A kung-fu revival?

[ASaroch]

It's been great to see so many genre films being released and being successful. We've had the Ip Man films, 14 Blades, True Legend, soon-to-be released Shaolin. Is this the start of an early 90s style revival? I remember the sheer amount of films that were getting made then - obviously there were plenty of weak or uninspiring ones, but there were also some great works released then.

[Sami]

I was thinking the same when watching Ip Man 2 and then Ninja last night - I really hope we get another decade like the 80's of amazing action/Kung-fu movies - is 14 blades worth watching?

[econdor]

I was thinking the same when watching Ip Man 2 and then Ninja last night - I really hope we get another decade like the 80's of amazing action/Kung-fu movies - is 14 blades worth watching?

yeah 14 Blades is great Ive gotta put a review up here at some point, I'm bad, work has been making me work ALOT, I know its terrible actually having to work at work, tut tut

[ASaroch]

What is good is that there is a range of big-budget genre films and low budget ones too. There's always some hidden gems in the latter category - I remember greeat films like 'Kickboxer' (Yuen Biao) being ignored during the release of 'OUATIC', but it was well worth watching.

[Phil]

Are there really the same low budget actioners out there at the moment? Most of the traditional kung fu flicks all seem to be big budget extravaganzas, mainly starring Donnie Yen in one role or another

[ASaroch]

You've got the new Herman Yau Ip Man film, his 'Lethal Ninja' one and 'Tracing Shadow' (though that is more of a comedy, but has action throughout). I'm sure some other direct to dvd ones will start cropping up.

[Charlie Parker]

You really only get low budger modern stuff. Apart from the odd period porno Dennis Law churns out low grade actioners in the 'Tiger Cage' mould like Bad Blood. There's always something, even if it isn't very good. Wu Jing's career is a good tracing point of the last five years in mid tier HK action output. It's sparse!

There's a couple of mainland features like Coweb that I know little about, it's supposed to be like the Thai Chocolate.

[ASaroch]

I think any HK output will be sparse these days, but at least we're getting a few solid chunks of action along the way.

[Charlie Parker]

I dunno, I've found there's always something violent every few weeks that I pop on my list for a few years now, even if it's a Wong Jing film. Dennis Law is fast becoming the 21st century Wong Jing, Womb Ghosts?

My only concern is this new boom of kung fu films seems to depend on Donnie Yen and only Donnie Yen, bar True Legend.

[Drunken Master]

Donnie Yen is the kung fu revival, isn't he?

Nice to see Sammo is still involved in a lot of these films too.