Shaw Bros influences???

[TenTigers]

I know alot of people who say that if it weren't for the Shaw Bros. movies, they never would've gotten into Kung-Fu.
I also see alot of posts referring to them and their influences.
Frankly, I never was influenced by them. I never cared for their choreography, nor did I ever think it was a realistic portrayal of Kung-Fu technique. It was just simply entertainment for me.
So...how many here are not only fans, but credit them with the whole reason they got into Kung-Fu?
How many were disappointed to find out that you don't really fight like that?
or WORSE-think Kung-Fu doesn't work because you can't use it like that in MMA?

[David Jamieson]

I know alot of people who say that if it weren't for the Shaw Bros. movies, they never would've gotten into Kung-Fu.
I also see alot of posts referring to them and their influences.
Frankly, I never was influenced by them. I never cared for their choreography, nor did I ever think it was a realistic portrayal of Kung-Fu technique. It was just simply entertainment for me.
So...how many here are not only fans, but credit them with the whole reason they got into Kung-Fu?
How many were disappointed to find out that you don't really fight like that?
or WORSE-think Kung-Fu doesn't work because you can't use it like that in MMA?

I didn't watch many kung fu movies until after I started to learn and practice. No offense to chinese film culture, but for the most part, the movies were ridiculous, silly, poorly written, badly plotted and overall were ...well not very good. lol.

I did however like Masterkiller the 36th chamber and I liked 5 deadly venoms.
I watched the Bruce Lee films as well but I swear, I can't get through the first 10 minutes of anything else without switching it off in favour of something I deem better. Quite a lot of them are utter crap as film goes.

Sorry shaw brothers. :p

[MightyB]

I don't think I've seen a Shaw Brothers film all the way through.

My movie influences that got me started in martial arts were Rocky, then the original Karate Kid.

It wasn't until High School that I saw my first KF flick which was Bruce Lee's Chinese Connection. Prior to that were all the Ninja, Van Damme, Segal, and Norris shows of the 80's and 90's. I did however become a big fan of Jet Li, later era Jackie Chan, and recently Donnie Yen flicks.

[sanjuro_ronin]

I loved Shaw brothers stuff, it was very cool.
Donnie yen stuff in the Shaw Brothers Genre puts them to shame of course.
It would be very awesome if kung fu actually looked like that, LOL !
It would be awesome if kung fu actually looked like choreographed forms too !

[sanjuro_ronin]

Funny thing is, the first kung fu movie I saw was "kung fu gold", but what drove me to MA was, from what I recall, Shaolin Executioners and the Sonny Chiba movie: Killing Machine.

[JamesC]

I grew up with the Bruce Lee movies instead.

Although he didn't portray actual combat either, it was still much closer to fighting than anything the Shaw Brothers did.

Btw, I hate his movies now.

[Lucas]

the street fighter!!!

sonny chiba was one of my film influences for wanting to learn MA. i love the scene where he rips dudes nuts off while hes trying to rape that chick.

[sanjuro_ronin]

the street fighter!!!

sonny chiba was one of my film influences for wanting to learn MA. i love the scene where he rips dudes nuts off while hes trying to rape that chick.

In killing machine he castrates a guy with scissors !

[Lucas]

chiba is the man. i love it when he walks into the karate competition all scrubby and dirty and owns then throws the trophy away. i always wished i was that cool

[sanjuro_ronin]

chiba is the man. i love it when he walks into the karate competition all scrubby and dirty and owns then throws the trophy away. i always wished i was that cool

And eating an apple or WTF that thing was !
His Oyama stuff was good too.

[Lucas]

ya dude...and hes still super cool. i always wanted to see chiba fight lee

[sanjuro_ronin]

ya dude...and hes still super cool. i always wanted to see chiba fight lee

Chiba VS Kosugi !

[Lucas]

haha that would be crazy...i have a feeling kosugi was no push over. that would have been awesome. and dude he has that little ninja clone kid that can do iaido from i think its revenge of the ninja...lol who was that kid anyway

[sanjuro_ronin]

haha that would be crazy...i have a feeling kosugi was no push over. that would have been awesome. and dude he has that little ninja clone kid that can do iaido from i think its revenge of the ninja...lol who was that kid anyway

His own son.

[JamesC]

Didn't both of his sons make some appearances on Ninja Warrior a few times?

[sanjuro_ronin]

Didn't both of his sons make some appearances on Ninja Warrior a few times?

Don't know.
I do know that Sho was awesome in Ninja Assasin.

[ginosifu]

As a young kid (age 10-18) I watched Shaw Bros / Bruce Lee / TV series "Kung Fu"
and thought this was how they fought in China. As I got older and first started in the MA, I still thought I good practice hard enough and I could fight like them. Eventually I found out it is not quite the same as realistic fighting, but It turned me into what I am today. Most of us got our MA start by seeing something? right? A movie? Television Show? Back in the 70's / 80's kung fu schools did not openly advertize quite as much as we do now. My parents never knew there were any MA schools in out neighborhood, in fact they were all japs, *****s and nips to my dad.

