What is the name for his type of movie?

[Teflon Billy]

Hey all. I can't remember what the term is for movies such as Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon where poewrful characters fly around and such...

1970's Chop Socky flicks

 

[Nuclear Platypus]

If you can find 'em, look for ones with Wong Fei Hong. Jet Li made 3 or 4 movies as the character and Jackie Chan also played the part (Drunken Master 2 aka Legend of the Drunken Master). Jet Li was in the first 3 Once Upon a Time in China movies and Deadly China Hero aka Last Hero in China, which has centipede fu vs chicken fu.

 

[Desdichado]

For John Q.: The [x] in MSM (which I can't remember what that stands for, but essentially it means the Romanization of Chinese words and names so they can be represented in Western documents) is pronounced like [sh]. So wuxia is pronounced [wooshya], Xinjiang is pronounced [shin jyang] etc.

As a trivial aside, at one point in Spanish the [x] was also pronounced that way, although most words that formerly had it now have the [j]. So Mexico was pronounced [Mesheeko] some few hundred years ago. Oaxaca approaches [washaka], etc.

 

[FireLance]

A couple of minor pedantic points from someone whose mother tongue is Chinese.

Pronounciation: In Mandarin, "x" is more closely pronounced as rather than [sh]. "Wuxia" is thus closer to "woo-sya". Granted, it may sound different in another dialect that I'm not familiar with (e.g. Cantonese).

Meaning: "Fighting knights" is close, but "wu" is closer in meaning to "martial", as in "wugong" (martial art) or "wuqi" (weapon). "Xia" is difficult to translate - the best I can come up with is "heroic warrior". Perhaps not too different from "knight", but I personally feel that "knight" carries with it connotations of service to a feudal lord which is quite at odds with the wandering lifestyle of many wuxia characters.

 

[pensiv]

I chose "Fighting Knights" because it sounded better than "martial chivalrous/heroic warrior"

though probably "heroic warrior" is good enough on it's own.

Thank you FireLance.

 

[Olive]

Unless he specifically means CTHD, in which case he means, "Big Budget Overblown Cynical COPY of Wuxia".

Go on, have a rant. Get it off your chest.

 

[Dirigible]

"Big Budget Overblown Cynical COPY of Wuxia"

Or, alternativly, 'Wuxia done right'.

 

[Olive]

Or, alternativly, 'Wuxia done right'.

Cos, I thought CTHD was pretty damn good as well, and at least more professional than some fot eh other stuff I've seen (what's that movie where the subtitles talk about experience points?), but I'm always open to hearing a new point of view (well, except on CoCd20, but that's not wht this is about)...

 

[barsoomcore]

Swordsman II, Dragon Inn, The Bride With White Hair...

...and...

...Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.

It just doesn't stack up very well. Better film stock, at least.

 

[WizarDru]

Swordsman II, Dragon Inn, The Bride With White Hair...

...and...

...Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.

It just doesn't stack up very well. Better film stock, at least.

I'll give you Swordsman and Bride...but Dragon Inn is a mess of a movie, and terribly dull, besides IMHO. Give me New Legend of Shaolin or Iron Monkey any day of the week.

Or better yet, Return of the Master Killer or the Flying Guillotine. Now we're talking.