Movie Talk - The Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon Movies

Next up for the month is a look at a kung fu movie that’s critically acclaimed. Not many in the genre can say that, but this one can. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is a movie I’ve heard things about but never saw it until this year. Yeah, I’m kinda lame like that. I think I may have said “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Negro” at some point in my life. I know one reason I didn’t watch it was because it wasn’t dubbed. Also, I know I wasn’t the biggest fan of the wuxia style of martial arts films. It took me a while to get there, folks. I think movies like Iron Monkey, Hero, and Fearless helped get me there.

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon was released in 2000, and it was directed by Ang Lee. It was based on a novel of the same name. It ended up getting nominated for some major awards. It was even nominated for 10 Academy Awards, and it won four of them. The movie starred some big names like Chow Yun-fat and Michelle Yeoh. It also brought acclaim to actress Zhang Ziyi. A sequel was also released a couple of years ago called Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: Sword of Destiny. It wasn’t as critically acclaimed, but it did bring back Michelle Yeoh in her role. It also stars recognizable names like Donnie Yen and Jason Scott Lee.

Favorites - Nine Favorite Fight Scenes from Martial Arts Movies

Hey, all. Well, it’s sort of been a good month. Other than some weirdness here and there, I had fun doing this themed month again. I finally got to talk about some things that have been a long time coming. Of course, Butt-kicking month will be back next year. Last year, I ended it on my favorite Bruce Lee fights. This time, I’m just going to talk about nine of my favorite fights scenes in movies. It’s not going to be in order or anything like that.

I originally wrote a lot of this stuff a couple years ago. I was going to post it at the end of my first Martial Arts Month, but I decided to do something else. As I said before, these are just some of my favorites. It’s not a definitive list of the best since a couple of these wouldn’t be on that list. You’ll see ones I’ve talked about before and some I haven’t gotten to yet on the blog. I will also limit it to one martial arts actor or series of movies. I may have to cheat with one you'll see.

Movie Talk - Iron Monkey and Iron Monkey 2

Well, it’s the last week for this butt-kicking, leg-aching month. During my snow-laden stay at home, I decided to revisit a movie I saw when I was younger, Iron Monkey. I saw this a few years ago on TV and I remember enjoying it. Since it was on Netflix and I had nothing to do, I decided to watch it. I also saw that the movie had a sequel called Iron Monkey 2, so I thought it might be a good watch too. They both have Donnie Yen, a martial arts actor I’m beginning to enjoy more of these days.

Iron Monkey was first released in 1993 overseas. It was eventually brought over US theaters in 2001. Quentin Tarantino was behind getting it over here. I guess someone eventually saw Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and thought this would be good over here. You know, I still haven’t seen Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon yet. I may have to do that someday. It has an easy title to spoof with Crouching Tiger, Hidden “Insert Random Thing Here.” As for its “sequel”, it was released in 1996. There really isn’t much else to say about it… yet.