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- At the end of the day, though, hand-to-hand action might be the most exciting and awe-inspiring, as there's something visceral and impactful about seeing two (or more) skilled fighters battling up close and personal. No sub-genre provides great hand-to-hand combat the same way martial arts movies do.
collider.com/best-martial-arts-movies-of-all-time-ranked-by-imdb-score/12 Best Martial Arts Movies of All Time, Ranked ... - Collider
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Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we're counting down our picks for the film characters most skilled at close combat, with or without weapons. Our countdown of the best hand to hand fighters in movie history includes Jason Bourne, Batman, Chen Zhen, John Wick, Beatrix Kiddo, and more!
- 12 'Dragon Inn'
- 11 'The Eight Diagram Pole Fighter'
- 10 'A Touch of Zen'
- 9 'The Legend of Drunken Master'
- 8 'Police Story'
- 7 'The 36th Chamber of Shaolin'
- 6 'Enter The Dragon'
- 5 'The Raid'
- 4 'The Raid 2'
- 3 'Hero'
IMDb Rating: 7.4/10
King Hu was a Chinese director who was a pioneer within the martial arts genre, directing numerous early classic movies in the 1960s and 1970s. While Dragon Innwasn't his very first movie, it was arguably his first great martial arts film, and holds up today as an early classic of the genre, delivering exciting action despite being over half a century old. Like many martial arts films, Dragon Inn'splot is simple and designed to allow numerous action scenes to be stringed together. It largely...
IMDb Rating: 7.4/10
Like many classic martial arts films, The Eight Diagram Pole Fighter is set in China during historical times. When a powerful family is almost entirely slaughtered in battle, the two survivors need to go on the run, with the film mostly following one young man, Yang Wu-lang, who seeks refuge in a monastery and becomes a Buddhist monk. Eventually, circumstances force him to become a brutal warrior once more. The Eight Diagram Pole Fighter is one of those glorious action movies where each actio...
IMDb Rating: 7.5/10
Dragon Inn may have established that King Hu was one of the greats when it came to directing martial arts movies, but A Touch of Zensolidified such a claim. This is a true epic that runs over three hours, and follows the story of a young woman who hides out in a small village while on the run from corrupt (and deadly) government officials. The film eventually becomes a prolonged fight for survival, but before its second half, it's not as much of a martial arts movie. A Touch of Zen is quiet,...
IMDb Rating: 7.5/10
You could fill a whole list (or two) of great martial arts movies starring the legendary Jackie Chan. He's been in the business for close to 50 years at this point, and before transitioning to Hollywood in the mid to late 1990s, made some of the best and wildest action movies of all time. Some combined martial arts with more modern-day action set pieces, like car chases and shootouts, while some were all focused on the hand-to-hand stuff. The Legend of Drunken Master is one of those purely ma...
IMDb Rating: 7.5/10
The other Jackie Chan martial arts classic worth highlighting among the very best of all time is Police Story, an excellent blend of action, crime, and thriller genres. Narratively, it's about a police officer who gets framed for a particularly violent crime, and so ends up on the run while trying to prove his innocence. The story's decently told, but honestly is mostly just there to provide a series of spectacular action sequences, which is what most people come to a Jackie Chan movie for. H...
IMDb Rating: 7.6/10
Training montages and preparing for climactic showdowns are things that show up in numerous classic martial arts movies, with The 36th Chamber of Shaolindeservedly being one of the best-known of these. It follows a young yet inexperienced man who's wronged by corrupt members of the government, leading to him training at the famed Shaolin Temple so that he'll one day have the skills to fight back and seek vengeance. Structurally, The 36th Chamber of Shaolin is very straightforward and doesn't...
IMDb Rating: 7.6/10
Bruce Lee's career as a martial arts star was cut tragically short by his passing in 1973. Enter the Dragon, therefore, became his final complete film, and was released at the end of July 1973, just a few days after Lee passed away. The film was a legendary one, and is up there with the very best movies of the 1970s. He was already on his way to becoming a huge action star, but Enter the Dragon solidified Lee as an icon, making it all the more unfortunate that this was his last proper film (1...
