Five?

 

 (imdb)

FIVE SUPERFIGHTERS-1979-A dude in black beats up the teacher and students of a martial arts school. He says their Kung-Fu is “lousy”. 3 students vow revenge on the guy but split up almost immediately having a quarrel over who should head north. Meanwhile, a young widow beats up the idiotic Mr. Ma and his two thugs when they harass her. “Hey, that woman's Kung-Fu is pretty good”. Ting Tien, the student who goes north meets and gets beaten up by her, then helps her grind bean curd. Chi, the second student gets in trouble for peeing on a scarecrow (a gambler was hiding in it). He starts gambling but when the gambler's wife breaks up the game, he has to fight everyone. He then gets beat up by a drunk guy who walks funny but becomes his student. The third dummy meets a fisherman, gets beat up then becomes his assistant. While all this is going on, their downtrodden master who thinks the trio has abandoned him, meets Mr. Fu. Tien is a real jerk. Even the widow's blind father gets the best of him. When the trio finally meet again they give the guy in black a good fight but their master's drunken sword technique saves the day.

 Only in a Run Run Shaw production could 4 guys beat up one guy and the fight still be fair. Not sure why the title mentions 5. Director Mar Lo provides good fights and action in this underrated feature.

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Condors

 (imdb)

 
EASTERN CONDORS-1987-Some Chinese convicts go to Vietnam to destroy a stockpile of munitions left behind by the US. It's part martial arts, part DEERHUNTER, part DIRTY DOZEN with great fights. Sammo Hung and Yuen Biao beat up everyone. It's violent and action packed with Academy Award winning actor Dr. Haing S. Ngor. The villain is played by Wah Yuen who made many movies after (and before) this, He was in the big budgeted SHANG-CHI AND THE LEGEND OF THE TEN RINGS in 2021. Director Hung (real name: Kam Bo-Hung) directed the Jackie Chan film DRAGONS FOREVER the same year (he also co-starred). From 1998-2000 he starred in the US TV show “Martial Law”. 

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New Fox

 (themoviedatabaae)

NEW TALES OF THE FLYING FOX-1984-Two “heroes” have a sword fight. Hu Feng (Alex Wong) is a knife (scimitar) master and Miao (Alex Man) is a sword master. They fight but are evenly matched, however Miao's brother and his wife put poison on Miao's sword and when Feng gets a little scratch he dies. His wife commits suicide after his death entrusting the care of her son to Miao but before he can pick up his new charge, a servant takes the baby and runs. The baby Wu-Fei grows up to be an excellent Kung-Fu guy who wants revenge against Miao who he believes killed his father. Later there's a lot of talk about poisoning. After several awesome fights, Miao and Wu Feng must fight a group from Tibet and then the evil brother who has two powerful weapons. 

This Shaw Brothers production directed by Sze-Yu Lau, is based on book by Louis Cha. 

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Dragon

 

 (blackbeltmag.com)

BLOODFIST-1989-After his brother is killed in Manila, Jake Raye (Don “The Dragon” Wilson), an American martial arts instructor goes there and gets involved in a fighting tournament trying to find his brother's killer. A local named Kwong (Joe Mari Avellana) helps him train. Jake eventually has to face his brother’s killer, Chin Woo (Chris Agular). But things aren't exactly as Jake sees them. One of the fighters is played Billy Blanks (the creator of “Tae-Bo” in his 4th movie). It also features Vic Diaz as a cop. 

This martial arts film was directed by Terence H. Winkless (THE NEST (1987)) and features some good fights but not as flashy as some “aficionados” might like. It was professional kickboxer Don Wilson's first big role and put him on the map, spawning 6 sequels.

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Tiger's Back

 

 (imdb)

RETURN OF THE TIGER-1977-In Hong Kong, Chang Hung (Bruce Li) and his nameless partner (Angela Mao; ENTER THE DRAGON (1973)) want gangster Paul the Westerner (Paul L. Smith; in MIDNIGHT EXPRESS the next year) to close down his operations. Mr. Chen (Yi Chang),his right hand man, learns that Chang is here to avenge his father's death. Another mobster Mr. Sing (Fei Lung) wants Chang on his side. After many double crosses, Paul and Chang have a climactic fight. 

This sequel to EXIT THE DRAGON, ENTER THE TIGER was directed by that movie's producer, Jimmy Shaw, which Li and Chang co-starred in.

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Six String

 

 (imdb)

SIX STRING SAMURAI-1998-In a post-apocalyptic USA (Russia dropped a bomb in 1957), a nerdy looking guy (with taped horn rims) named Buddy (co-writer Jeffery Falcon), travels around with a six-string guitar and a samurai sword. He wants to reach “Lost Vegas”. He fights some bald guys who have knives concealed in bowling pins. Then he hooks up with a young kid (Justin McGuire) who can drive a car. They run into some Road Warrior type gang. The kid is almost eaten by a cannibal family. Also around is a group led by Death, who kill a lot. A Wolfman Jack like DJ called The Werewolf, makes announcements. 