For those who started back in the 70's / 80's, how did you get your start?
Movie?
Tevevision?
Demo?
School in you neighborhood?

ginosifu

[Dragonzbane76]

everyone has their influences. I never really was into the kung fu shaw brothers stuff. When I first started KF I watched the bruce lee movies and enjoyed them well enough. I really got into the fighting genre with rocky. The street fighter series was good to.

[YouKnowWho]

Some CMA movie has down to earth TCMA moves.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7Wm9ugdfvU

[David Jamieson]

Some CMA movie has down to earth TCMA moves.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7Wm9ugdfvU

I'm pretty sure you're obsessed with that movie now. :p

[bawang]

I'm pretty sure you're obsessed with that movie now. :p

it starts out ok, but at the end of the series the main character fights evil japanese karate guys, wins the heart of a prostitute, then backflips onto a katana sword and kills himself.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lKDm3XWhZmQ&feature=channel_video_title

"take care of my babby"
"I die for CHINA"

[David Jamieson]

it starts out ok, but at the end of the series the main character fights evil japanese karate guys, wins the heart of a prostitute, then backflips onto a katana sword and kills himself.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lKDm3XWhZmQ&feature=channel_video_title

"take care of my babby"
"I die for CHINA"

looks like he kills himself and the kid....

nationalism is a strange thing...

[Lee Chiang Po]

I wasn't influenced by any movies. It was Roy Rogers and Hopalong Cassidy when I was a kid. I was a grown man when a nephew drug me to a movie house to see one of the Shaw bros. flicks. I think it was someone called Superman Chu, or Super Manchu, or some such. Fists of fury, stuff like that. He was so excited and kept asking, Uncle Jackie, you can do that? I had to bust his bubble. I guess the movie I liked best was the Seven Samorai sp? It was the original magnificent seven movie made in Japan I think. That represented the way they really fought.
All martial arts movies are coreographed sp? Even Chan spends hours rehursing his fight scenes and he still gets hurt sometimes. None of these guys can fight like they do in the movies. The more modern movies are so overly played that at some point the audience stops and says, that is impossible. And it is. No one can do all that.

[bawang]

looks like he kills himself and the kid....

nationalism is a strange thing...

but he is glowing. that means its good.

[Scott R. Brown]

For me it was the book:

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/61DFci9wJTL._SL500_AA300_.jpg

[Jimbo]

I like MA films, esp. the old Shaw Bros., Golden Harvest, etc. stuff.

However, I was never influenced to take up MA by any movies. Before I ever trained, of course I'd seen The Green Hornet, some of the Kung Fu episodes, and exactly one early-'70s made-for-TV American kung fu movie. I didn't even like watching that stuff. None of those things ever inspired me to take up MA. At that time, to me, MA meant judo, because my father, uncles, cousins, and older brother had all trained judo to some degree or other, and many were black belts. I never connected what I saw on TV with that. Plus, I always wondered why the rednecks didn't just grab Kwai Chang Caine's leg when he kicked them, because he was so slow. That pretty much ruined any image of kung fu/CMA for me for many years. I settled on karate for a good while, and some judo.

I was inspired to take up MA due to the threat of violence, and wanted some basic way to defend myself, period. Only a couple years later did I start watching some of the better KF movies, and became a fan of them. Even then, I was eventually inspired to train CMA not by movies, but because I read a lot about MA. And I'd seen a group of some very effective CMA guys beat the hell out of a Tang Soo Do team once. I always knew the very big difference between real-life and movie MA's. A well-made MA movie is just very good entertainment for me, nothing more. The movie fights, no matter how real or fake-looking, are no more real than the gunfights, space battles, monsters and talking animals also seen in movies.

[YouKnowWho]

looks like he kills himself and the kid....

nationalism is a strange thing...
The Japanese general threatened to kill all Chinese people include his son because the Japanese guy losed in the match. Before that match, the Japanese broke the main actor's left arm (similiar to the Gladiator movie story). In the entire match, he could only use his right arm.

[PalmStriker]

For me it actually was Shaw Bros. movies shown in a Downtown theater in Dallas Texas in '79 0r so. Was hanging out with a TaiChi black belt (Yang style), guy was Hawaiian/French and was teaching at one of the colleges in the area. Anyway, a bunch of us would go and watch these double-features in the afternoon. Had no prior MA experience but used to spar with the TaiChi guy to see how long I could keep coming at him before being disabled. Could never really get in on him, punches, yeah, but always ended up being stopped by a heel thumping me in the chest that he would launch without me being able to see it. Later after seeing some of the slow set stuff I knew it was the high sweep they use. The old Ming Dynasty Combat Kung fu movies are what got me hooked, though. Even though I can demonstrate techniques from other styles my only practice is Kungfu.

