Board 8 > Gauntlet Crew Ranks Martial Arts Movies - "Don't think! Feeeel!"

(+) Yeah! (+)

Maybe The Street Fighter? I can see someone potentially being into that
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Espeon posted...

Yeah, this isnt gonna be a great list for me, as I love cheesy action movies. Its just like the Bond rankings.

There are some great cheesy action movies on this list

Kung Pow wasn't one of them
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Kung Pao isn't even what I'd call an action movie, much less good.
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I just always despise these cheap parody films.
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Oh good I hope the cheap parody film in my top 10 doesn't drop already
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36. Master of the Flying Guillotine - 206 points

JONA - 9
scarlet - 14
Inviso - 34
Snake - 34
Karo - 38
Wickle - 38
Johnbobb - 39

JONA - After the beginning, which is admittedly kinda slow but doesn't last that long, the movie is just fight after fight after fight once it gets to the tournament, and I do love myself a tournament. The fight choreography is fantastic and with there, being a tournament, there are a good variety of different fighting styles shown throughout the movie. The final fight at the end is really amazing.

scarlet - What can I say? I love tournament-style films. Besides the "flying guillotine" man there's an Indian yogi with extendable arms, a Thai kicker and a tonfa-donning Okinawan. A lengthy tournament sequence which I wished would last longer had a diverse host of other colorful fighters.

Inviso - This ranks as high as it does SOLELY because of that final battle scene. You have one-armed JONA versus blind JONA going from booby trap to Home Alone to a goddamn WWE casket match, and its awesome. The problem is that everything leading up to that final fightsucks. Dont get me wrong, I like the concept behind a bizarre spinning blade of death that can rip a persons head off. But the movie is severely lacking in plot, and is a whole bunch of lets have a fight because fighting! moments that drag out a very thin story to its limit. For one thing, it has a tournament in the very middle that introduces a bunch of characters that are cannon fodder for a bunch of characters that are weird cannon fodder for one-armed JONA. None of the fights with any of these people feel like they actually MATTER, and the movie feels SO padded out. I just wasnt a huge fan of that choice.

Snake - Very thin on the narrative, but I gotta say the fight scenes were very impressive. Still, after near non-stop fighting, it gets a little grating.

Karo - There's this one-armed guy who is being stalked by Nazi Confucius wielding a giant yo-yo because revenge on someone killing someone else or some shit like that. The 'Flying Guillotine' itself is the most stupid thing ever and anyone who thinks that such a weapon would work in the real world (or any world) is stupider still. A random martial arts tournament takes up a good portion of the midsection of the movie despite neither main character competing in it. The seemingly only reason for its existence is for Ninja Gandalf to appear near the end and kill the wrong one-armed man.
The protagonist is several times randomly attacked by Street Fighter characters with little reason or explanation besides 'I'm here. I fight you. Ooooooaaaaaaah!' It's just one big hot steaming mess and everyone involved should have been given the guillotine treatment.

Wickle - I had quite a few problems with this movie, for starters, the way I ended up with subtitles made them about 15 seconds ahead of the actual dialogue. Thankfully dialogue wasnt as important as shoving a jet engine up everyones asses to make sound effects. Which is about as much character development as we got. They literally expected me to believe that the good guy of the story is a bigger coward than Jackie Chan when he dont want no trouble. And fuck over half the movie was so pointless I was sitting there in the final fight just wanting someone to finally die so the fucking movie would end.
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Johnbobb - Gotta say, Im surprised to see this here but not One Armed Boxer. The anti-hero of the film is kind of hard to get behind, given that, without seeing the original, I had no stake in his motivations (but even if I had seen in, its still hard to get behind the guy who straight out says Im just going to kill every one-armed man I find). Regardless, the film mostly just bored me overall. Im finding that while there are some really good ones from this period, many of them dont hold up over time for me. And the flying guillotine is one of the dumbest weapons Ive ever seen.
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Outlier Rankings

Inviso - 55
JONA - 44
Wickle - 36
scarlet - 33
Karo - 27
Johnbobb - 12
Snake - 8

I get a huge boost but still not enough to pass Inviso.

Hint for 35.

Another movie from the 70's.
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This'll be Street Fighter now.
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Weird seeing Snake as the lowest outlier after the Sports Ranking
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35. The Street Fighter - 198 points

JONA - 15
Snake - 21
scarlet - 24
Wickle - 28
Johnbobb - 34
Karo - 37
Inviso - 39

JONA - Sonny Chiba's character is kind of a breath of fresh air compared to the majority of the movies on the list. He's amoral and has a really rough style of fighting. The action is particularly brutal and the movie definitely earns that X rating. I also liked the different parties running around during the story, which also made the plot a breath of fresh air as well, since it wasn't just good vs evil.

