action movie watchlist for 2024

HAPPY NEW YEAR! Here's the list of Action films I want to watch in 2024

Fearless Hyena 笑拳怪招 (1979)

Fist of Fury 精武门 (1972)

The Way of the Dragon 猛龙过江 (1972)

New Fist of Fury 新精武门 (1976)

Mad Max (1979)

Mad Max 2 (1981)

Armour of God 龍兄虎弟 (1986)

The Matrix (2002)

Royal Warriors 皇家戰士 (1986)

My Lucky Stars 福星高照 (1985)

The Heroic Trio 東方三俠 (1993)

Crouching Tiger 卧虎

 Tomorrow Never Dies (1997)

GoldenEye (1995) 

Little Tiger of Canton (1971)

Master with Cracked Finger (1979)

 

Police Story: Action on Steroids

 HAPPY NEW YEAR!

I hope every single one of you has an awesome year and that God protects and blesses you.

Also, watch more action films.

Directed, written by, and starring Jackie Chan

Starring Bridget Lin

Maggie Cheung

Lam Hwok Hung

Bill Tung

Written by Edward Tang

Release date (Hong Kong): December 15, 1985

May 15, 2006 (Australia)

Synopsis 

Kevin Chan, an honest Hong Kong cop protecting Selina Fong, a Triad boss's girlfriend-turned-informer, finds himself framed for the murder of a dirty cop, Royal Hong Kong Police Force Sergeant Mao, and going on the run.

Review

Oh HELL YES. 

I've been a MEGA Chan Fan ever since I was 6. But due to my new interests with lots of other franchises (LazyTown, Wimpy Kid, Big Nate, Odd Squad, etc..) I kinda forgot about him. Infact, Rush Hour was the only reason I thought about him. But one day I decided to watch one of his movies. Nothing interesting was on Netflix, but the plot of Police Story sounded interesting to me. So I watched the Hong Kong version, subtitled by SBS On Demand and then I started to get hooked back onto Jackie Chan films.  

Now, I'm not exaggerating when I say the Police Story franchise is one of Chan's best works. All films in the franchise (Police Story, Police Story: Part 2, Police Story 3: Super Cop, Police Story 4: First Strike, New Police Story & Police Story: Lockdown) all got 12 wins at award shows combined, and all the film's box office performances (including Supercop 2 / Project S / Once a Cop / Police Story 3: Part 2) made 489866205 Hong Kong dollars. I can see why, trust me. Judging from only the first film (I've watched the first 5, not counting Supercop 2. That's a spinoff.), you can say it took a lot to make this.

 

The film's comedy sequences are subtle and actually very funny, but they don't take your focus away from the serious parts, then the action sequences.

The cast did a great performance. Maggie Cheung did a great job as an annoying girlfriend, and Lam Hwok Kung did an amazing job as the strict guy who only cares about himself.

 My only complaint with the film is one of the comedy sequences which has Kevin ignoring crimes such as abuse so he can eat his lunch. Of course, when he ignores the call about a lost cow and when May calls him and he responds rudely, then pretends that it was another one of his employees, that was funny, because you're not supposed to take that seriously. I would spoil the rest of the sequence for you, but I don't want to.

After all, it's just a movie, and that joke was supposed to be funny, but it wasn't, but that doesn't make the movie any worse. 

 

I can't say anything else bad about Police Story, because the fight scenes and two stunts by Jackie. (YES, TWO STUNTS), and climbing over walls and parkour that Chan does in the film is impeccable and just some of his best work.

 

I'm just waiting for the novelization of the film so I can tell my kids the Police Story of Jackie Chan's Police Force. "One sunny day in Hong Kong..."

Watch Police Story 

Hong Kong cut, Cantonese audio with English subtitles  - https://www.sbs.com.au/ondemand/movie/police-story/1464151619561

Jackie Chan's Police Force - American cut, 1987, English audio, 87 minutes | https://archive.org/details/police-story-export-cut

Alternate version of American cut of Police Story with Kevin Bassinson score

"Police Story 2" - Australian cut, 1990, English audio | 

https://archive.org/details/policestory2

Strangely with the Police Story 2 title card, Police Story 1 movie and credits...?

Rating: 10/10

Believe's rating: 5/10

Jacky Chan in the 80s

 Wouldn't hurt to post some fan-videos here. (:

OLIVER K'S TOP 15 FIGHT SCENES OF 2023

 Okay, so depending on where you live, tomorrow is the official last day of 2023. This year has been an amazing year. At school, at home, and with action films! Thank you for reading my blog this year. Today, I'm going to be showing you in my opinion - the best fight scenes from every movie I've watched this year! 

