100 Martial Arts Movies You Must See Before You Die

No, this is not a list of the 100 greatest Martial Arts movies. Let others debate which movies had the best fights, plots or production values. These are the 100 most talked about martial arts films ever. Some because they were ground breakers, some because of incredible fight scenes and some because they were so unbelievably bad that they became cult favorites. But together these are the 100 any true martial arts fan must see. Because this is by no means a "best of" or "worst of" list the movies are not ranked in any particular order other than listing them alphabetically. The following are films # 51 through 75. For the other films see accompanying articles.

51) Iron Monkey ( 1993 )
Director Yuen Woo Ping's Iron Monkey depicts the youngest version of Wong Fei-Hung to date, about ten years of age. Fei-Hung is held captive by a government officials who demand his father hunt down and capture an elusive bandit named The Iron Monkey in 7 days.

52) The Karate Kid ( 1984 )
The movie with the memorable line "Wax on, Wax off", and for the longest time one of the few good martial arts films produced by a Hollywood studio. Directed by John G Avildsen who previously directed Rocky, the film is more about character development that actual fighting, so do not expect any classic fights in this film. Much like many of the other Hollywood martial arts films made around this time the fighting is slowly paced. What the film makers did get right was the story of the bond between teacher and pupil creating the feel good martial arts movie of the decade.

On a side note, it was discussed if the movie Rocky should be on this list. After much discussion it was decided that Boxing falls short of being an actual martial art, otherwise Rocky and Raging Bull would have been included. Other fighting genres that were excluded were Sword and Sandal, Swashbucklers, and anything to do with medieval European knights.

53) Kill Bill Volumes I & II ( 2003 & 2004 )
Quentin Tarantino's two part tale of revenge and his tribute to the martial arts genre.

54) Kill or be Killed
aka Karate Killer ( 1980 )
South Africa's first martial arts movie.

55) King Boxer
aka Five Fingers of Death ( 1972 )
Not exactly a classic, but it has it's place in history as the first dubbed martial arts movie to be distributed in the United States and was responsible for kicking off the Kung Fu craze of the early 1970's

56) Kung Fu
aka Kung Fu Hustle ( 2004 )
Stephen Chow's highly popular Kung Fu comedy.

57) Kung Fu Panda ( 2008 )
Dremworks groundbreaking computer animated cartoon tribute to the martial arts genre.

58) The Last Dragon ( 1985 )
The great Berry Gordy attempts to produce a kung fu movie and ends up with a very weird cross between blacksploitation and Bruceploitation. In his one and only starring role, Taimka plays Bruce Leroy, a teenage martial arts student looking to reach the final level where he will achieve something called the glow which allows his body to reproduce cheap '80s special effects. Once again an American movie with lazy fight choreography and an emphasis on music numbers rather than fight scenes. It did go on to become a cult classic, but mainly because of a memorable scene where one of the film's villains names Sho'Nuff accompanied by his disciples starts boasting about his skills in a movie theater.

59) Legend of a Fighter
aka Fearless ( 2006 )
Jet Li's portrayal of yet another Chinese martial arts folk hero named Huo Yuanjia. Li announced this would be his last Kung Fu film, meaning that he would still be doing martial arts movies, but would no longer be depicting famous martial arts masters.

60) Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires
aka The Seven Brothers Meet Dracula ( 1974 )
The second to last Dracula film in the Hammer horror series was an unusual co-production with Shaw Brothers studio. Dracula possesses the body of Ku Feng and travels to China to resurrect the Seven Golden Vampires, an evil clan of blood suckers who for the past hundred years have been terrorizing farmers by kidnapping their daughters and draining them of blood. One of the farmers manages to kill one of the vampires causing the other six to fall into a deep sleep. Now with Dracula acting as the seventh, the other vampires once again awake for another reign of terror. This catches the attention of Van Helsing who just happens to be in China lecturing at a university on vampirism, and together with David Chaing and his brothers journey to the village the vampires are terrorizing to destroy Dracula and the remaining six Golden Vampires once and for all.

61) Legend of the Eight Samurai ( 1983 )
An incredible fantasy film from Toie Studios. Sony Chiba is one of eight warriors prophesied to kill an evil magic queen. Easily a companion piece to Zu: Warriors of the Magic Mountain which cam out the same year and also was a special effects laden fantasy, although Zu.. is the movie that gets more attention.