Snake - Wow this film is some sick stuff. Apparently it was the first film to garner an X-rating in the US and I can see why. If it wasnt so reprehensible though I dont think it would stick out in my mind as much.

scarlet - There is no finesse here. Its the brutal ripping apart of ones enemies. Light on story, heavy on blood.

Wickle - Dont worry guys, this wasnt the animated film named after the video game series if the year wasnt obvious enough. Granted, Id probably rather have watched it, since this movie was just as shounen-esque where the dude is stabbed with a sai, shot in the back of the leg, and takes a near death blow and still comes out victorious. Im still pissed off because hes an antagonist-protagonist and isnt even of the good variety. So I spent the whole movie hoping hed die at the end, expecting to get just that and nope. Also, I was happy when his sidekick died since I thought it meant I didnt have to hear TERRYYYY and instead I got it out of the girl too! Oh yeah, Ill also say this was the first movie that really got me squirming with the blood and started becoming unenjoyable to watch with it (not that I was enjoying the rest of it anyway). The little theme song was cool though.

Johnbobb - Man I barely have anything to say about this one. I cant quite place why but I was left with such a feeling of apathy for it by the end. Maybe Im just burnt out on old martial arts movies now? No, I dont quite think thats it. Theres just not a whole lot to really make this one stand out from the pack. The action was decent, the story was just there, I guess? I mean, the violent grindhousey aspects of it were cool enough, but not so cool that its really a must-see.

Karo - The confusing plot revolves around several people wanting to kill several other people, an oil heiress who may possibly have been one of these people, and everyone making bizarre contorted facial expressions. Every scene goes like this: some characters meet up, they all go eeeeeyaaaaah and move their arms about weirdly for a bit, then proceed to punch, kick and rip off parts of each others anatomy. It is anyones guess which characters are on which side throughout the movie, a point that is exacerbated by how none of the characters have a distinct look to them. There may have been some shocking betrayals in the story, but who the fuck would even know.
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Inviso - So this movie stars JONA as an anti-hero karate master who apparently took some morphine before filming the movie because of just how slow and unexciting his fighting was in this film. Seriously, there have been some definite clunkers on this list in terms of interesting action, but at least most of those films had the decency to come out in the early 2000s, when they had an artistic tone as an excuse. This was poorly-made, poorly-acted, and to top it off, despite a 90-minute run time, I was bored shitless through most of it. I dont even know what the fuck the plot was supposed to be, and given by the three-paragraph summary on Wikipedia, I think THEY dont know either. JONAs a bad guy who breaks Droopy Dog JONA out of prison, and then gets Droopys brother killed and his sister sold into sex slavery? Then theres ANOTHER girl for some reason, and JONA refuses to work for the Yakuza for some reason, and he goes to fight at a karate dojo for some reason, and then a whole bunch of sloppy fight scenes happen. Oh, and a black dude gets his junk ripped off. Uhkay? This movie was really dumb, and not in a fun way.
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JONALEON1 posted...

Inviso- Oh, and a black dude gets his junk ripped off.

I just flinched in my seat remembering that scene. Ugh.
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Outlier Rankings

JONA - 64
Inviso - 59
scarlet - 44
Wickle - 43
Karo - 29
Snake - 22
Johnbobb - 13

I end up taking first and Johnbobb ends up taking last.

Hint for 34.

Still hating on old movies with this one not releasing after the 90's.
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Before the 90s could mean in the 80s, which possibly means Bloodsport now.
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Wait... not releasing after the 90s means... before the 00s? I think? Could also put... Riki-Oh among this. Which would be falling with another gory film, so possible.
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WickIebee posted...

Wait... not releasing after the 90s means... before the 00s? I think? Could also put... Riki-Oh among this. Which would be falling with another gory film, so possible.

I worded that weirdly. The movie released in 1989 or earlier.
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Damn it, SO many one point off entries, but no matches

Gonna say Bloodsport for this one too
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Bloodsport will never die
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WickIebee posted...

Bloodsport

Johnbobb posted...

