What happened to the martial arts genre?

Azmyth

Azmyth

Veteran
I've been doing mostly horror (seems to sell?)

But, I've got a pretty thick background in martial arts, and I'd always thought about doing one.. but I just did a quick perusal through Netflix, and there isn't much of a "modern" selection..

do these kinds of movies just not have any appeal? or has noone made anything worth watching in recent years? Not that most of the ones I remember liking were "good" they just had a certain charm and were memorable.. Blood Sport, Kick Boxer, etc.
 
I think it got the chop :) sorry couldn't resist.

I think its like all things, it comes and goes out of fashion.

Give it time, it will soon be the new hotness again..
 
There was an undeniable charm to 70s martial arts films that would be hard to replicate - and since Kill Bill did such a good job (like the film or not, it was an amazing modern take on the Samurai genre - OK, not so Martial Arts, but still related) it would be kind of hard to beat. With old movies like The Big Boss, and through to something as amazing as Enter the Dragon, there was a charm and style to the films that was very much of that genre and period - and I think trying to replicate this, crash zooms as an example, would be very difficult without just coming across as cheese - this is where Kill Bill did so well.

I'd say the genre is still popular in Asian markets. But Hollywood seems to travel between crazes pretty regularly, so it will come back no doubt.
 
I think there's a market waiting to explode again for sure.

Ong Bak is one of the only notable fighters to come along in a while. DOA Was pretty good then there was Tekken and KOTF. But I think people want original stories.
 
Kegan said:
The Raid: Redemption looks AWESOME. Gotta check it out, for sure.

Kegan
Click to expand...

I saw it when it was playing at a film festival in Korea (I had a website pass to the festival and so I could stream stuff). It got a lot of buzz and distribution at the festival. I must say, it was pretty dang good. Like top quality... not artfilm by any means, straight commercial stuff, but very, very well done, both the fighting sequences and the way it was shot... even the story was OK! Highly recommended.
 
RAID does look awesome, but not really a MA film.

I agree with the others, it's only a matter of time before someone comes up with a good story and characters and puts it together with incredible fight scenes, eventually the pendulum will swing back.
 
I think that genre has always been lead by the fighters specifically. You have to find a hot new fighter who's actually kicking ass and you can probably get a few DVDs off the ground with them. You had all the movies lead back in the day by a few fighters like Bruce Lee, Chuck Norris, Steaven Segal, Van Damme, they were all trained real fighters...in a more modern sense within the last few years, it got picked up again by wrestlers like The Rock kicking ass in movies.

I think the problem is putting a fake guy in there who really can't fight probably won't work. Or even a guy who's modestly trained. People are wanting the next Bruce Lee. I'm sure he exists somewhere on this planet.
 
I've got an idea for a martial arts film that I want to do, I just was hoping there would be a bigger market for it.
 
To be honest (this might cause some controversy), I think its because of how prevalent MMA has become. The mystery and allure is no longer there. Its too bad, because I agree that we need another Bruce Lee or Jet Li or super kick ass fighter to come out and blow our socks off.

America's Next Top Martial Artist anyone?

Kegan
 
Speaking of the martial arts genre, there was a time ninja movies was in vogue. Its such a small world when the in the island i live in back in the Philippines I met Mike Stone. He married a local Lady who's a friend of mine so he now lives there on a beach front property.
I first heard of him when he made a movie which he shot locally called, Tiger Shark. He shot it with an "israeli production group". Back in the day a lot of Chuck Norris "vietnam" or "latin American" action movies where shot in the philippines.

Now Mike stone might not ring a bell to those not into martial arts but he was once an undefeated black belt champion. He was also a bodyguard to lot of hollywood personlities. Among them was Phil Spector, whom he told me, once pointed a gun at him.

But his claim to fame (or infamy) is that he was the one who caused Pricilla to break up with Elvis. -He almost got whacked because of that!

Anyhow, if your into the Ninja genre, he is responsible for a lot of the fight choreography, including that of Michael Dudikoff. He played several bad guys in those ninja movies.

His pretty much laid back now but still does a lot of motivational seminars here and back in the Philippines.
 
Ip Man, Ip Man 2, Merantau, Chocolate, Ong Bak, The Protector, Flash Point, Legend of the Fist: Return of Chen Zhen, Shaolin, The Grandmasters, Red Cliff... the list goes on. There have been plenty of great MA films in the last decade or so, just gotta know where to look. :)
 
Don't even get me started on Flashpoint...

Whoo boy. Talk about inspiring.

Mr. Yen is crazy, and he's getting old, but there are PLENTY of sick features, like refocused just rattled off.

Shaolin was SICK.
 
All my films have been martial arts action films, including the one I'm doing now. It's a huge genre and doesn't seem to be going anywhere soon.

Azmyth said:
I've got an idea for a martial arts film that I want to do, I just was hoping there would be a bigger market for it.
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India was an emerging market for action films at one point, but I've heard they're real particular. They have their own stars and if you're doing MA they want to see a Jackie Chan or Jet Li (someone they know), but anything is possible. Martial arts action or MA/Action/Sci-Fi is highly marketable worldwide. I love the genre myself. Getting back into JCVD recently. He's been making some good B movies, very popular overseas. There's a martial arts actor named Scott Adkins, whose totally awesome. He's in a lot of the new JCVD films. They're a dynamite duo. I think hr may be passing the torch to Adkins, who himself has a huge fan base in his own right.

-Nate
 
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Maybe it's got something to do with how much martial arts has changed in the past 10-12 years.

I used to do a lot of Bujinkan, various styles of Kung Fu, some Capoeira, some Thai boxing etc when I was younger. Nowadays though everything seems more or less in some way fused with MMA because that has become so popular and as self defense it works much better than "classical" martial arts like traditional Kung Fu.
And while it's popular and more efficient, it just doesn't look as good on screen as wire fu.

Also, maybe people got tired of it after The Matrix movies.

I hope martial arts movies become popular again though. I'm sick to death of zombies. At this point some ninjas wouldn't be so bad.
 
That's a good point about MMA.

But is MMA really better as self-defense? I honestly don't know, at all. It just seems like a lot of MMA guys end up rolling around on the ground, and I would think in a fight like that on concrete wouldn't be the most helpful. But again, I have no clue.

Agree with zombies. However, Walking Dead is outstanding. Hopefully after it ends we'll get a decade plus break from zombies. I'm also really tired of found footage movies.
 
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