My five favorite kung fu movies (this week).

I like kicking. I like movies. My love of both combines whenever I watch kung fu, which for the past few weeks, has been a lot (it goes in phases).

Here are my five favorite right now:

5. Last Hurrah for Chivalry. If you're thinking about getting into kung fu, this is a good place to start. Old-school John Woo at his finest (then he started to hang out with Cruise and Travolta, and things kinda went downhill from there).
4. Five Deadly Venoms. This is not the best kung fu movie in the world, but it is awfully entertaining. Five styles (Centipede, Toad, Lizard, Snake, and Scorpion), one movie, perfect.
3. Magnificent Butcher. If you like fat guys and kung fu (which I totally do), then Sammo is your man. You'll spend most of the movie questioning how a guy that chubby can bust moves like he does. Impressive to say the least.
2. The 36th Chamber of Shaolin. One of the best Shaw Brothers films of all time. A little more realistic than most, and with all of the Wu-Tang connections, how can you go wrong?
1. Drunken Master (not to be confused with 'Legend of the Drunken Master', filmed as a novelty project 16 years after the original was released). In the hierarchy of styles, Drunken Fist is at the top, because it looks so awesome, and there's alcohol involved (some people will tell you that the concept of 'style' in kung fu is dead. These people are stupid). This was Jackie Chan at his best, before he started making movies with Jennifer Love Hewitt.


It is a good idea to get into kung fu if you're poor, because you can find the DVDs in Chinatown for crazy cheap (3 for $10).

~sarah p.