Bloodsport

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34. One Armed Swordsman - 197 points

Wickle - 21
scarlet - 26
Snake - 27
Inviso - 29
Johnbobb - 29
Karo - 31
JONA - 34

Wickle - Cinematography has really improved in the year between the first movie on the list and the second. I had minimal complaints about it. My complaints this time come from just I realize that they wanted to avoid the revenge message, but it ends up feeling like they added a few different plot points (his fathers assailants and the broken sword, the girls backstory and the book) and just drops them in the river. Both could be used and still avoid the whole revenge scheme, so it just feels unfinished as it is. I did love the metaphor at the end of then Ill have no disciple by breaking his sword.

scarlet - Historically important in the kung fu genre, some nice sets and a good look, but sort of talky, The fight scenes are nothing compared to later films on this list.

Snake - I liked some of the themes and the gimmick was interesting but I felt the fight choreography could definitely have been a lot better, along with the production design.

Inviso - This is a movie that I think had some definite potential. I mean, you have the Jaime Lannister story with eyebrow JONA getting his arm chopped off (and not even in a cool way, so its actually MORE interesting) and having to learn how to function as aOne Armed Swordsman. Meanwhile, generic bad guys are being generic bad guys and trying to slaughter all of JONAs brothers and his Master. Im not gonna bitch about the general plot. Hell, Ill even admit that the bad guys creating a weird keyblade hybrid weapon to counter the good guys swords is pretty cool. BUT then they drag shit out in this movie. A LOT. We dont need to see like, half a dozen scenes of disciples getting ambushed on the road and losing their fights in the same fashion. Hell, we dont need the ending to begin with five dudes all WATCHING the other ones die, only to try the exact same strategy. Really, JONA is the only good part, and even hes kind of an emotionally abusive dick to the girl that rescued him when he lost his arm. Sowhile the fighting and BASIC plot were good, the direction led to a bloated length that I found unenjoyable.

Johnbobb - What is it with the obsession with chopping off limbs in these films? Wasnt really expecting a romance film going by the title. Regardless, its very okay. Like, everything it does is on par with what Ive come to expect from these films, and thats the biggest problem. Nothing about the action or the story really makes the movie stand out from every other on this list. Watching so many of these has really made the recurring tropes of the genre a lot more noticeable. It doesnt help that so many characters are just ridiculous. Pei Er is just the dumbest, and the villains are over-the-top goofy.

Karo - A swordfighter gets his arm cut off and is helped by a farm girl who nurses him back to health. After confessing his love to her, he promises to only use martial arts to defend the two of them. He then proceeds to brazenly break his promise a good half dozen times over the course of the movie. One of said times is to rescue the girl who cruelly severed his arm, perhaps in the hope that she would show her thanks by giving him a matching set. He then saves his master from a bunch of fuckers with keyblades, and chooses the farm girl over Arm-Chop-Off Lass, who is unable to comprehend why he doesnt find dismemberment sexually attractive.

JONA - The swordsmanship on display is pretty great and the weapon used to counter the swords is cool but this movie doesn't have good pacing and just feels too long for its own good.
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Outlier Rankings

Inviso - 64
JONA - 64
Wickle - 56
scarlet - 52
Karo - 32
Snake - 29
Johnbobb - 18

No real big movements here but Inviso gets enough to tie me with myself getting a spot on.

Hint for 33.

The plot has the protagonist getting revenge.
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JONALEON1 posted...

Outlier Rankings

Inviso - 64
JONA - 64
Wickle - 56
scarlet - 52
Karo - 32
Snake - 29
Johnbobb - 18

No real big movements here but Inviso gets enough to tie me with myself getting a spot on.

Hint for 33.

The plot has the protagonist getting revenge.

So the next film on the list is a kung fu movie, you'd say?
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JONALEON1 posted...

The plot has the protagonist getting revenge.

Well, I'll just resort to keeping same guess of Bloodsport.
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If the next one is Bloodsport I'll be even more upset than I would be normally cause that would not only be a bad placement for it but also a bad hint
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I mean, technically he treats it like it's revenge for the big bear dude. He was all like "HOW DARE HE BEAT THE SHIT OUT OF YOU IN A TOURNAMENT, I'LL GO BEAT HIS ASS FOR YOU"
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Well his goal first and foremost was to win the Kumite to honor his Shidoshi. Chong Li just happened to be the odds on favorite to face him in the finals and who happened to be a dick to his friend, but to say revenge was a real driving motive there, especially when he didn't go all eye for an eye on him, you know.

I mean technically the protagonist happens to "get revenge" in a sense but it'd be very misleading hint. As far as Martial Arts movies go it's probably one of the less revenge driven ones!
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It's not a misleading hint, it's "protag gets revenge" regardless of motive or anything else. Like honestly you're arguing "happens to get revenge" on the same list that has Chocolate which actually meets the same guidelines. In fact, even moreso. She's a mentally handicapped person that's beating up mobsters to collect money for her dying mother... She doesn't really have a clue what she's doing, she basically just beats someone up for some preconceived "he's bad." Though she technically gets revenge at the end for beating up the big bad after something happens Put up the plot, but avoided a major spoiler so it's safe to read.
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Misleading doesn't mean incorrect. It just means misleading. I'd call it a misleading hint for that movie too! "The plot has the main character getting revenge" implies that's a focal point of the plot not just something that happens to happen in it.

