For decades, serious film snobs looked down on kung fu movies as cultural trash, a kind of mindless detritus imported from the Pacific Rim to clutter grindhouse movie theaters and fill out the programming line-up on late night TV. This was an odd position to take—if ever there was a genre that embodied the highest […]
Author: Scot Mason
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20 Essential Films For An Introduction To The Wuxia Genre
Although it has its roots in Chinese literature, wuxia as a genre has grown to prominence worldwide almost exclusively through the medium of film. Starting as far back as the silent era and continuing to the present day, wuxia films tend to have certain aspects in common. They are always period, pre-20th Century stories, dwelling […]
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15 Japanese Fantasy-Action Films That Will Make Your Head Spin
In Japanese cinema, often one comes across films that are incredibly difficult to categorize. Are they science fiction? Horror? Comedy? All of the above? A lot of the time, when one encounters this fascinating area of Japanese cult films, the answer is yes. For the amateur cinephile and aficionado alike, it is exactly that hard-to-pin-down, […]
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The 15 Best Samurai Films NOT Directed By Akira Kurosawa
In Japanese cinema, the genre of jidaigeki refers to films set in a pre-20th Century period of Japanese history. A sub-genre of jidaigeki is the chambara–or sword fight–movie, a type that most often features samurai in various kinds of dramatic action, and in nearly every case showcasing displays of great swordsmanship and valor. The most […]
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20 Great Hong Kong Cult Films That Are Worth Watching
The Hong Kong film industry is responsible for some of the most influential films and filmmakers of the last 50 years. It’s an industry most renowned for the epic level of martial arts cinema that captured the world’s imagination back in the 70s and 80s, but it’s also been a source of great films in […]
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10 Essential Godzilla Movies Every Horror Fan Should See
Now that the Godzilla reboot is raking in serious money at the box office, some of you out there may be wondering just where else to go to get your Godzilla fix. After all, we’re talking about a character who’s been around for more than half a century now, and there’s something on the order […]