The Big Fight

Japanese occupation forces in the second world war worried anout local martial arts fighters joining the resistance and causing them trouble decide to hold a ‘Lei Tai’ fighting tournament to Crush them all in one go. This 1h 31min martial arts movie was produced by Desert Island Films

Kung Fu Girls Club Episode 9

Secrets Revealed:

Hidden truths come to light in this episode as Sage tells the girls about the origing of the club, and the identity of Master and the abilities of Queen Osaka are revealed:

Now watch Episode 10, or go back to the beginning and watch Episode 1

Transporter 3 Review

Sequels and remakes. In recent years, Hollywood has turned to these two areas for one main reason. To milk that cow for all its worth. With a built in audience fresh off the original, or a similar demographic nostalgic for an update of a movie or TV series they remember when music used to be delivered on huge double sided, twelve inch plastic flat, round things called albums, all they need is a director who can pull it off, and actors and actresses who can sell it. Sometimes it works. Rambo, the second X-Men, Spider Man 2. Man On Fire. Other times, not so much. Starsky and Hutch.

One aspect sequels rarely deliver to the viewer is the surprise factor. Who is this new hero? What makes me care about him? How am I drawn into the dilemma that’s been thrust upon him? What is the movie going to provide me, that will kick in the ‘suspension of disbelief’, allowing my emotions to join the rollercoaster ride as the hero is put into one dangerous situation after another, building up to a final climax? Will the hero live, or will I be surprised of his impending doom? See Samuel L. Jackson in Deep Blue Sea. These days, even free falling from a helicopter high in the sky and going splat onto a busy center city intersection doesn’t necessarily mean the hero has passed onto Saint Peter and The Pearly Gates. See Crank and Crank:High Voltage.

One day, someone must have sat in a board meeting and said, “There must be a teat or two we missed last time. Let’s give that cow one more squeeze and make a sequel out of the sequel.

Henceforth, Transporter 3.

The original Transporter put Jason Statham on the map as the latest and next action star for us to embrace. Handsome, athletic, capable, the British accent. And a more than believable set of on-film martial arts skills. But an impressive feature set will only take you so far, especially when you’re fed the same meal, over and over again. See any Steven Seagal movie after Under Siege 2.

In the third go round, Jason’s character, Frank Martin, in drawn into an unavoidable situation when another transporter literally brings his problem home to Frank. As in, straight thru Frank’s wall and into his living room. After the associate becomes transporter kibble and bits, Frank is forced to do what he does best, under the thumb of Robert Knepper, fresh from his role of Prison Break’s T-Bag. When you awake with an explosive bracelet around your wrist, which will detonate if you stray too far from your vehicle, well, see the aforementioned pile of kibble and bits.

Where the first Transporter gave us some enchanting eye candy in Qi Shu, as well as a worthy cause to fight for, we are now presented with the grating, irritating, fingernails on the chalkboard, get on your nerves Natalya Rudakova. Given the choice of transporting her thru Europe or blowing up, I’d run from the car.

The main gist of the film is to get the father of Valentina, Natalya’s character, to sign a treaty allowing very bad radioactive waste material into the country. After all, where else could they dump it? Henceforth, the kidnapping and transportation of Valentina in order to force the father’s hand.

While we are treated to car stunts performed by real stunt drivers and not a CGI blue screen, and Frank’s Ex-Special Forces skills, including the obligatory warehouse/garage fight scene where several bad guys are coming out of every portal and crevice possible, all itching to get their own piece of Frank, it’s pretty much everything we’ve seen before, and not enough to raise this edition to new heights. Or even high. Clearly it speaks of a good thing done one too many times. And Natalya Rudakova really is irritating. Placing the explosive bracelet on her would have been doing the world a favor.

Pass on this one, watch the original Transporter. It’s still the best Frank around.

Buy now from Amazon.com:
Transporter 3 (DVD)
Transporter 3 Video Download
The Original Transporter (DVD)
Buy Now from Amazon.co.uk
Transporter 3 [DVD] [2008]
The Transporter Trilogy [DVD] [2002]

KarmaKula: Mystic Warrior Episode 1

The Ninjas
KarmaKula is a much more arty web series than the tngue in cheek ones that I have featured so far. Sometimes there are a few to many monologues, but there is some decent action too and I’d say it’s worth watching:

The Five Deadly Venoms Kung Fu Movie Review

The Five Deadly Venoms was a Cheh Chang directed film and definitely one of the better ones out there for all you hardcore martial art movie lovers. This 1978 release starred Sheng Chiang, Philip Kwok, Feng Lu, Pai Wei, Chien Sun and Meng Lo. This movie has an all male cast. There was no room for deadly beauties in this film. This film entails a student, Yan Tieh; to find his teachers other five former students who he believes have become evil. The students all know different forms, the Centipede, Snake, Scorpion, Lizard and Toad, of a deadly martial art with the final student knowing a little of the all the forms.

The final student must team up with one to find the others, but he is unsure of just which one to trust. The student must determine whether he can trust any of them or if he needs to destroy all of them in order to save humanity. Throughout the film he does discover that some of the students have turned evil. In this story of greed and treachery there is more blood shed then in any other martial art movie out there.

With the amount of violence in this film any action or martial art film lover will get this biggest enjoyment from this film. There are more martial arts displayed in this one film then any other ten films combined. For the true martial art form lovers out there this is a must in the library of martial art films you watch. Film is even referenced in the popular live action game World of Warcraft in the city of Stormwind with a poison selling shop called “The Five Deadly Venoms.” This has not been the only cultural reference to this film. There are many out there for this cult classic.

Get the Five Deadly Venoms DVD from Amazon.com
Get the Five Deadly Venoms [DVD] from Amazon.co.uk

36 Chambers of Inner Turmoil

As you can probably tell from the title which plays on the classis ‘36 Chambers of Shaolin’ this is a spoof send up of various classic kung fu movies. It’s funny and it’s less than 10 minutes long, so what have you got to lose?

Kung Fu Girls Club Episode 8

Love / Danger!
Keeping the club a secret becomes more and moe difficult in this episode, in which Harley and Cail experience love at first sight:

Now watch Episode 9, or go back to the beginning and watch Episode 1

Domestic

This 7 minute 45 second martial arts comedy by director Katie Hides features the escalation of a domestic quarrell between an man and a women at home into full on fighting armed with kitchen utensils as improvised weapons