Entertainment
10 Most Intense Martial Arts Movies of All Time, Ranked
If a movie features some kind of martial arts prominently, and at least an action scene or two is seen throughout, it’s going to count as a martial arts movie for present purposes. That makes things pretty broad, at least compared to the range of films you might get to unpack and discuss if you were talking about kung fu movies, because kung fu is a sub-genre of martial arts, cinema-wise. And kung fu is a kind of martial art, if you’re talking more generally and outside the realm of cinema.
So, Seven Samurai could be classified as a martial arts movie, even if you might feel more comfortable calling it a samurai film. It’s not quite intense enough to appear here, but there are a few samurai films below. The focus is on particularly intense martial arts movies, which isn’t necessarily the same as looking at the best martial arts movies of all time… though a few of the ones below are absolute classics. They just so happen to be particularly intense classics.
10
‘The 8 Diagram Pole Fighter’ (1984)
While it might sound like business as usual, for a martial arts movie, The 8 Diagram Pole Fighter is actually pretty intense, mostly owing to how it looks a little more painful in its action scenes than most martial arts films of its era. As for the business-as-usual side of things, it is one of many martial arts movies about revenge, and the protagonist is someone who spends quite a bit of the film’s runtime training so that he has what it takes to enact vengeance.
The finale is particularly impressive on an action front, not to mention brutal, while the opening scene is no slouch in such departments, either, given how many people are wiped out in the film’s inciting incident; just how many people need to be avenged, in other words. It’s all extremely well done, and as long as you don’t mind wincing a handful of times, The 8 Diagram Pole Fighter is an undeniable must-watch, as far as martial arts movies go.
9
‘Last Hurrah for Chivalry’ (1979)
People tend to be more familiar with the John Woo movies that focus on shooting and explosions over hand-to-hand combat, and that’s understandable, because the likes of Hard Boiled and The Killer are immense action movies… but also, those people might be missing out on Last Hurrah for Chivalry. This one came out a little earlier, and is a great demonstration of Woo’s ability to make a different sort of action movie in a similarly satisfying manner.
The violence is also rather brutal by the standards of the 1970s, and there is a huge amount of action.
Narratively, it’s not always the easiest thing to follow, but reliable John Woo themes and beats like sacrifice and anything else that falls under the whole “heroic bloodshed” thing can be found here. The violence is also rather brutal by the standards of the 1970s, and there is a huge amount of action, so watching Last Hurrah for Chivalry does end up being a pretty consistently intense affair.
8
‘Ip Man 2’ (2010)
There are currently four main movies in the Ip Man series, plus a surprisingly good spin-off, though the first two are probably the best overall. Also, both are quite intense, not so much for the level of violence showcased (which is mild, compared to some soon-to-be-mentioned 21st-century martial arts movies), but more because of what they go for emotionally.
The original Ip Man might be even more of a drama or a biopic than it is a martial arts movie in the traditional sense, to the point that when the titular character gets into a situation where fighting is the only answer, you really feel the weight of that combat. But Ip Man 2 ups the stakes and also features a bit more by way of action, and could well be slightly more intense/involving as a result. Both are must-watches, though, if you like martial arts films and haven’t seen either of these yet, for any reason.
7
‘Lady Snowblood’ (1973)
Lady Snowblood is about a young girl who is raised learning pretty much nothing but what she needs to become a living instrument of revenge, all to get back at the people who killed the family she never got to know. If that sounds incredibly depressing, that’s because it is, but at the same time, Lady Snowblood is also quite thrilling, and there are certainly some impressive action sequences sprinkled throughout.
At the end of it all, there’s more of a sense of “Revenge is bad and only destructive,” though, more so than a perhaps more expected “Revenge is cool and worth it” sort of thing. At least there is some entertainment value here alongside all the blood and misery because, if nothing else, Lady Snowblood does manage to be a feast for the eyes while also being, more broadly, a punch to the gut.
6
‘Vengeance!’ (1970)
And then alongside Lady Snowblood, here’s Vengeance!, which is another martial arts-themed movie about revenge, though this one might well be even more nihilistic. A man who feels like he could well be protagonist material ends up being very much not, since he dies early on, and it’s his brother who takes over as the central character in Vengeance!
