Top 14 Wuxia Films Of The Recent Past

1. Fist Of Legend

There is very little this film does not accomplish as a Hong Kong action film; it is by all accounts a masterpiece of cinema, a Wuxia spectacle, a folk-hero piece, a martial arts triumph, and a reboot of one of the greatest Bruce Lee movies ever made, Fist of Fury.

Most Hong Kong films prior to this focused heavily on the wildly superhuman mystical forms of martial arts to "wow and woo" audiences with wild acrobatics, and attempts at near superhuman feats, mostly done in what is colloquially known as "Wire-Fu", and most were (relatively) poorly executed. This film was pure fight choreography, in the style and concepts set forth by Bruce Lee's Tao of Jeet Kune Do. Most audiences may not realise the body of work Bruce created (in most of his films) were functional education pieces for his philosophies, and techniques in the martial arts.

While Jet Li has his own signature take on the classic Lee film, the truth of his homage is evident in virtually every movement, gesture, and attitude presented. Both films focus around another famous hero in fictional Chinese folk-lore, Chen Zhen, who was the greatest student of the Chin Woo (also pronounced Jingwu) School.

The character was created by Ni Kuang, and has seen a variety of film and television interpretations. While Chen Zhen is a hero in fictional folk-lore, the master he is avenging in the film is the legendary Huo Yianjia, who was indeed a real person and also has a modern film entry also by Li, Fearless, who defeats virtually every challenger he's ever faced before establishing his famous school that persists to this day.

I hope you enjoyed this look at some amazing Wuxia based films that are not quite old school, but are old enough to be in our recent past, and not necessarily modern. However, all of these pieces, in their own way, have shaped the modern Wuxia film industry. Until our next list, comment, share, Tweet, pin and so on.