The Top 10 most influential Martial Arts movies ever made – from WatchMojo.com

What’s your vote? Did your favorite martial arts movie make it on the top 10 list? Which movies aren’t on the list that should be? Let us know in the comments section.

Twenty-first century kung fu film fans are more aware and appreciative of good movies than their ancestors ever were.

Top 10 martial arts movies

A sub-genre of the action film, martial arts films contain numerous martial arts fights between characters, usually as the films’ primary appeal and entertainment value, and often as a method of storytelling and character expression and development. Martial arts are frequently featured in training scenes and other sequences in addition to fights. Martial arts films commonly include other types of action, such as stuntwork, chases, and/or gunfights.

There are three main reason for this: the mainstream success of Chinese-language martial arts films such as Ang Lee’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Zhang Yimou’s Hero and House of Flying Daggers in the West; the use of stylized Hong Kong action in Hollywood blockbusters; and the international success of Jackie Chan, Jet Li, Michelle Yeoh and their cohorts.

Here are the top 10!

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Fighting, whether sanctioned or no-holds-barred, is without a doubt the oldest form of competition that mankind has ever engaged in. At times, it has been a necessary tool of survival—kill or be killed—and that proved an extremely effective motivation and crucible for enhancing mankind’s fighting prowess.

#10 – Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
#9 – The Matrix
#8 – The Karate Kid
#7 – Seven Samurai
#6 – Ong-bak
#5 – Fist of legend
#4 – The Way of the Dragon aka Return of the Dragon
#3 – Kill Bill
#2 – The legend of Drunken Master
#1 – Enter the Dragon