Theme: Martial Arts

Martial Arts cinema was a genre that began in Hong Kong in the late 1960s, featuring people using forms of unarmed combat such as karate and kung fu. In recent years, kickboxing and MMA combat have been added to the mix.

The martial arts film gained a huge boost with the hit of Enter the Dragon (1973), which made a star out of Bruce Lee. Lee died at the height of his fame but there was a large body of imitators. The genre has produced other stars such as Jackie Chan and Jet Li.

Martial arts entered the American Action Film soon after and made stars out of names like Chuck Norris, Steven Seagal, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Don ‘The Dragon’ Wilson and others. The video action film of the 1990s readily mixed martial arts with killer cyborgs, time travel and post-apocalyptic action. The genre gained a whole new popularity after the massive hit of The Matrix (1999).