Martial Arts Cinema
From the Hong Kong studios to Hollywood: the films that put martial arts on the world’s screens
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Why martial arts films matter
For millions of people the first contact with martial arts was not a dojo but a cinema seat. A Bruce Lee kick, a Jackie Chan stunt or a duel in a bamboo forest has sent more beginners to their first class than any advertising campaign.
Martial arts cinema is also a history of its own: the wuxia tradition of wandering swordsmen, the Shaw Brothers studio system, the Hong Kong stunt teams and, later, the fight choreographers who changed how Hollywood films action. This page is our guide to that history, with the films worth starting from.
A short history in six chapters
1920s – 1950s
Wuxia and Wong Fei-hung
Shanghai studios turned the old wuxia novels of heroic swordsmen into silent serials such as The Burning of the Red Lotus Temple (1928). From 1949 Hong Kong produced dozens of films about the real kung fu master Wong Fei-hung, played by Kwan Tak-hing.
1960s
Shaw Brothers and King Hu
The Shaw Brothers studio industrialised the genre. King Hu’s Come Drink with Me (1966) and Chang Cheh’s One-Armed Swordsman (1967) set the tone: faster fights, more blood and heroes with a code of honour.
1970s
Bruce Lee and the kung fu craze
In four completed films, from The Big Boss (1971) to Enter the Dragon (1973), Bruce Lee made martial arts a global phenomenon. The same years brought Five Fingers of Death to American cinemas and Sonny Chiba’s The Street Fighter (1974) from Japan.
Japan
From Kurosawa to the chanbara
Akira Kurosawa’s debut, Sanshiro Sugata (1943), is a film about judo. His Seven Samurai (1954) shaped the sword film worldwide, and the chanbara tradition of samurai duels still influences how blades are filmed today.
1980s – 1990s
Hong Kong’s golden age
Jackie Chan mixed comedy and dangerous stunts in Drunken Master (1978) and Police Story (1985). Jet Li rose with Shaolin Temple (1982) and Once Upon a Time in China (1991). In the West, The Karate Kid (1984) filled dojos with children.
1999 – today
A global language
Yuen Woo-ping choreographed The Matrix (1999) and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000) won four Oscars. Then came Ong-Bak from Thailand, The Raid from Indonesia, the Ip Man series and John Wick, and Michelle Yeoh’s Best Actress Oscar in 2023.
Twelve films to start with
- Seven Samurai (1954, Akira Kurosawa) – the template for every team-of-fighters story.
- Come Drink with Me (1966, King Hu) – the elegant start of the modern wuxia film.
- Enter the Dragon (1973, Robert Clouse) – Bruce Lee’s international breakthrough.
- The 36th Chamber of Shaolin (1978, Lau Kar-leung) – the classic training film.
- Drunken Master (1978, Yuen Woo-ping) – Jackie Chan’s comic kung fu.
- The Karate Kid (1984, John G. Avildsen) – the film that brought a generation to the dojo.
- Police Story (1985, Jackie Chan) – stunts that still look impossible.
- Once Upon a Time in China (1991, Tsui Hark) – Jet Li as Wong Fei-hung.
- Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000, Ang Lee) – wuxia as world cinema.
- Ong-Bak (2003, Prachya Pinkaew) – Tony Jaa and Muay Thai without wires.
- Ip Man (2008, Wilson Yip) – Donnie Yen and Wing Chun.
- The Raid (2011, Gareth Evans) – Pencak Silat and relentless choreography.
Screen fighting and real fighting
A film fight is choreography: every strike is planned to read clearly on camera, and most of them are designed to miss. Wide movements, long exchanges and dramatic pauses make good cinema, while real sparring is shorter, tighter and far less spectacular.
That does not make the films less valuable. Many of the best screen fighters are trained martial artists, and the stunt teams of Hong Kong, Thailand and Indonesia have pushed real athletic skill to its limits. Enjoy the films for what they are, and if one of them makes you curious, the next step is a trial class at a real club.