It'd be similar to saying "the main character uses a sword" as a hint for The Matrix Reloaded because Neo uses a sword in the fight against all the misfit programs at that French dude's chateau.
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Well, that's also a point for these gauntlet rankings. Can't really toss out clear answered guesses as you don't want any obvious answers, so sometimes you use as misleading as a hint as you can get without completely being wrong.
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bump for ranking
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Standard hatred for old films confirmed.
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33. The Big Boss/Fists of Fury - 195 points

Karo - 19
Snake - 25
Inviso - 28
Johnbobb - 28
scarlet - 29
JONA - 32
Wickle - 34

Karo - There's this kung fu master who is like a pacifist because he doesn't want to disappoint his mommy and he always fondles a pendant he got from her. When the pendant gets broken, suddenly he doesnt care what she would think anymore and goes and beats the shit out of everyone.
Other than being the movie that made Bruce Lee famous, it is not particularly remarkable.

Snake - This was an interesting one, with the main characters non-violence vow and an engaging central mystery. When the action does get going, its a surprisingly bloody film and theres also some surprisingly cartoony elements for such a serious film. The film is a bit unfocused and seems intent on only featuring Lee as an actor at points and it loses some entertainment points for that factor.

Inviso - You can tell the list if winding down because a lot of the movies from the seventies are starting to blend into either the modern day or ancient China categories. Thats definitely the case with Big Boss. First off, its weird to see the first like, third of the movie focusing on JONA as this badass martial artist while Bruce Lee is more of a secondary character that has to restrain himself from fighting. Second, I dont really know. This movie just doesnt feel like a particularly remarkable story. Bruce Lee gets a job at an ice factory, it turns out the factory is a front for a drug cartel, and after JONA runs afoul of the cartel, Bruce destroys it from the inside out. The only really unique point is this section in the middle where Bruce earns some respect from the factorys manager, who promotes him to foreman. This leads to a gradual weakening of his relationships with the other workers (its like watching the most recent season of Better Call Saul), and also a scene where Bruce gets drunk and passes out with a naked girl. Thatsthe only thing about this movie that stands out. Its pretty standard fare for Bruce Lee.

Johnbobb - Man I hated that song it played every time Cheng looked at his locket. Totally out of place and tonally conflicting. Man, what was the villains long-term plan at the beginning, to just kill off everyone who saw anything and then ALSO kill off anyone looking for the killed off people? Pretty sure theres a MadTV sketch about that. To be honest, Im left without a whole lot to say about this one. Bruce Lee was solid in it, of course, especially in the end fights, but overall, the film was pretty run-of-the-mill as far as that eras martial arts films go. Not the best; not the worst. Good but also kind of forgettable.

scarlet - Bruce Lee does an excellent job channeling Kojimas greatest creation on the silver screen.

JONA - Even though the story only ranges from boring to sorta interesting and Bruce Lee doesn't do much for the majority of the movie, it kinda is worth sticking with it for the fights near the end. The fights here are arguably the most brutal he's ever done on film.

Wickle - We went from good cinematography back to guys flopping and making it way too obvious. And honestly this had such a weak storyline. We had no time with really any characters and had minimal development of even the main character, and we had the dumb trio of drugs, intoxication and nudity that already doesnt quite impress me with movies. Actually hell, the stupid killing blow the MC had too Just bleh.
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found the MadTV sketch btw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3iqSIkunnz4
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Outlier Rankings

Inviso - 69
JONA - 65
Wickle - 57
scarlet - 56
Karo - 46
Snake - 37
Johnbobb - 23

Inviso wins the tiebreaker for 1st and Karo still stays in the same spot despite how many points he gained.

Hint for 32.

