Martial Arts Films
What is genuinely fought on screen — and what is cinematic shorthand
The son of a murdered craftsman finds refuge in the Shaolin monastery and trains to avenge his father.
A graduate of Japanese ninja training comes to help a friend on a plantation in the Philippines.
A biography of boxer Jake LaMotta, whose jealousy and aggression destroy everything around him.
The unruly Wong Fei-hung is sent to be straightened out by a master of drunken boxing.
An unfinished Bruce Lee project, completed after his death from existing footage and doubles.
After his family is massacred, a young man enters the Shaolin monastery and passes through its training chambers.
An unknown boxer from Philadelphia gets a shot at the world champion.
A fighter is recruited by intelligence services for a tournament on the island of the criminal Han. Bruce Lee's best-known film.
The shogun's former executioner wanders Japan with his small son, hiring himself out as an assassin.
Bruce Lee arrives in Rome to help compatriots whose restaurant is being extorted. He also directed the film himself.
A student avenges the death of his master from the Jingwu school in Japanese-occupied Shanghai.
A swordsman without conscience moves through the late Edo period leaving bodies behind.
An impoverished rōnin asks to perform seppuku in a clan's courtyard and gradually reveals why he came.
A rōnin arrives in a town split between two gangs and plays them against each other.
The first part of the trilogy about Miyamoto Musashi, from raw villager to swordsman.
A village hires seven rōnin to defend it against bandits.
Akira Kurosawa's debut about a young man learning judo who must grasp that technique without character is not enough.