IMDb Rating: 7.6/10
Few action movies can claim to be as simple, satisfying, and bone-crunchingly brutal as The Raid. This low-budget Indonesian film sees a squad of highly-trained but outnumbered S.W.A.T. team members trapped in a high-rise building run by a crime lord who puts a bounty on their heads. After this setup, The Raidbecomes a fight for survival, with the police needing to fight their way out of the building. Come for the violent martial arts, and stay for the violent martial arts, because there's no...
IMDb Rating: 7.9/10
The Raid 2 currently boasts a slightly higher rating on IMDb than its predecessor (7.6/10 compared to 7.9/10). It has a more complicated storyline, with various criminal gangs struggling for power, plenty of betrayals, and a setting that goes far beyond just one apartment building. The complexity may leave some viewers wishing for the directness of the first movie, but ultimately, The Raid 2 is one of those sequels that's better than the first. Its action is more ambitious, it's filmed in a m...
IMDb Rating: 7.9/10
While Hero is not Yimou Zhang's only martial arts movie, it's probably the legendary Chinese director's best. It's a staggeringly beautiful movie that tells an epic story in under two hours, with the main plot being about a lone warrior tasked with eliminating three notorious assassins before they can make a move on China's king. The action is on a truly breathtaking scale here, and the use of color is unparalleled. Beyond being a great-looking and sounding movie, it has some of the best on-s...
- Jeremy Urquhart
- Senior Author
- Enter the Dragon’ There's no anyone can make a list of the best martial arts movies and NOT mention the ass-kicking trendsetter known as Bruce Lee.
- Ip Man’ Donnie Yen has starred in countless martial arts classics and is even now getting his props in blockbuster American films, such as Rouge One: A Star Wars Story and John Wick: Chapter 4.
- Once Upon a Time in China’ There's Bruce Lee. There's Jackie Chan. And of course, there's the exalted one known as Jet Li. His martial arts movie run goes hand in hand with some of the most legit picks for the best fighting movies.
- The 36th Chamber of Shaolin’ One of the most influential and groundbreaking kung-fu films ever made just so happens to be the inspiration for a rap group you may have heard of.
- "Bloodsport" (1988) A classic martial arts movie starring Jean-Claude Van Damme, who, let's face it, has proven himself to be pretty awesome (and aged much more gracefully than his contemporary, Steven Seagal) Bloodsport is a slam dunk for any fan of the genre.
- "Enter the Dragon" (1973) The seminal kung-fu flick Enter the Dragon is one of the most famous action films of all time, for a reason, and a must-see for any fan of hand-to-hand combat movies.
- "The Raid: Redemption" (2011) A modern hand-to-hand combat masterpiece, The Raid: Redemption follows a team of elite Indonesian special forces operatives as they attempt to take down a ruthless crime lord and his army of thugs.
- Nobody (2021) If you haven't seen Nobody starring Bob Odenkirk, get on that. It's a great hand-to-hand combat movie that is also funny, clever, and features some of the most surprisingly satisfying action sequences of recent memory when Hutch Mansell (Odenkirk) takes on a bus full of mean dudes, rescues a Hello Kittie toy, and teams up with The RZA and Christopher LLloyd to create a booby-trapped-lair you have to see to believe.
- Author
- "Kevin" Chan Ka-Kui – Jackie Chan. Police Story. Ka-Kui can be lauded for engaging in the most stunts out of any action hero. In Police Story and its sequels, the Hong Kong police officer fends off attacks from henchmen in the most creative ways, such as sliding down a mall pole wrapped in light bulbs and hanging off a speeding bus.
- Chen Zhen – Jet Li. A remake of Bruce Lee’s Fist of Fury, Fist of Legend features some of Jet Li’s best fight scenes and some of the most impressive action sequences in martial arts movies.
- Frank Martin – Jason Statham. Transporter. A meticulous perfectionist, Frank lives by a set of rules in the Transporter franchise and isn’t too kind to anyone who breaks them.
- Ip Man – Donnie Yen. Ip Man. One needs to be particularly good at their craft to be a teacher, and Ip Man, the titular character, is shown to have several students under his wing.
May 3, 2024 · The martial arts genre is a sub-genre within the broader category of action movies, and is a great place to see amazing stuntwork, impressive hand-to-hand fights, and creative choreography.
The final duel between Chan and Urquidez is absolutely incredible, some of the finest hand to hand dueling ever captured on film, with rhythm, timing, strategy, and interplay all expressed in a painful, straightforward fight. It's fight scenes like this the modern generation is missing out on because of special effects.
