially the ninja ones, except "Ninja Death" parts I, II, and III.  Chinese films about ninja, a grandmaster ninja who dresses in all gold and uses two Chinese maces as weapons.  Oh Yeah!  Its so bad its beautiful.


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## elder999 (Jun 27, 2007)

DavidCC said:


> Chinese Hercules anyone?


 
I *liked* _Chinese Hercules._


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## Sukerkin (Jun 28, 2007)

Before she properly understood what the martial arts entailed, my missus bought me several 'Ninja' DVD's.

They looked universally bad just from the covers but after a while I decided that I had better watch one just in case there was something worthwhile there.

I watched "*Golden Ninja Warrior*" ... oh ... my ... god!  It was terrribull!  I managed to stomach about half an hour of it - there didn't seem to be any martial arts in it but plenty of misogyny.

It got switched off, the other three films didn't even get taken out of the cellophane wrappers and, after I explained to the missus, all of them ended up being donated to the charity shop (with a warning about the dubious (cinematically and morally) content).


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## Leopard claw (Jun 29, 2007)

All the Karate Kid flicks and Master of The Flying Guillotine, haven't seen it in years, but from what I can remember it was a classic bad flick!


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## zDom (Jun 30, 2007)

I LIKED the first Karate Kid 

"Sweep the leg, Johnny!"

and other quoteable quotes


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