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.