This is a weird imaginative independent film influenced by Yojimbo was directed and co-written by Lance Mungiaco. It's entertaining but it could have been better.

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Kick!

 

 (wikipedia)

AMERICAN KICKBOXER-1991-An arrogant stupid kick boxer BJ Quinn (stuntman John Barrett) accidentally kills a man in a fight. He's convicted of murder, goes to jail and is suspended from competing. After he gets out of jail, he helps an up and coming fighter Hunter (World Karate champion Keith Vitali) in a kickboxing tournament where asshole dirty fighter Jacques Denard (Brad Morris) fights. After a few misadventures and a lot of talk, Quinn winds up in the ring with Denard and despite getting his ass kicked for most of the match, survives to destroy his rival.

 Standard martial arts fare from Cannon, who specialized in this type of thing at the time. The acting is pretty bad. It was the last of a handful of movies directed by Frans Nel.

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Who Doesn"t?

 

 (imdb)

I LOVE TROUBLE-1948-PI Stuart Bailey (Franchot Tone) investigates the past of the wife named Jane (Lyn Merrick) of a "public figure" (Tom Powers). It leads to a night club run by Keller (Stephan Geray) & Reno (John Ireland). After he's threatened and slugged, Bailey meets a woman (Janet Blair) who says she's Jane's sister. This leads Jim to Caprlllo (Eduardo Ciannelli) and young wife Ligia (Janis Carter) and their shady chauffeur Martin (Donald Curtis). Later he's beaten up by Reno and his henchman (Raymond Burr). Bailey escapes their clutches and suspects Jane of murdering an ex-con cook (Sid Tomack). Glenda Farrell is his secretary and Adele Jergens is a helpful showgirl. 

OK typical film noir with Tone giving a good performance as the cool PI. Screenwriter Roy Huggins later created the TV show “77 Sunset Strip”. This is one of the last movies made by director S. Sylvan Simon (ABBOTT & COSTELLO IN HOLLYWOOD (1945)) who died suddenly of a heart attack in 1951.

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Alita

  (IMDB)

ALITA: BATTLE ANGEL-2019-In the year 2506 after a great war with Mars, a United Republics of Mars scientist (Christopher Waltz) rescues a cyborg girl from a junk pile and calls her Alita (after his dead daughter). She (Rosa Salazar) doesn't remember who she is but has memories of fighting a battle on the moon. Meanwhile the scientist's ex-wife (Jennifer Connelly) runs Motorball, cyborg battle game owned by Vector (Mahershala Ali). A young guy Hugo (Keean Johnson) tries to help Alita regain her memory but he also works for Vector stealing parts from other cyborgs. 

It turns out Alita is an URM “berserker”, the most advanced cyborg ever. There are a lot of fights. She even fights after being chopped up in pieces. The real villain is an immortal called Nova (un-billed Edward Norton) . This movie is not bad but it kind of slows down after Alita fights a bounty hunter Zapan (Ed Skrein) when Hugo is branded a criminal. It retains a lot of anime and manga elements but I don't think it deserves a sequel. It was director Robert Rodriguez's biggest hit although there is some controversy over whether it made money or not.

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Jackie Chan

 

(Rotten Tomatoes)

PROJECT A-1983-In 19th century Hong Kong the navy has their ships destroyed by smugglers and they are all "reduced" to being part of the police force (who they never got along with). Navy Lt. Dragon Ma (director/co-writer Jackie Chan) becomes a Sgt. and locks horns with Capt. Tzu (Biao Yuen). However bureaucracy and corruption cause him to quit the force. He meets his old friend con-man Fei (Sammo Hung). They get into trouble over some stolen guns. 

Eventually Ma is put in charge of bringing down the pirates led by Sam Pau (Dick Wei). He enlists Winnie (Isabella Wong) and Tzu to help him. In disguise he infiltrates the pirate base. Later of course Fei winds up helping Ma, Tzu and Jaws (Mars) in the incredible final battle. 

This was a huge hit in Asia and garnered several nominations and awards at the Hong Kong Film Awards. Chan made a sequel in 1987.

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Henry's Last Ride

 

FULL METAL NINJA-1989-After some clad in black ninjas threaten a guy dressed in yellow, they fight a guy dressed in pink who gives them a message for their boss "The judge is here". He shoots one of them and lets the other go. 

