Three Kung-Fu Movies To Look Forward To In 2018
Happy new year, my fellow martial artists! 2017 was, admittedly, relatively uneventful – we didn’t really get all that many memorable kung-fu flicks, in either Hollywood or the East. Oh, sure, there were some really decent ones, like “Paradox” (also known as “Chinese Taken”), but none that I personally feel were worth talking about. Thankfully, from what I’m seeing, 2018 seems like it’s going to more than make up for its lackluster little sister by providing us with a whole bunch of REALLY cool kung-fu movies, from sequels to beloved franchises to brand new Eastern productions that look absolutely stunning!
First, and for me, foremost, is “Ip Man 4”. Donnie Yen’s semi-biographical series centered on Bruce Lee’s master, has been a huge inspiration for me and for many other kung-fu fanatics, and continues to be universally beloved and recognized to this day. Unfortunately, after the third installment came out in 2015, Donnie Yen announced that he was done with the role and was willing to let the series go. Fans were distraught, but luckily for us, Yen himself announced that he and director Wilson Yip will be back for a fourth part, set to come out this year! And if that wasn’t enough, Max Zhang from “Ip Man 3” is getting his own spinoff movie as well in 2018! Is this officially the start of the Ip Man Cinematic Universe? One can only hope!
Next on the list is another sequel to a VERY beloved franchise, this time coming from Hollywood – “Shanghai Dawn” is the third movie in the one and only Jackie Chan’s “Shanghai” trilogy, which started with “Shanghai Noon” and continued with the excellent “Shanghai Knights”. The movie entered development back in 2015, when all principle cast members from the previous two films were announced as returning. The director will be Jared Hess, most known for the 2004 hit “Napoleon Dynamite”. While most of his movies haven’t really caught on like “Dynamite” did, Hess has a knack for writing quirky, memorable characters, and I have no doubt that “Shanghai Dawn” will be among his very best work! Who knows, with a little bit of luck it might even surpass the popularity of “Napoleon Dynamite”!
Now, there’s a TON of original movies that are going to be coming out this year, most of which will, naturally, be from China. Some look fun, others are fairly standard for the genre, but there’s one that absolutely caught my eye and I can’t wait to see – Xu Haofeng’s “The Hidden Sword”. Now, technically this flick came out last year in China, but it’ll be released globally in 2018, which is why I’m counting it. And besides, it’s a martial arts movie centered around sword fighting, with some downright beautiful choreography and cinematography… Not to mention, it’s set in the 1930s, which is a very unique era for these types of movies. Needless to say, I can’t wait to see it, and so should you!
When we put on a kung-fu movie to watch, we don’t exactly want to be amused. Unless it’s a movie that only barely has anything to do with kung-fu as we know it, like “Shaolin Soccer”, we kind of mostly expect a movie to deliver a very basic plot, flat characters, a clear-cut struggle of good vs evil (both of which can be easily and quickly identified) and some absolutely spectacular fight scenes. Think “Enter the Dragon” or “Kill Bill Vol. 1” – those films are basically the definition of what a kung-fu movie is supposed to be. But, like any other genre, kung-fu cinema has given us a whole lot of variety, and a good chunk of movies are downright hilarious, for one reason or another! In this article I’ll try to showcase three movies, each of which is a different kind of funny. I promise you, though – they’re all hilarious!
In the past, I’ve written several posts right here on this very blog about stuff like 
Alright, folks, I have a confession to make, and it’s a doozy – I do other things besides watch movies all day. Shocking, I know, but please don’t lynch me! Aside from the standard stuff that literally everyone and their mother does, such as going to work, preparing food, going to work and all that, I also like to play a whole lot of videogames. I read quite a lot of books (I set myself a goal of 50 books read per year, and surpass it every time), and have even dabbled into creative writing a couple of times, in case it didn’t seem obvious. Well, there’s another activity I really enjoy, and while to a lot of people it may not seem like much, it’s my own guilty pleasure AND a source of income. I’m talking, of course, about online gambling, which is—YOU SIT BACK DOWN! 
We all know Bruce Lee – he’s by far the single most influential martial arts actor of all time despite completing only a handful of movies. More modern actors, such as Jackie Chan and Jet Li, cite him as a major influence (which is quite obvious in their performances), and his untimely death in 1973 spurred a tidal wave of imitators – literally. Movies starring Bruce Li, Bryce Lee, Bruuce Lee and other actors using any variation of his name swept the market, none of which were any good. Still, the public consumed them without question – that’s how starved for Bruce Lee they all were! Hmm, if only there was a movie Bruce Lee himself started, but never finished… If only that movie contained some of his best fight scenes ever, which could be padded with awkward editing to pretend that Bruce Lee is in it… Oh wait! 
“We’re all movie lovers here. I love movies. You love movies”