Martial arts film: History and Key Facts

Martial arts films are a subgenre of action films that feature martial arts combat between characters. These combats are usually the films' primary appeal and entertainment value, and often are 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 hand-to-hand combat along with other types of action, such as stuntwork, chases, and gunfights. Sub-genres of martial arts films include kung fu films, wuxia, karate films, and martial arts action comedy films, while related genres include gun fu, jidaigeki and samurai films.

Martial arts films contain many characters who are martial artists and these roles are often played by actors who are real martial artists. If not, actors frequently train in preparation for their roles or the action director may rely more on stylized action or film making tricks like camera angles, editing, doubles, undercranking, wire work and computer-generated imagery. Trampolines and springboards used to be used to increase the height of jumps. The minimalist style employs smaller sets and little space for improvised but explosive fight scenes, as seen by Jackie Chan's films. These techniques are sometimes used by real martial artists as well, depending on the style of action in the film. Some martial arts films have only a minimal plot and amount of character development and focus almost exclusively on the action, while others have more creative and complex plots and characters along with action scenes. Films of the latter type are generally considered to be artistically superior films, but many films of the former type are commercially successful and well received by fans of the genre.

Notable actors who have contributed to the genre include Lo Lieh (1939-2002), Sonny Chiba (1939-2021), Bruce Lee (1940-1973), Chuck Norris (1940-2026), Jimmy Wang Yu (1943-2022), Hwang Jang-lee (1944), Bolo Yeung (1946), Sho Kosugi (1948), Gordon Liu (1951), Sammo Hung (1952), Steven Seagal (1952), Jackie Chan (1954), Dolph Lundgren (1957), Yuen Biao (1957), Hiroyuki Sanada (1960), Jean-Claude Van Damme (1960), Robin Shou (1960), Wesley Snipes (1962), Donnie Yen (1963), Gary Daniels (1963), Jet Li (1963), Mark Dacascos (1964), Brandon Lee (1965-1993), Jason Scott Lee (1966), Michael Jai White (1967), Wu Jing (1974), Zhang Jin (1974), Tiger Chen (1975), Scott Adkins (1976), Tony Jaa (1976), Joe Taslim (1981) and Iko Uwais (1983), among others. Women have also played key roles in the genre, including such actresses as Angela Mao (1950), Cynthia Rothrock (1957), Michiko Nishiwaki (1957), Yukari Oshima (1963), Yanin Vismitananda (1984) and Celina Jade (1985).

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