DIE HARD - McClane vs. Karl

The thing I love most about the fight scene is that John is so angry he just punches him 10 times in a row. We also get to see John get beat up. It shows that he's not a superman unlike most main characters in action movies. He gets punched. He gets tired. I have to say for an American fight scene this is really good.  The cinematography is good as well. Beautiful lighting, and NO shaky cams! But the highlight of the fight is the end where McClane hangs Karl from his neck with a chain and just leaves him swinging there. But what people really love about this is the line "I'm gonna cook you and I'm gonna eat you!" from McClane. Might be the best five minutes of the whole thing.

DIE HARD - Shoot The Glass

When I first watched this film, I thought John said "No bullets. F**king stupid arse." Nope. He said " No bullets. You think I'm f***ing stupid, Hans?" But the misheard line is way more funnier. Aside from that, 2 seconds after that line, the best fight scene in Die Hard commences. The shootout. Normally when I watch films, in the fight scenes I look for combat. Punches, kicks, all that stuff. This fight scene doesn't have any of that, yet it's still a REALLY good scene. It's a 1v3, and the 3 villians have more powerful guns. Guess who wins.

Hint: this is a fictional movie.

POLICE STORY - The Climatic Fight

This fight scene is some of Jackie Chan's best work! It's a 2v20 or something and Chan still wins. The realism and epicness in the fight scene is amazing. No shaky cams, just glass breaking and butt-kicking!

WHEELS ON MEALS - STORMING THE CASTLE (THOMAS VS. THUG)

Oh. My. God. Hell yes! This film itself is amazing, but the final fight scene is the cherry on top! A martial artist and a kickboxer meeting sounds weird until you watch this movie. This fight scene is an absolute masterpiece. You haven't watched movies until you watch Wheels on Meals.

HONORABLE MENTION #3

YES MADAM - AN UNEXPECTED ENDING

AWWWWWEEEEESSSSOOOOOOMEEEEE

Wow. Michelle Yeoh and Cynthia Rothrock - their first films and one of their bests! Just 10 minutes can show the talent of the actors, directors and fight choreographers. The trailer says that Yeoh is Samo Hung (Project A, Eastern Condors, Dragons Forever, Wheels on Meals, Enter the Fat Dragon 1978, Burger Cop)'s favourite actress. Hard to believe Michelle Yeoh isn't everybody's favourite.

HONORABLE MENTION #2 

THE EAGLE'S SHADOW - Pai vs. Sheng & Sheng vs. Chien

 

Snake in the Eagle's Shadow has 3 "finales" and 2 of them are super good, so I decided to put both of them in the list! Huang-Cheng Li is blessed with the power of kicking, and his role as the villian is amazing. He is amazingly intimidating and I would NOT want to meet this guy in real life. Simon Yuen was 65 years old in this movie, and he was the one doing all those jumps and kicks and tricks and flips. Everyone who worked on this film were very talented (Jackie and Huang still are)

HONORABLE MENTION #1

 YOUNG MASTER - JACKIE VS. THE BIG BOSS

 

This is Jackie's first fight with Wong In Shik. Dragon Lord is the second one, which is a sequel to this film. I'm not saying Dragon Lord's is bad, but this one is just slightly better and it's also longer in length. If I made a list of my 100 favourite fight scenes ever, Dragon Lord's climax would probably be at 15 or 20. Okay. So this fight scene is on a mountain between two Kung fu legends (and one of them has fought BRUCE LEE!) and it goes on for 20 minutes and Jackie Chan is losing until he drinks tobacco. What's not to like?

 some other pretty good honorable mentions:

dragon and bull vs. the big boss - dragon lord (1982)

the ax gang - drunken master 2 (1994)

jackie vs. luke vs. tung - dragons forever (1988)

road fight - police story (1985)

training facility - supercop (1996)

hulk vs thor - ragnarok (2017)

AND THE BEST FIGHT SCENE OF 2023 IS:

DRUNKEN MASTER II - MEN IN BATTLE

Drunken Master 2 is the finest installment in the Drunken Master series. Dance of the Drunk Mantis, Story of Drunken Master, Drunken Master & Drunken Master III wish they were as epic as this film! The fight scene (which is 3 back to back fights for about 20 minutes) are the highlight of the film. You need to watch Drunken Master 2 as soon as possible, no matter which version of the movie.

ok bye

 

 

OLIVER K'S TOP 8 BEST ACTION FILMS OF 2023

 This year was a reunion and introduction to many action movies. I WAS planning to watch Fearless Hyena, but decided not to - save it for next year (watching it + the review).

