Early in 1971, "Five Fingers of Death" premiered in a New York movie theater. This was America's first look at a Chinese martial arts movie. In Chicago that same year, "Duel of the Iron Fist" debuted. With the release of Bruce Lee's films, the market exploded. And thus began America's love affair with what is one of the most misunderstood and maligned film genres. The "Encyclopedia" covers the genre from 1920 to 1994. The genre, however, can be very confusing: films often have several titles, and many of the stars have more than one pseudonym. In an effort to clarify some of the confusion, the authors have included all the information available to them on almost 3,300 films. Each entry includes a listing of the production company, the cast and crew, distributors, running times, reviews with star ratings whenever possible, and alternate film titles. A list of film series and one of the stars' pseudonyms, in addition to a 7,900 name index, are also included. Illustrated.
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
Review
...a fascinating collection of film listings...a unique reference work that achieves the difficult and neglected task of providing an exhaustive filmography for a popular genre. (Arba )
...offers an incredible resource, listing virtually every major and minor karate movie made in the United States and overseas. ...contains interesting tidbits on many titles. (Intelligencer-Record ) --This text refers to the Paperback edition.
...offers an incredible resource, listing virtually every major and minor karate movie made in the United States and overseas. ...contains interesting tidbits on many titles. (Intelligencer-Record ) --This text refers to the Paperback edition.
About the Author
Bill and Karen Palmer have been film reviewers for the Madison Square Garden Network TV show, "Martial Arts World", since 1985. Ric Meyers, movie columnist for "Inside Kung Fu" magazine, created the fanzine, "Martial Arts Movie Associates" (MAMA).
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Exhaustive but flawed-,
By Bat-Might "leandog" (fancy gap, va United States) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Encyclopedia of Martial Arts Movies (Hardcover)
No other book has ever attempted to catalog the hundreds of martial arts movies on the market, or to seperate the good from the bad, like this one. You won't find every title here, but they come awfully close, and the authors obviously know and appreciate the subject. But a book this pricey should be nearly perfect, and this one isn't. My primary gripe is that the reviews often devote a coupleof paragraphs to the plot of each film, and even a die-hard chopsocky fan like me will admit that this is often redundant. On top of this, the portion of the review that describes the quality of the martial arts in the films is usually brief or simply missing. So a three-paragraph description of the standard "young man learns kung fu to avenge his teacher" plot finishes off with "the fighting here is only average, two stars." The format of the reviews is not consistent, and sometimes it consists of only, "Available on videotape." Not the most usefull piee of information. Not that this is a bad book, I have never regretted buying it and refer to it often. It just could have used some tightening up, rewriting, and refocusing. It's still the one book a martial arts film devotee really needs to have, though. Now that it's been a few years, and martial arts ovies are much more in vogue, how about a second, updated edition, with a little more editorial input?
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Top Notch Book!,
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This review is from: The Encyclopedia of Martial Arts Movies (Hardcover)
I'll get right to the point: You will find no other book that researches so many martial arts films as this one. Most books on the market are about a quarter the size and usually just touch on the more popular films that we are allready so familiar with. Here find obscure American B Karate films among the even stranger Bruce Lee rip offs starring Dragon Lee or Bronson Lee! It is written in a very text-like manner which is better in my opinion as the point here is to find out as much as one can about a given film and not so much to be impressed by the writer's descriptive flare. If you can still get a copy (and afford the well worth it price tag) by all means grab it up.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Ultimate Reference Guide,
By
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: The Encyclopedia of Martial Arts Movies (Paperback)
Definitely the ultimate reference work on the martial arts movie genre. It's not perfect but it's still a must have for genre buffs.
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