Bamboo House of Dolls
Shaw Brothers takes on the WIP film. As strange a combination as it sounds.
479 entries. Curated, not exhaustive. A short shelf of things worth knowing about beats a long one nobody can navigate.
Shaw Brothers takes on the WIP film. As strange a combination as it sounds.
A Shaw wuxia that turns into a slasher, with lanterns made of human skin.
Cirio Santiago's Manila blaxploitation at full tilt, remembered for one fight staged in the dark.
The girls-with-guns spy picture Tarantino keeps name-checking, and rightly.
Four men maimed by a tyrant learn to fight through their disabilities. Chang Cheh at his most inventive.
A prince and a thief, master and pupil in disguise. Lau Kar-leung's wittiest choreography.
Lau Kar-leung's revenge epic. A survivor spends years learning the one style that can beat the villain.
Chinese kung fu versus Japanese martial arts, as a marriage. Lau Kar-leung's most good-natured film.
Jimmy Wang Yu invents the empty-hand kung fu film. No swords.
Lau Kar-leung's brutal last great Shaw film. A massacred family, and pole fighting as grief.
Sonny Chiba tearing people apart. First film rated X in America for violence alone.
Jim Kelly karate-chops the mob to save a Watts dojo. Blaxploitation meets kung fu, joyfully.
Chang Cheh's oddest. Five styles, five masks, one whodunit.
The one that broke kung fu in America, months before Bruce Lee did.
A blind monk, a bladed hat on a chain, and a tournament. Perfect.
Jimmy Wang Yu wrecks Sydney, with hang-gliding and a man actually on fire. Peak crossover.
The film that made Shaw Brothers switch to male leads and stay there.
Three hours, a bamboo forest, and a Cannes prize. Barely exploitation.
King Hu, Cheng Pei-pei, and the template for every wuxia since.
The best training film ever made. Lau Kar-leung at the peak.
Jackie Chan finds the formula: comedy, pain, and visible competence.
The film Bruce Lee left unfinished, completed with a double, a cardboard cut-out, and his real funeral.
Lee's first lead. Briefly on the DPP video nasty list, absurdly.
Lee died six days before release. The mirror room still works.