r/kungfucinema

This is a pretty good and underrated martial arts film from 2013 about a young disciple and student named Tiger Chen who attends this Tai Chi dojo and he gets recruited by Keneau Reeves who plays as a villain that runs this illegal underground fighting ring. At first he declines his offer considering it would be dishonorable to use Tai Chi to fight for money, but later reconsiders after the land inspectors informed the Tai Chi master that the dojo is in bad condition and is falling apart so he needs the money for renovation.

After a mystery case of a fighter who reportedly gone missing, Hong Kong police are under investigation, and Chen goes through many series of fights and rounds and later discovers that he became corrupted and started using his abilities to injure his opponent at a tournament, but his Tai Chi master always wanted him to focus on using meditation rather than power.

This is a pretty good film if you haven't watched it yet and definitely recommend it. I like the scene where the main character gets into the car of Reeve's henchmen and he was singing a song from a Hong Kong group called 24herbs.

RESPECT THE POK GUY!

If you're Chinese like I am, you would know what that means 😏

shout out my parents for finding these childhood gems (pictured around May 2005).

Recently we had The Furious and Wings of Dread, two chinese films with great indonesian actors, and that remind me of SPL II, HK filme with the mighty thai actor, Tony Jaa.

Those 3 actors have also made films in Hollywood, like xXx, Fast and Furious, Mortal Kombat, Expendables and a lot of garbage. So I was thinking if HK/China cinema is better than Hollywood for those actors and maybe we can see more of them in other chinese productions in the future.

Non-stop,brutal, and inventive fight sequences!

link to watch for free

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=amLcV441S4g&t=2635s

I grew up watching 90's and 2000's Chinese dramas as a kid. So Southern Shaolin was absolutely in my wheel house, I was really looking forward to watching it.

Writing: The writing is infurious, non sensical, and goes out of it's way to waste the audience's times. The first 3 episodes is just the main character back tracking repeatedly. First he goes to Fujian, then he goes back to Shaolin, but then he has to go back to Fujian...

The Characters: I love Wu Jing, but i couldn't stand him in this show. Him and his sidekick go out of their way to be immature and annoying.

The action: The most important part. It's bad. Even by TV standards it's bad. Most of the fights are short with bland fight choreography. Wu Jing also has an annoying smirk in EVERY fight he is in. (link) This is the biggest fight of the series so far. And it's not very good. Take a look and judge for yourself:

fight starts at 22 minute mark.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOLQqjCxKP8&list=PLcG66PDG1cyst-BB8JFSw3Ws2dXY00zPi&index=12

overall: I dropped the show after episode 6 which had the big fight (above). The characters were too annoying, writing too juvenile, and most importantly - bland action.

The 1998 The Water Margin tv show (Yuen Woo Ping), and The Master of Tai Chi (Vincent Zhao), are both far better shows of the same period. The Water Margin (1998) has some of the greatest action in all of Chinese television, with action by Yuen Woo Ping.

This Duo were badass from The Raid 2. Not much is known about their backstory, but I believe they are siblings and read up that they were abused by their father and ended up killing him. The fight scene with Rama is like having to fight the co mini bosses before you reach to the main final boss which was the Assassin.