Then a village is pillaged and most of the people killed. Then a guy named Eagle (Renato Sala) jumps out of the water and cuts down a tree with his sword. The guy in pink is Leon (Pierre Kirby) who's seeking revenge against Boris, an evil guy who killed Leon's family. Eagle has a lot of fights (including vs. a dude who breathes fire). He's looking for general Lo. He meets Jade and after beating a big guy in a contest gives her the prize money. He stays the night with her and her father. Meanwhile Leon the pink fights some multicolored ninjas sent by Boris. Leon shoots one of the attackers but runs out of bullets and let's the other one live. Meanwhile, while preparing to leave Jade's home, Eagle is attacked by a Ninja with a bow and arrow that turns out to be Jade's father. Eagle wounds him but after confessing to his daughter, he kills himself. Eagle leaves her crying over dad's corpse. 

After Jade tries to unsuccessfully kill Eagle, a monk tells Leon he is good and Boris is evil. He should seek Eagle's help. Eagle is captured by Lo after being drugged by a giggling woman, He escapes and is almost killed again but some monks save him. At their monastery he meets Leon. Well sort of... 

If you haven't guessed by now this is two movies pasted together. The main movie is a 1984 Korean feature WARRIOR. Geoffrey Ho (hiding under the name Charles Lee) created this paste up job with his usual incompetency. This was star Pierre Kirby's last movie outing. He seemed to disappear with several stories surrounding his demise.

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More Shaw

CLAN OF THE AMAZONS-1978-In this Shaw brothers production a detective (Tony Liu) searches for “The Embroidery Killer”, an assassin who blinds his victims with needles. The detective teams up with the daughter of one of the victims to find the mysterious “Red Shoes Gang”. Guess why they're called that. Great fights but too much talk. 

Director Yuen Chor also made THE WEB OF DEATH, DEATH DUEL and over hundred more films!

https://moviemeltdown.blogspot.com/2018/08/the-shaw-brothers-strike-again.html

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Jackie Chan is Back

THE ACCIDENTAL SPY-2001-A fitness equipment salesman in China named Buck (Jackie Chan) inherits a fortune from his biological Korean father but becomes involved with the search for a powerful new drug and a war between Turkish and Chinese drug lords. This has the usual great semi-comic fights but is a lot more serious and violent than most of Chan's earlier US releases. A real crazy but kind of typical scene (at least for a Jackie Chan movie) has him fighting nude in a mall! The superb climactic ending features a flaming gas truck. Director Teddy Chan (no relation to the star) had been an actor, production assistant and wrote BLACK MASK with Jet Li.

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Starman Rules!

ATOMIC RULERS-1957/1965-Out in space the unusual inhabitants of “The Emerald Planet” are concerned about the Earth's atomic energy contaminating space. They invent STARMAN (Ken Utsui) out of steel and sent him to Earth. He wears a white jumpsuit with glider wings, has an antenna on his head and an accentuated crotch. He has three special powers: 1) he can fly through space 2) He can detect radiation 3) He can speak and understand any language. He's strong but not Superman strong and is impervious to bullets. He can also disguise himself as an ordinary Japanese human in a suit and tie. He's sent specifically to Japan for two reasons. One, Mongolia plans to use atomic power to rule the world and want to use Japan as an example to the rest of the world and two, this is a Japanese production culled from two movies. Two enemy agents are delivering a detonator but Starman intervenes. During their fight some kids from an orphanage grab the bag containing the detonator and run away but one kid is captured and threatened by one of the spies  (he seems like a child molester to me). Starman goes to the orphanage to retrieve the bag and meets the kids and the nun who runs the place who informs Star that one kid is missing. Also visiting is a police detective and his sister. Star rescues the kid but the bad guys steal the detonator back and take the sister hostage. Eventually all is revealed at a Mongolian embassy banquet and their leader announces his evil plan. Although Starman gets the detonator back and seems to thwart their conquest plan he is force to turn it over to the leader when he vows to kill the sister who’s still his prisoner. Later Star invades their headquarters and saves the sister, although they are almost blown up. He beats up everyone else and saves the world.

Called "Super Giant" in Japan, this adventure is culled from the first two movies in the series. The fights are hysterical and the dubbed dialogue is also funny. All of them were directed by Teruo Ishii.

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Savage Shaw Brothers

THE SAVAGE FIVE-1974-Shaw Bros martial arts period piece (directed by Chen Chang) obviously inspired by The Magnificent Seven. When bandits take over a peaceful town three locals (David Chiang, Ti Lung and Chen Kuang-tai) and a thief (Danny Lee) band together to fight them. They do alright at first but then the bandits' boss arrives with a revolver and it's a little harder. Eventually they kill all the bandits but die in the process.