The main character has a love interest.
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it's Bloodsport

the love interest in Sweet Lady Justice
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Still don't really like this hint so not guessing.
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32. Bloodsport - 190 points

Inviso - 15
JONA - 19
Karo - 26
Snake - 26
Wickle - 31
Johnbobb - 35
scarlet - 38

Inviso - Jean-Claude van Damme, a man with a THICK fucking Belgian accent, plays a U.S. Army Captain who is somehow upstaged in pure America-ness by his buddy, Jackson (even his NAME is American as fuck.) But yeah, JCVD, who apparently had a thick Belgian accent even as a child and Giants fan, befriends a Japanese family and trains in the ways of the ninja. He gets invited to the kumite and proceeds to fuck up justjust ALL the JONAs and a couple other nationalities as well. Meanwhile, he befriends Jackson, who would be the big bad guy in most other movies, only he got knocked the FUCK out by big muscle JONA, who was the real end boss. Its another AMAZINGLY cheesy movie, topped off by JCVDs bad acting and weird slapstick humor involving Forrest Whittaker. I still love the actual fighting though. Even Paco with his weird, limp-wristed fighting style.

JONA - I sure do love a good tournament. Yeah, there's not much of a story here and the love interest is pretty pointless but it's a good, cheesy, fun time. The fights are really solid with a bunch of different fighting styles and there's an awesome soundtrack that really gets you hyped. KUMITE! KUMITE! KUMITE!

Karo - Follows the story of two martial artists from america as they compete in the Chinese UFC. One is a soldier who competes against the wishes of his superior officers, and is constantly chased by military police who are as about as competent as Elmer Fudd. The other was this fat r*****ed redneck with no real martial arts talent who somehow doesnt lose in the first round against against the worlds best fighters, and his role in the film was to be be a complete embarrassment to his country. For some reason, nobody in the film learned how to fucking act, and the majority of the dialogue is the most awkward thing ever. Though supposedly based on a real story, it is actually just some shit this guy made up to make his dick look big. Did this really need to be made into a movie?

Snake - This movie is so over-exaggerated and cheesy that it actually comes around to being a laughably good movie. There were some scenes I enjoyed, like the training scene and the first fight, but some of the slo-mo effects made some the moves look really fake unfortunately.

Wickle - The dialogue made me wonder if I was watching a dubbed movie again, but no, its just a godawful movie. Different parts of the plot just dont even match up and it becomes a garbled mess of a bunch of characters that dont make sense. Hell, and every development Ray had was utter garbage and never once made him an actual likeable character because he would downgrade himself seconds later. Oh yeah, its based on a true story Thats cool I guess.
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Johnbobb - Theres really not a whole lot to like about this. I could see maybe watching this with a group of friends and making fun of it, like with The Room, only its not really funny enough for that. Some admittedly cool fight scenes (mixed in with some awkward as hell fight scenes) are really all thats worth seeing, with the acting being pretty garbage (kind of surprising THIS is the movie that made Van Dammes career; it certainly wasnt for his great acting). The storys not particularly interesting, the writing is flat, the performances are choppy, and on top of that, it feels the need to throw in things like some angry Middle Eastern stereotype fighters, just for the hell of it. I mean, Ray Jackson, who I guess were supposed to like, were introduced to as just some guy whos creepy to women on the bus. This is honestly my first Van Damme movie (unless you count Kung Fu Panda, which totally shouldve been on this list). Heres hoping Kickboxer is better.

scarlet - Surprisingly, the United States Library of Congress has yet to select this film for preservation in the National Film Registry.
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Booooooooooo.
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Johnbobb posted...

Heres hoping Kickboxer is better.

it wasn't
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Outlier Ranking

Inviso - 86
JONA - 78
scarlet - 62
Wickle - 58
Karo - 52
Snake - 43
Johnbobb - 26

scarlet manages to beat Wickle for 3rd but not much else besides that.

Hint for 31.

Another damn 70's film.
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I think most of the super obvious lowbies are out of the way at this point

maybe Crippled Avengers?
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I'd have a guess, it it feels more like I'm guessing because I know I have it low in this one.
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Well, actually there's one I guessed before in 36th Chamber of Shaolin for the sake of tossing something fun out there.

I don't really expect it to be it, but I'll also guess Way of the Dragon. It's possible another Bruce Lee movie falls, but I don't expect either Enter or Chinese Connection.
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Everyone who isn't JONA, Snake, or Inviso's opinions on this genre are henceforth discarded. No one who is that down on Bloodsport can really be a fan of this kinda stuff imo.
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Bloodsport is a bad movie
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It's definitely bad.

But it's bad in a way that any martial arts movie fan should actually like. Just a buncha diverse flavorful fighting styles beating each other up with a rockin soundtrack. Just good dumb fun. I legitimately think anyone who can't enjoy Bloodsport is watching 40 movies in a genre they're on average going to dislike.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xyz5_1_HiCM#t=1m15s

The best.
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JONALEON1 posted...

Another damn 70's film.

this was one of the main thoughts going through my head watching this list.
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hmm
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