Showing posts with label Martial Arts. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Martial Arts. Show all posts
Friday, June 8
Legend of the Fist: The Return of Chen Zhen
Wednesday, March 21
The Great Magician
Set in the 1920s in Northern China, during the period in which feuds between warlords are taking place, one such lord Lei Daniu (Sean Lau Ching-wan), also known as “Bully”, uses butler Liu Kunshan’s (Wu Gang) magic trickery to recruit soldiers to his ranks. Yet what he really hopes to do is win over the affections of his forced seventh concubine Liu Yin (Zhou Xun). When the mysterious Zhang Xian (Tony Leung Chiu-wai) arrives in town with his magic shows, Bully hires him to help impress the disinterested Yin, not knowing that he has just opened up a can of worms. Stars Tony Leung, Zhou Xun and Lau Ching Wan, and directed by Derek Yee. Watch the trailer, below, and watch the movie on HDPlay one or two, PutLocker, or WatchFreeinHD one or two.Saturday, November 26
Throne Of Blood
A ruthlessly ambitious lord, egged on by his wife, works to fulfill a prophecy that he would become Emperor.
Kurosawa's Throne Of Blood is a transposition of Shakespeare’s ’Macbeth’ to medieval Japan. After a great military victory, Lords Washizu and Miki are lost in the dense Cobweb Forest, where they meet a mysterious old woman who predicts great things for Washizu and even greater things for Miki’s descendants.
Once out of the forest, Washizu and Miki are immediately promoted by the Emperor. Washizu, encouraged by his ambitious wife, plots to make even more of the prophecy come true, even if it means killing the Emperor...
Watch on Tudou, MegaVideo Part 1 and Part 2, VeeHD or PutLocker Part 1 and Part 2.
House Of Flying Daggers
Chinese director Zhang Yimou fuses a martial arts action-drama with a tragic romance in this elegant period piece, House Of Flying Daggers.
In the year 859 A.D., as the Tang dynasty is beset by rebellion, Leo (Andy Lau) and Jin (Takeshi Kaneshiro) are a pair of lawmen who have been given the task of ferreting out the leaders of a revolutionary faction known as the Flying Daggers.
Working on a tip that members of the group are operating out of a brothel called the Peony Pavilion, Jin arrives there in disguise and is introduced to a beautiful blind dancer named Mei (Zhang Ziyi). After watching Mei's performance following several drinks, Jin drunkenly attempts to have his way with her, and Leo is forced to intervene. After gaining Mei's trust in a game of skill, Leo arrests her and informs her that she'll be tortured if she doesn't tell all she knows about the Flying Daggers.
Jin responds by helping Mei break out of prison, but he has an ulterior motive -- by following her, Leo and Jin are certain she'll lead them to the Flying Daggers. However, as he helps the blind girl find her way back home, Jin finds himself falling in love with Mei, and isn't certain if he's willing to betray her again.
Watch on StageVU, below, or on YouTube, StageVu French subtitles, GorillaVid, daClips, VideoWeed or NovaMov.
Seven Samurai
A veteran samurai, who has fallen on hard times, answers a village's request for protection from bandits. He gathers 6 other samurai to help him, and they teach the townspeople how to defend themselves, and they supply the samurai with three small meals a day. Seven Samurai culminates in a giant battle when 40 bandits attack.
"The samurai themselves are so richly given life to in the screenplay that little more would have been needed to make them memorable characters, yet the main cast pay off at every turn, and though every one of the seven main actors give in perfect performances (never as I had feared before watching it do you confuse them, even in the chaotic battle scenes), two immortal roles have a particularly resounding effect: Takashi Shimura (Kambei Shimada), who plays the leader of the ragged band of samurai, gives his sage and venerable warrior a god-like intensity that makes the magnetic charisma of his character unquestionable.
One of the easiest leaders to root for in all the history of film-making. Stealing the show however, albeit by a very thin margin, is longtime Kurosawa favorite coworker Toshiro Mifune (Kikuchiyo) as the rogue seventh, the black sheep of the herd, giving the bravura ultimate performance of a lifetime paved throughout with great roles."
"The story follows them and the villagers, equally nuanced and developed, through their encounter, training, eventual bonding and the big inevitable fight for survival. Unlike subsequent very successful remakes (i.e. Magnificent Seven), seven Samurai transcended excellency by having many layers (nothing or no one is white or black: everything exists in shades of gray) and thus being very real and human. Even without the menace, its interpersonal dynamics would have made it perfect human drama, subtle, balancing comedy, intensity, realism, drama and a deep philosophy with astonishing ease, yet the menace does materialize and thus Seven Samurai unleashes its violence in a series of action scenes crafted with such vision and ingenuity as has ever reached an action film (the frenetic battle scenes at the end rather evoke Saving Private Ryan in their relentlessness).
In the end, what made this into solid gold was, at the core, Akira Kurosawa, who would, despite directing many further masterpieces (Throne of Blood, Yojimbo, Red Beard, Dersu Uzala, Kagemusha, Ran), would never top this one. Throughout his life, Kurosawa kept confirming his status as perhaps the greatest director ever. If so, Seven Samurai is the ultimate proof of that truth. One of the very best films ever made and personal all-time favorite." 8 January 2003 | by OttoVonB
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
Taiwanese filmmaker Ang Lee took a break from making Western period dramas to fashion this wild and woolly martial arts spectacular Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon featuring special effects and action sequences courtesy of the choreographer of The Matrix, Yuen Woo Ping.
In the early 19th century, martial arts master Li Mu Bai (Chow Yun-Fat) is about to retire and enter a life of meditation, though he quietly longs to avenge the death of his master, who was killed by Jade Fox (Cheng Pei-pei). He gives his sword, a fabled 400-year-old weapon known as Green Destiny, to his friend, fellow martial arts wizard and secret love Yu Shu Lien (Michelle Yeoh), so that she may deliver it to Sir Te (Sihung Lung).
Upon arrival in Peking, Yu happens upon Jen (Zhang Ziyi), a vivacious, willful politician's daughter. That night, a mysterious masked thief swipes Green Destiny, with Yu in hot pursuit -- resulting in the first of several martial arts action set pieces during the film. Li arrives in Beijing and eventually discovers that Jen is not only the masked thief but is also in cahoots with the evil Jade. In spite of this, Li sees great talent in Jen as a fighter and offers to school her in the finer points of martial arts and selflessness, an offer that Jen promptly rebukes...
Watch, below, or view on GorillaVid, MegaVideo, StageVU or daClips.
Sunday, November 20
The Butcher, the Chef, and the Swordsman
A tale of revenge, honor and greed follows a group of misfits that gets involved with a kitchen cleaver made from the top five swords of the martial arts world in this wild and brash action comedy.
Expanded from a fiction piece from a magazine, the movie is a story within a story within a story in which three cursed owners of a near-mythical blade (forged from a ball of iron originally melted down from the weapons of many powerful swordsman) relate in flashback the stories of the how they came to possess the knife. Reaching the third tale, the film then boomerangs back through the climaxes of each story to bring us back to the present. Watch on NovaMovo, uFliq or VideoWeed
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