Though I consider it to be of utmost importance that we don’t confuse what we see in the martial arts films with real martial arts, I am a great fan of movies from the east from Bruce lee to Jet Li. Since there have been movies in Asia, there has been martial arts films, mostly of the “chop sockey” persuasion, referring to the recognizable old school filmmaking.

The first Jackie Chan movie that I ever saw was a masterpiece of martial arts cinema called “rumble in the Bronx” since my first viewing, I must have watched it at least a few dozen more times… and to this day, still stands as one of my favorites!

This section will consist of my thoughts on all the martial arts movies that I have seen in the past few years, good or bad. My counterpart will provide his thoughts (certainly more discriminating) on the ones that he has also seen.

I think that the story starts in the east with the great interest in the cultural martial arts. A good portion of the movies made in the east are Kung Fu movies, and until a while ago, were produced in very poor quality, and in a short amount of time. However, they had the strength of a great amount of skill, and stuntmen and actors that were much more outgoing, because they didn’t make much money and had to be the best in a competitive industry.

Martial arts cinema came to America probably in the 60’s and 70’s. A great deal of credit goes to Bruce lee for opening the doors for all the other martial artists to come to America or to export their movies. Bruce passionately produced a, sadly, small repertoire of films in his short career, before his death. He attracted people to the theaters to see the 5’7” phenomenon kick the asses of everyone in his way with speed and precision. Even to this day, I have to agree with my master’s opinion that Bruce was closer in his films to demonstrating “real” martial arts. After all, he had a great impact on the world of martial arts practitioners as much as he did on the movie goers with his philosophy of Jeet Kune Do; the Wing Chun based martial art that he created.

Jackie Chan infiltrated the business in a period that it was hard for a martial artist to be original, because what all the movie companies wanted was another Bruce Lee. Hence, lots of aspiring martial artists had to be passed off as Bruce clones in a period of Bruce-sploitation. Names such as Bruce Le, Bruce Li and Bruce lae started showing up. Jackie convinced the people that he worked with to effectively let him do his thing. And hence, he was not “the next Bruce” but, “the first Jackie”. He was the pioneer of the style that we more commonly see in the movies today. Combat that is almost like a dance in its complexity, with more stunts, and acrobatics. His training at the Peking Opera Academy helped him to develop the amazing skills that he uses today, as well as study of martial arts from the east and west, North and south, Wushu, Shaolin, karate, judo, wing Chun, as well as singing, acting, and opera performance.

Honorable mention goes to Jet Li for his Movie exports. A member of the Beijing Wushu team, Jet’s skills, speed and flexibility are exceptional. He is also excellent at performing acrobatics with his exceptional control. Unfortunately, because his is so often teamed up with Yeun Woo Ping, there are a number of his movies that have way too many pulleys in them, and we don’t get to see the real skill.