The New Year’s Eve Poll: the best martial art movie of 2020 is going to be discovered by you, by the readers of Jutsu No Movies. I want to close the 2020 with a poll, in order to know your taste of matial art movies.
The Poll
The 2021 is going to be more social on Jutsu No Movies and I will work to give you the possibility to express yourselves. That’s why I choose to do a poll as last post of the 2020, creating the first “post event” on Jutsu No Movies, The New Year’s Eve Poll.
The rule are simple: I review, you choose.
For this very first New Year’s Eve Poll. I will introduce you what I think are the best 5 martial art movie of the year. Your part is reading the short presentation, watch the youtube clip and vote! For the first post of 2021 I will comment the results and deepen the winner!
The Nominees
The 2020 in my opinion was not a enthusiastic year for the movie industries in general due the pandemic. Obviously also the martial art movies were affected by the Covid-19, maybe not so much for their distribution, because most of the martial art movies are thought for the small screen, but surely the shooting parts were really slow down or even postponed. Despite everything, the martial art world still has something to share, here we go with the 5 nominees:
- Enter the Fat Dragon, the remake of the Sammo Hung’s 1978 film is in reality a stand-alone movie originated by a funny TV commercial that Donnie Yen played in 2015. Donnie Yen manages to create a brand new alter-ego with his fat Zhu Fu Long, and the character seems to be appreciated by the fan and the critic. Seeing Donnie Yen renovates himself in a martial art comedy, it is kind of strange and enjoyable at the same time, demonstrating once again the versatility of the actor. Despite the genre, Enter the Fat Dragon follows the Jackie Chan formula: very good fights and a lot of fun. Donnie Yen’s hybrid style instead is unmistakable, even with 20 kg more! A treat for the old SPL: Sha Po Lang fans? Philip Ng makes is appearance in the movie as Jack in a cameo.
- The Kung Fu Master is the response of the Malayalam movie industry (Mollywood) to the rest of the Indian martial art movies of the last decade. The reviews of the movie are generally negative, even if the potential of the movie is really high, considering the actor’s martial art background. The actress Neeta Pillai, who plays the protagonist, did a really good job, she trained for a whole year before play the role! The cast is pretty unknown also for the Indian latitude, but its performance is really impressive, the fights and the stunts are really made by martial artist. It is a pity that the movie doesn’t reach the necessary rate to be compared with milestones like Ong Bak and Merantau. They are moving in the right direction, maybe they just have to focus on Kalaripayattu?
- The Debt Collector 2 is following the same pace of its predecessor, simplifying the action and making it even more hilarious. We have seen it two years ago with its predecessor The Debt Collector, Scott Adkins and Louis Mandylor are a perfect team. Probably Adkins found in Manylour the perfect mate to work with in action movies but with a little more comedy, or maybe is the whole other way around, with Manylour found in Adkins the great partner to play with in comedies with a lot of action. However you look at it, you cannot miss to see this funny duo in action one more time.
- Vanguard is the last Chinese action/adventure film with Jackie Chan. In the last 20 years, Jackie has accustomed us to show much more his acting performances than his martial artist ones by now. In this movie, however, there are a few scenes in which Jackie show us a few old tricks, and with the help of young actors Yang Yang and Miya Muqi, the movie manages to enter in the poll.
- Jiu Jitsu, what was to be one of the best martial art movies of the year, has received very bad reviews from the critic, and to be honest also the audience was not enthusiastic. Despite the reviews, the movie has a cast full of stars, starting with the protagonist Alain Moussi, and continuing with Juju Chan, Marrese Crump, Frank Grillo and Tony Jaa himself. The fight scenes are worthy of the previously mentioned names and the story is pretty original. Watching every star take turns to beat the Alien with their own fighting styles is really something, and make you wish the fights were longer. I am really sorry to say that, but the true problem in here is the director… Once again Dimitri Logothetis was capable to assemble part of the most talented movie martial artist of the planet (like he did in Kickboxer: Vengeance) and not giving them the opportunity to shine as they deserve. By the way, the movie really deserves to be watched, even I don’t understand why Nicolas Cage is in it.
Please Vote here below on the New Year’s Eve Poll: the best martial art movie of 2020
Final Thanks
Here we are, the 2020 is over and a new year is ready to come. What a year! My life was hit by the Covid-19, the lockdowns and the sorrow, but every cloud has a silver lining… Jutsu No Movies was born and I have managed to fulfill my dream to have a martial art blog, sharing with you my work and my view of the martial art world of the cinematic and animation industry. It is not easy, I continue to struggle with the English, I obsessively looking for something original to deliver to you, but when I surf in the website, I understand that all this effort and time are worth it.
Thank you my dear readers, Happy New Year