[SPJ]

when I was a little kid in the 1960s,

yes I like "one arm dao king", "dragon inn"----

but I was most impressed by love tales from shaw brother's film enterprise or shao shi ying ye.

such as liang shang bo and zhu yin tai

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j_LAa_BbRP0

red building dream

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FrPPd_1FtN4&feature=related

flower field

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bB713PhWW-0&feature=related

I learned to sing all the songs in the movies.

actually, I cried when liang shang bo died and zhu yin tai followed.

my point

SB did not influence me learning kung fu

but SB molded my life long liking of chinese opera singing and love tales.

I became a sentimental fool for romantic tales.

:cool:

[SPJ]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=adBlDTyUJRs&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=faTDYWqGKSg&feature=related

ling po was Liang shang po

in 1962 shaw brother's classic.

:cool:

[SPJ]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=09lRBqxmsKw&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SeJJUG1NOWM&feature=related

my favorite song from huang mei diao or huang mei xi.

the song was also used in judge bao (from song dynasty) movies and tv series.

:cool:

[Jimbo]

haha that would be crazy...i have a feeling kosugi was no push over. that would have been awesome. and dude he has that little ninja clone kid that can do iaido from i think its revenge of the ninja...lol who was that kid anyway

As I remember it, Sho had two(?) sons. It must have been Kane Kosugi. He's been an actor in Japan for sometime now. He's also co-starring in the new CLF movie (the one that has Sammo Hung in it).

[Iron_Eagle_76]

A long time ago in a land far away................

My parents rented for me on VHS a movie made in 1979, a classic starring the immortal Chuck Norris called A Force of One. After watching this academy award winning film, I immediatly morphed into this...

[JamesC]

lmao. That picture is STILL funny.

Also, you're feet look way too big for your body in that picture. :p

[Iron_Eagle_76]

lmao. That picture is STILL funny.

Also, you're feet look way too big for your body in that picture. :p

That's because I was trying to look like this:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FEentFNEqZE

[B.Tunks]

I really love some of them including: All Men are Brothers, One Armed Swordsmen, Boxer from Shantung, 10 Tigers of Canton, Challenge of the Masters, 36th Chamber, Mad Monkey Kungfu and Legendary Weapons of China (which I've probably watched over 100 times). There were a lot of good movies from Golden Harvest and other companies as well, such as Warriors 2, Juggernaut etc and most of the Jackie Chan movies from 78-94 were good too (especially Drunken Master, Dragon Lord, Project A) . I was watching SB movies since the late 70's and early 80's and they definitely inspired me. In fact they were almost like crack to me and my friends and had us out the backyard smashing each other over the heads with home made weapons, jumping off roofs, and kicking each other through walls and windows all through childhood. In 5th grade I split one of my friends scalp open with a steel rake and left him lying unconscious in a field then I tried to run away from home because I thought I murdered him but was caught by my dad jumping out of my window (carrying a bag of essentials that included home made nunchaku in case I had to stun some dinner) . Even if the stories were cr@p, I was hooked on the training sequences - even more so than the dodgey fights.

I only really like Big Boss and Fist of Fury out of the Bruce Lee movies when I was a kid because he struck me as an arrogant ***** and I never liked Carradine who seemed very awkward and weak. It wasn't until seeing the Beijing opera 'Monkey King Creates Havoc in Heaven' live in 1981 that I knew I had to study Chinese martial arts - being already obsessed with the late 70's Japanese TV series of Journey to the West (AKA 'Monkey') which aired the same year in Australia. At that time I was a judo kid and Japanese martial arts were the most dominant. So apart from Shaw Bros movies it was really the story of Monkey that hooked me and soon after I read the book, followed by the Water Margin and Romance of the 3 Kingdoms. So those factors, plus watching a skinny Laotian refugee at my primary school kick a kid in the face and knock him out cold.

BT

[bawang]

i was a kid and i saw an old shaolin monk poster from the 1980s punching sandbags and punching each others stomachs on my cousins room, and i got interested.

[SPJ]

my relatives were either in the military or police force

my cousins shuai jiao me all the time

I got to eat dirts all the time, the old house in the country side has dirt floor.

so I learned shuai jiao from my uncle, who was a police officer and knew you know who teacher well.

--

bruce lee interested me from green hornet, which was hollywood.

me and my cousins all watched green hornet together.

--

then hawaii 5-0

why? b/c police episodes.

--

we love judge bao

why? again justice and solving crimes

zhan zhao the imperial cat got good kung fu.

--

:)

[SPJ]

shao shi did have great influences on kung fu cinema culture.

check out DOA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAK7djLrj24

kung fu choreography was directed by yuan kui (yuan jia ban)

invited to a duel. just like one of the bruce lee movies

:)

[Lebaufist]

I only liked the Wu Jia period pieces. And only from Golden Harvest. The rest tended to be 70's bar fight scenes with bell bottoms and bad hair cuts. As a little kid watching, of coarse a movie genre like that will spark an interest in MA. It always does. Later you train and you are initiated in the truth of things and see how hokey it was. But none the less, later in my own school, I banked on movies flushing me with new kids.