He descends morally as he goes about fighting and/or killing all those responsible for his brother’s death, and it’s relentless just how much he keeps sinking and, all the while, the action scenes keep getting bloodier and more spectacular. It’s the sort of film that really takes you on a ride, and one that genuinely feels unsafe at certain points, but a movie being well over half a century old and still being able to inspire such feelings should be admired.
5
‘The Sword of Doom’ (1966)
Few central characters from cinema history have been quite as reprehensible as Ryunosuke from The Sword of Doom. If you can picture a slasher movie set during samurai times, but largely from the point of view of the villain, then you could well be picturing something a little along the lines of The Sword of Doom, with violence being constant and Ryunosuke himself getting worse and worse as things progress.
It’s also like a psychological drama, in a way, exploring the mind of someone who barely seems human and who has absolutely no problem with murdering all sorts of people for any reason that pays… and maybe, at a point, the killing itself is the payment. The Sword of Doom is equal parts miserable and impressive, certainly feeling up there as one of the heaviest and most soul-crushing films of its decade (or maybe even any decade).
4
‘The Raid’ (2011)
The simplicity of The Raid is quite wonderful, since it’s about a police operation going wrong, and some well-equipped SWAT members being put at a tremendous disadvantage because they find themselves trapped within a high-rise apartment building. The building is crawling with people who are loyal to the crime boss who oversees the entire complex, and he sends out a message to all that the police officers need to be killed.
So, those who don’t die initially have to fight their way out of a confined location, with guns only taking everyone so far, and much of the action being of the hand-to-hand variety, sometimes with hand-to-hand weapons of the makeshift kind or otherwise. It’s a premise more than a story, but it’s a great premise, and it leads to some phenomenally well-staged fight scenes, with the brutality and the setting of the movie (plus the desperation involved with the premise) making The Raid feel especially intense throughout.
3
‘The Raid 2’ (2014)
The Raid 2 goes bigger in just about every way, compared to The Raid (2011). Some of the immediacy is lost, since it doesn’t take place within a claustrophobic setting over a very short period of time, but there is still a ton of danger for the protagonist throughout. He’s essentially made to go undercover, infiltrating a vast crime empire that operates throughout Jakarta.
In that sense, The Raid 2 is also something of a gangster movie, and a particularly white-knuckle one at that. The gangster story side of things is not as impressive as the action, but the scope of the narrative does allow for a wide variety of action sequences, which ends up being the most important thing. And when this movie’s final act kicks off, it’s like little else, in terms of sheer excitement, spectacle, and intensity.
2
‘Harakiri’ (1962)
There’s an emphasis on mystery, drama, and a quiet kind of suspense to most of Harakiri, even if it does also feel like a samurai movie of sorts right from the start. The main character is a man who wants to tell the members of a samurai clan why he intends to take his life, and there are things revealed through the continually devastating story he tells, and things do gradually get more violent, too.
When there is combat in Harakiri, it feels brutal and quite realistic, which is in line with what the rest of the movie’s going for, as a deconstruction of certain samurai movie conventions or, more broadly, a critique of the samurai way of life/purported code of honor. You can approach it on one of these fronts, or all these fronts, and Harakiri remains gripping and unnerving.
1
‘The Night Comes for Us’ (2018)
For now, The Raid is a duology, but if you really want to see it as a martial arts trilogy, you could squint your eyes a little and maybe fool yourself into thinking that The Night Comes for Us is that third film. Okay, though it’s got the same sort of brutal action, and there are a fair few cast members who appeared in The Raid and/or The Raid 2 and The Night Comes for Us, the characters are pretty different.
Like, the hero of The Raid and its sequel is played by Iko Uwais, yet he plays the main villain in The Night Comes for Us, and the hero of The Night Comes for Us is played by Joe Taslim, who was a supporting character in The Raid (2011). And Julie Estelle, who was Hammer Girl in The Raid 2, has a prominent role in this film. Anyway, it’s maybe not as good as either of The Raid films, but The Night Comes for Us is somehow more violent, and it probably goes into more intense/downbeat territory on an emotional front, too, which does help make it feel like an escalation if you want to try and re-frame it – or somehow see it as – The Raid 3. In any event, if you liked those two movies, you will almost certainly get something out of The Night Comes for Us.
The Night Comes For Us
- Release Date
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October 5, 2018
- Runtime
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121 Minutes
- Director
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Timo Tjahjanto
- Writers
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Timo Tjahjanto
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