Iron Fists and Kung Fu Kicks
 


Director: Serge Ou
Year:  2019
Rating: 7.5



This is a terrific documentary on martial arts films. Which I wasn't necessarily expecting as I have seen a few of them that were kind of shoddy affairs. This one is slick, fabulously edited, gorgeous design, has great (and usually very violent) clips from films that are crystal clear and some non-film clips that are just thrown in for goofiness or interest. It is all very entertaining and though it takes the subject seriously never takes itself too seriously. If you are already knowledgeable about HK martial arts films, most of this will be familiar territory - the Shaw Brothers, Bruce Lee (perhaps excessively), the Seven Fortunes (Jackie and Sammo mainly), Cynthia Rothrock - but it also touches on the importation of these films into the American market, the influence of HK films on Black Exploitation movies, on breakdancing, on Parkour, on the video explosion of American action films in the 1980s up to the Matrix and martial arts films around the world. I have to finally get around to the two Raid films from Indonesia after seeing clips from both.



A few holes perhaps such as no mention of Angela Mao or the Girls with Guns genre (in fact women get basically ignored other than Cynthia and Cheng Pei-pei which is odd considering how far ahead of the times HK films were in strong female roles) or perhaps a slight nod to the martial arts films that came before the Shaw's to show just how revolutionary the Shaw's were - but they cover a lot of ground in 107 minutes. Lots of talking heads of course as these films always have - some old stars, some filmmakers, some just well acquainted with the genre - all showing great enthusiasm. I should mention that one of the writers and talking heads is my friend Grady Hendrix from the Subway Cinema days and another friend Brian Camp is also a talking head. All excellent I have to say.