Anyways, the year ends in three days. Here are the best five action movies I have watched this year because ten would be too hard to decide.

Everyone's heard of Die Hard or Bruce Willis or Alan Rickman at least once. This was me for a long time, but then in February of this year after my family finally got a Disney+ subscription, I finally got to watch the movie, and it was amazing.

Full review: Jan 15, 2024 

 

Holy crap. I was missing out. Michelle Yeoh is amazing! The fight choreography is truly amazing and eye-catching like no other 'Girls With Guns' movie. The stunt co-ordination performed by Yeoh and Rothrock is truly epic. Makes you wonder, who choreographed the movie? And what the hell are their secrets?!

Full review - June 24, 2024.

Oh yeah. I love this movie. A LOT. But, it definetly isn't enough to be number 1.

 

First of all - this movie is VERY different from many Jackie Chan movies. This is an action-sport-comedy, not action-kungfu-comedy. This movie didn't do well in cinemas because of that (and probably because Jackie didn't start shooting the movie with a script), but this is an AMAZING movie. Not to mention the chemistry between Cheung wing-fat and Jackie Chan.

Full review - June 3, 2024

 

You call yourself a Jacky Chan fan? You've never watched Drunken Master? Bull-crap. The ultimate Jackie fan has definetly watched Drunken Master. It's good, but they're definetly missing out on DRUNKEN MASTER II.

Full review - February 12 2024

HONORABLE MENTION #3

While you might have to watch this film anywhere else BUT  a plane to feel comfortable, it's still a good flick nonetheless!

Full review  - January 29, 2024 

HONORABLE MENTION #2

The Young Master is one of the greatest 80s Chan films, despite it being his second directing role. I don't even know how to review this one.

The ten minute climatic fight is amazing, and it's just kinda cool to see Chan's character [Dragon] just act like a robot.

The fight choreography is amazing and definetly took many days to come up with.

Also, there is not too much comedy, but when there is, it is subtle and actually funny.

When I first watched the film I thought it was gonna be a boring film, but then I continued it and it was actually amazing.

 I bet that when Chan started directing, it was unusual to let a young man ( 26 year old) direct a film that he stars in and writes. But when you let him take charge, he might make a movie you don't want to end.

 However, Golden Harvest must have not felt like that, because the film was originally 2 hours longer.

Anyways, The Young Master is a great film to watch when you're bored with great choreography, great writing, and great Jackie Chan stunts.

Okay, kids, what have we learned from The Young Master?

A kung fu fighting man is one of the best men you can find.

 

You call yourself a film buff because you watch Willis and Lee and Stallone. But will you ever see them jump from the top floor of a mall to the bottom?

FULL REVIEW - JAN 1 2024

 

AND TEH OFFICIAL BEST ACTION MOVIE OF 2023 THAT I HAVE WATCHED IS:

SUPERCOP!

Supercop is easily the best work in the Police Story series. Jackie Chan and his stunt team went all out on this one. 

Full review - 26 February.

And with that - the 2023 season ends.

See ya Jan 1.

Just kidding.

No, they don't, you dummy. I'm doing a post on the top 8 fight scenes I've watched of 2023, and it's coming out on the 30th.

 

 

 

 

Wheels On Meals: One Knuckle Sandwhich, Please!

 Feliz Navidad, everybody. Sorry for not reviewing a Christmas movie like Die Hard or Police Story, but I'm reviewing every action movie I've ever watched in release date order.

 

Directed by and starring Sammo Kam-Bo Hung

Starring: Jackie Chan

Biao Yuen

Written by: Edward Tang

Johnny Lee

Produced by: Raymond Chow

Release date: August 18, 1984 (Hong Kong)

August 23, 2006 (Australia) 

 Synopsis

Cousins Thomas (Jackie Chan) and David (Biao Yuen), owners of a mobile restaurant, team up with their friend Moby (Sammo Kam-Bo Hung), a bumbling private detective, to save the beautiful Sylvia (Lola Forner), a pickpocket.

Review 

So, Wheels On Meals wasn't my taste at first, but was still a great Chan film.

The first complaint, is that the movie had no outtakes in the Hong Kong version, which I watched, unlike the Japanese version, which aaaaalways gets the better version of the movie. WHY, SBS ON DEMAND??

