Martial Arts Films
What is genuinely fought on screen — and what is cinematic shorthand
In 14th-century France a dispute between two knights over a rape accusation is settled by judicial duel.
Ip Man travels to San Francisco to see Bruce Lee and runs into racism and a clash between the Chinese community and the US military.
A series continuing The Karate Kid thirty years on, as Johnny Lawrence and Daniel LaRusso open rival dojos.
A former triad enforcer protects a girl and becomes a target of his own people.
An immortal swordsman becomes the protector of a girl seeking to avenge her parents.
Ip Man faces a developer terrorising the neighbourhood while his wife falls ill. A young Bruce Lee also appears.
The son of Apollo Creed wants to box under his own name and finds a trainer in Rocky Balboa.
After the first film, Rama goes to prison and then undercover into the criminal underworld.
A retired hitman goes back to work after gangsters kill the dog left to him by his late wife.
Billionaire John du Pont builds a wrestling team on his estate, and his relationship with the Schultz brothers ends in tragedy.
A visually refined chronicle of Ip Man and the masters of northern and southern styles in China between the world wars.
A biology teacher takes up MMA to raise money to save his school's music programme.
A former assassin from the end of the shogunate vows never to kill again and fights with a reverse-blade sword.
Two estranged brothers separately enter the same MMA tournament.
A police team is trapped in a tower block run by a drug lord and has to fight its way up floor by floor.
After moving to Hong Kong, Ip Man tries to open a school and runs first into the local masters, then into a British boxer.
A band of samurai is tasked with killing the shogun's cruel brother and turns a whole village into a trap.
After a knee injury, Boyka returns to the prison tournament, this time an international one.
An American boy in Beijing learns to fight from the maintenance man Mr Han. A remake of the 1984 film.
A young Minangkabau man leaves for Jakarta on the traditional merantau journey and becomes caught up in human trafficking.
The legend of the capoeirista Besouro Mangangá in 1920s Bahia, said to be invulnerable.
A Brazilian jiu-jitsu teacher who refuses to compete is drawn into the world of paid fights.
A biographical drama about Wing Chun master Ip Man in Foshan under Japanese occupation, where circumstance turns a private teacher into the town's defender.
Zen, an autistic girl, learns to fight by watching television and the school next door, then collects debts owed to her sick mother.
A historical tale of an orphan raised by bandits in Ayutthaya who studies martial arts from across Asia.
A high-schooler who has moved to a new school takes up MMA training and underground fights.
Three students of a dissolved karate school in wartime Japan must decide what to do with the art their master left them.
A biography of Huo Yuanjia, founder of Shanghai's Jingwu school, from pride to humility.
An American boxer jailed in a Russian prison must face its undefeated champion.
Kham pursues to Sydney the gang that stole his elephants.