Hong Kong had a prolific pre-1970s film industry, but it was the supremely talented and determined Bruce Lee who brought Hong Kong film to the international stage. This tiny island nation has been integral to the introduction of the martial arts genre to the rest of the world. One look at Uma Thurman's yellow jumpsuit in the Kill Bills is enough to show us this influence is still alive and very much kicking. After Lee's death in 1973 the industry lost some of its momentum and stuck to the tried and true chop socky formula, but by the 1980s a new talent was emerging in the form of John Woo, inventor of so-called 'balletic gunplay'. This style of shooting shoot-outs captured the imaginations of many young American film makers and emerges in films as diverse as 'Reservoir Dogs' and 'The Matrix'. The martial arts genre was reinvigorated by talents such as Jackie Chan and Jet Li who wanted to introduce more story into the action, and in recent years film maker Wong Kar Wai has challenged what it means to be an HK film, steering clear of Kung Fu and concentrating on more personal, quirky stories. Undoubtedly there is more to see from this exciting port of call... Right: There can be no more an iconic figure in the martial arts world, than the master himself, the late, great Bruce Lee.
A Chinese man (Gordon Liu) marries a Japanese woman through an arranged marriage and manages to insult all of her Japanese martial arts family by issu... Read more
The Brain (Louis Koo) is a professional assassin whose modus operandi is staging elaborate accidents to conceal his crimes. With his small, loyal team... Read more
Aka "The Assassin's Blade". Based on an ancient Chinese legend, Charlene Choi stars as Zhu Yanzhi, a girl who disguises herself as a boy in order to e... Read more
Ancient Chinese martial arts tradition dictates that only those loyal initiates who trained the longest and fought the hardest were to have access to... Read more
One of the loopiest kung-fu movies ever made, a garish masterpiece of martial arts kitsch by the hard-boiled master of the genre, Chang Cheh. The five... Read more
Back together again, directors Johnnie To and Wai Ka-fai have set incendiary cinematic material ablaze to create a quirkry action-drama. Exposing the... Read more
Hong Kong comedy legend Sammo Hung is a cop obsessed with the legacy of Bruce Lee (the Little Dragon), he teams up with the infamous Skinny Tiger and... Read more
In this character-driven, kung-fu classic from the world famous Shaw Brothers Studios, Jimmy Wang Yu stars as Nieh Chen, a champion sword-fighter forc... Read more
A famous fighter saves a young girl from a band of robbers, but is falsely accused of her family's murder. In hiding, he raises the child as his own... Read more
Cheng Pei-Pei ('Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon') is a naive young martial artist sent to retrieve the Jade Dragon Sword and her own long lost mother i... Read more