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More Shaw

ONE ARMED SWORDSMAN-1967-After his father is killed, Kang (Yu Wang) is taken in by a master swordsman and trains at his school. Years pass and he becomes the master's best student much to the chagrin of the other students including the master's daughter Pei (Yin-Tze Pan). In a fit of rage she chops off Kang's arm. He wanders away and is found by Xiao Man (Lisa Chiao Chiao) who nurses him back to health.. At first he's bitter but later he trains with his father's broken sword and goes about his business. Rival master swordsmen Smiling Face (Tang Ti) and Old Long Arm (Yeung Chi-hing) want to wipe out the master swordsman's school using a new weapon called a sword lock. When Pei is kidnapped, Kang saves her. This unfortunately causes some problems for Xiao Man and Kang but then he professes his love for her. Long Arm's forces attack the school and kill many of his students (one guy commits suicide). Just when things look bad Kang shows up (after killing Smiling Face with the help this dad's short sword) and kills Long Arm.. He goes back to Xiao Man leaving Pei angry and broken hearted. 

Thanks to veteran director Chang Chen it has excellent sword fights and some gore. Star Yu Wang was known in the US as Jimmy Wang. ONE ARMED SWORDSMAN was a box office winner for The Shaw Brothers and the first Hong Kong film to gross 1 million dollars! Followed by a great sequel RETURN OF THE ONE ARMED SWORDSMAN and a third unrelated entry THE NEW ONE ARMED SWORDSMAN. All three are highly recommended!

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Bolt

THAT MAN BOLT-1973-A Karate expert/pro-fessional courier Jefferson Bolt (Fred William-son) locked up in a Macao prison is hired /black-mailed by a mysterious English man named Griffiths (Byron Webster) to deliver 1 million dollars from Hong Kong. When he lands in Las Vegas some mobsters try to kill him, so after a car chase he gets help from another mobster Connie (Jack Ging). At a casino he meets singer Samantha Nightingale (Teresa Graves) and after they have sex she's killed in an attempt on Bolt's life. He hightails it to Hong Kong where things get a little confusing when an Asian assassin is hired by Javanese merchant banker Kumata (Masatoshi Nakamura) to kill Bolt. 

The acting, dialogue and fights are sub-par but it also features appearances by Karate and kickboxing champions like Mike Stone, Kenji Kazama, Emil Farkus and David Chow. 

THAT MAN BOLT has two credited directors. One Henry Levin made his directing debut in 1944 with semi-horror movie CRY OF THE WEREWOLF. In the 1970's he directed several Matt Helm movies. BOLT was one of his last features. The other was David Lowell Rich who started in TV around 1950 and continuing till the mid '60's when he made some feature films like EYE OF THE CAT and THE PLAINSMAN. He went back to TV making many TV movies and in the early '80's returned to some feature film work including THE CONCORDE-AIRPORT '69. 

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Swords

THE SENTIMENTAL SWORDSMAN-1977-Flying Dagger Lee (Ti Lung; later in John Woo's A BETTER TOMORROW and Sngmoo Lee's THE WARRIOR'S WAY) is a swordsman who's code of honor has cost to him a lot including giving up his fiance to a rival who saved his life. Now he wanders the countryside with his faithful servant while drowning his sorrows in wine. Along the way he befriends Ah Fei (Tung-Shing Yee) and becomes embroiled in many situations including being poisoned and coming into the possession of a golden vest. Later while looking for the elusive Plum Blossom Bandit he's framed for murder and is marked for death by  the 5 Poisons Kid. The plot is sometimes confusing but there's plenty of action and fights. It's based on a series of novels and spawned 2 sequels all directed by Yuen Chor (WEB OF DEATH).

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And Again!

THE BATTLE WIZARD-1977-In this crazy revenge tale, Yellow Robe Man seeks revenge on the man who cut off his legs with some kind of magic that shoots from his finger tips. Yellow Robe (who now has iron legs) wants to kill the man's son Tuan Yu (Danny Lee; also in THE BRAVE ARCHER the same year) who doesn't like to use his Kung-Fu. YRM sits in a cave and sends his own son (or just his henchman), a vampire like ugly guy with fangs to get vengeance. Yu falls in love with his half sister (they don't know each other) but YRM captures them and puts them in a pit with a gorilla (looks like one Jerry Warren used). Yu drinks a special type of snake blood and becomes invincible. There's also a woman who can control snakes and a masked female assassin, fighting, magic and flying chopsticks. The out of control finale features fire breathing and a body melting. This Shaw Brothers production based on a novel by Louis Cha. 

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The Shaw Brothers Strike Again!

THE WEB OF DEATH-1976-In this imaginative Shaw brothers production The Spider clan (led by Lo Lieh) have a red spider that emits deadly fumes and covers it's victims in cobwebs. Two other clans fight over it and a woman cuts off her own arm. There's a lot of talk but a great nutty finale (that could have been longer). Director Yuen Chor was also an actor and screenwriter.

Thanks for reading this too short review!