If you don't know what I'm talking about, here's Muck47 from movie-censorship.com's comparison. 

The second complaint, is that there's too much scenes where the boys simp about Sylvia. Sure, she's cute and the plot is about saving her, BUT DO YOU HAVE TO MAKE HALF THE SCENES ABOUT HOW MUCH THOMAS AND DAVID WANT TO BE WITH SLYVIA?! NO, YOU DON'T, EDWARD AND JOHHNY. 

Most of those scenes are to keep the Jackie Chan tradition of making his action films funny as hell. And it worked, but only with the comedy scenes that weren't about Lola. The SBS-subtitled version has some funny jokes in the subtitles, specifically when Thomas tells Moby to climb a tree and then Moby asks.. "Can Elephants Climb Trees?"

The third complaint, is the ending theme song. It's used twice in the film, both with vocals, and might be my least favourite Jackie Chan song. The instrumental is unpleasent (some of the instruments don't go well) and the lyrics are pretty undeniably offtopic to the film from what I can remember. That's what I thought when I first watched the movie. Then I kept on listening to the song and liked it more! But Spartan X is a much better song

But the action parts of the movie (the unbelievable stunts and fights) did very well and were just amazing to watch. The final fight with The Jet might just have been one of the best fights of the 80s. 

Anyways, if you have nothing to do, and you like the three brothers - Jackie, Biao, and Sammo (which are the stars of Hong Kong action movies) then Wheels On Meals is the way to go.

Oh, and yes, there are actually wheels on meals in this movie.

Rating: 8/10 (Comedy, theme song, Benny vs Chan, stunts)

Watch Wheels on Meals on

Cantonese with English Subtitles - https://www.sbs.com.au/ondemand/movie/wheels-on-meals/1464155203900

Project A: Project Awesome!

 How do you spell, amazing? That line, which was taken from Miramax's 1995 re-release trailer for Project A / Jackie Chan's Project A sums up the whole film and the title. But today we will be reviewing the original version, the one on the UK dvd.

 

Directed, written by and starring Jackie Chan 

Starring: Sammo Kam Bo Hung, Biao Yuen, Dick Wei, Mars

Written by: Edward Tang
Produced by: Raymond Chow
Leonard Ho
Edward Tang

Release date: December 23, 1983 (Hong Kong)

August 8, 2007 (Australia)

 

Synopsis

 Dragon Ma (Jackie Chan) is a lieutenant in the 19th-century Hong Kong marines. Pirates have been terrorizing local waters, with assistance from the corrupt authorities. Dragon Ma hopes to defeat the evil pirate clan led by Sanpao (Dick Wei), but his plan is short-circuited. Ma then teams with a navy admiral (Hak Suen Lau), a police captain Tzu (Biao Yuen) and a crafty thief (Sammo Hung Kam-Bo) in a new round of high-seas battles with Sanpao and his pirates.

Review

How can't you love Project A? I remember being six years old, bored on the weekends, nothing to do, then SBS On Demand was playing Project A. I never heard of Jackie Chan or his films before so I watched the clock tower stunt and then the rest of the film. Since I didn't know the plot, I didn't care about it. Jackie Chan grasped me and I went on to watch Drunken Master and The Karate Kid. 

 The comedy aspect of the film is the same with Drunken Master. The film has lots of comedy sometimes I wonder if it was promoted as a "Comedy-action" film. But that's okay, because the reason I loved the film was because of how funny it was. Not to mention Jackie, Biao and Sammo's amazing performances, and the fight choreography as well. 

However, what ticked me off about the Hong Kong release of the film (that I watched) has only 5 outtake clips in the credits, unlike the Japanese version, which only has about 3 or 4 clips from the film. One thing I love about Chan's films is the credits. They're the parts I look forward to the most. So it sucked knowing that the credits are took up by a 50 second long freeze frame, seen below.

 Anyways, despite the credits, Project A is an amazing movie to see, with undeniably one of Chan's best stunts, and probably fight scenes with the one in the restaurant.

 Yeah, sure the bar fight is amazing to, but that one was just the cops losing their temper. Everyone in that scene was a protagonist.

 Anyways, Project A is one of my biggest Chan recommendations and I forget how amazing it is until I rewatch it.

Rating: 9/10

Watch Project A on

Chinese with English subtitles (2019) - https://www.sbs.com.au/ondemand/movie/project-a/1464154179755