62) Lone Wolf and Cub: Baby Cart in the Land of Demons
aka Baby Cart at the River Styx ( 1973 )
The screen adaption of the graphic novel ( manga ) series. Tomisaburo Wakayama plays Ogami Itto, the Shogun's executioner who is framed by the evil Yagyu clan. Sentenced to commit seppuku, he decides instead to run from the law with his infant son so that he can take vengeance against the Yagyu clan. After pimping his son's baby carriage with weapons, Ogami becomes an assassin for hire, presumably to draw the attention of the Yagyu clan, but mainly as an excuse to show some of the most violent scenes ever filmed. Six Lone Wolf and Cub movies were made, it is the fifth movie that was the best in the series.

63) Lone Wolf McQuade ( 1983 )
Chuck Norris' most celebrated film. Not his best ( that would be a toss up between Code of Honor and Firewalker ) or most successful ( which would be the Missing in Action series ) but the film that defined his screen persona.

64) Mad Monkey Kung Fu ( 1979 )
Another Lau Kar Leung classic, but one of the few that he actually co-starred in. Leung plays a martial artists who after being framed for a rape has his hands smashed as punishment. Believing he can no longer practice martial arts he instead teaches a student Monkey style Kung Fu so that he can take vengeance for him.

65) Man of Iron
aka Warrior of Steel ( 1972 )
Although this film is suppose to be a sequel to Boxer from Shantung, aside from the events taking place on the same block the film has nothing to do with the first movie. No wonder since all but two characters from Boxer from Shantung were killed. Man of Iron is an excellent stand alone movie that surpasses the first.

66) Master of the Flying Guillotine
aka One Armed Boxer II ( 1975 )
After breaking his contract with Shaw Brothers Studios, Jimmy Wang Yu was warned that his former studio owned the intellectual rights to his two most popular characters, Fang Gang the One Armed Swordsman and Lei Ming the Chinese Boxer. He decided to combine both into a legally new character called The One Armed Boxer, the film which is a remake of The Chinese Boxer only with Wang Yu losing his arm and having to learn a one armed style. What followed were several movies where he played a one armed character. Master of the Flying Guillotine is suppose to be the official sequel to The One Armed Boxer, that is if you ignore the fact that the first movie takes place in the late 1800s and the second takes place in the mid 1700s. The One Armed Boxer is hunted down by a group of martial artists who want to take revenge for the group of martial artists he killed in the first movie. Leading them is a blind Shaolin (?) monk who's weapon of choice is a flying guillotine, and who is so set on vengeance that he spends the movie killing any one armed man he comes across.

67) The Matrix ( 1999 )
The Wachowki Brothers science fiction classic that reintroduced Yuen Woo Ping, this time as a popular fight choreographer. Yet another groundbreaking martial arts film from America at a time when Hollywood was still catching up to the martial arts films coming out of Asia. This time they got it so very close, and kick started Woo Ping's career choreographing Hollywood productions.

68) Mr Vampire ( 1985 )
The film that began a Vampire movie craze in Hong Kong.

69) No One Can Touch Her aka Three Evil Bandits
aka Flying Claw Fights 14 Demons ( 1979 )
Judy Lee's best film. A film that not only has great fights but perhaps the most surprise twists in any martial arts movie.

70) No Retreat, No Surrender aka
Karate Tiger ( 1986 )
The movie that created the kickboxing tournament genre that would later be monopolized by the South African film industry, as well as the first starring role for Jean Claude Van Damme.

71) Once Upon a Time in China
aka Wong Fei-Hung 91 ( 1991 )
Tsui Hark's successful rebooting of the Wong Fei-Hung series with Jet Li in the lead. The first film was the best.

72) Once Upon a Time in China and America ( 1997 )
Not exactly part of the Once Upon a Time in China series, this time Wong Fei-Hung is in America old west and teams up with Billy the Kid.

73) The One Armed Swordsman ( 1967 )
The film that kicked off the modern martial arts movie era in Hong Kong, and the first of many to feature Jimmy Wang Yu with his arm tied behind his back pretending it was cut off.

74) Ong Bak: The Thai Warrior ( 2003 )
The film that introduced the world to Tony Jaa. A sacred statue is stolen and it is up to Jaa to get it back so that the curse can be lifted from his village.

75) Painted Faces ( 1988 )
Based on actual events, the tale of the Peking Opera school and it's teacher that taught martial arts to Jackie Chan, Sammo Hung, Yuen Baio and other Hong Kong movie stars. Not much actual martial arts as this is a serious biopic, but a great origin tale to actual living martial arts heroes.