There seems to have been some discussion on the internet about the lack of martial arts stars in recent years or asking the question, who will be the next big martial arts star. By martial arts star I mean someone who trained in martial arts when they were young and won competitions or showed exceptional skill in martial arts before making movies. Or at least a relative newcomer specifically scouted and trained to make multiple martial arts movies.
Donnie Yen is probably considered to be the last martial arts star but he’ll be 60 years old soon. He never quite reached the heights of Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan, Jet Li or debatably even Tony Jaa in terms of peak popularity. Despite being able to speak English fluently, he has never been the main lead in a USA made movie. But he definitely paid his dues and eventually became a lead martial arts star in Hong Kong movies. I believe his lead role in SPL / Killzone (2005) was his breakout role. I think that movie still has some of the best fights in his whole career. Then he really gained a giant leap in popularity with Ip Man (2008) and its sequels.
I think the reason why Donnie is just a notch below the greats before him is because, while he is very skilled, he never really had a distinctive fighting style or at least a set of really distinctive moves. He could be versatile as he learned to perform Wing Chun for the Ip Man movies and as a fan of MMA he often incorporated grappling into his more grounded/realistic martials arts movies like Flash Point (2007) where he had a brutal looking final fight against Collin Chou. He did very well as a supporting martial artist and was easily able to portray a threatening adversary, which he did against Jackie in Shanghai Knights (2003) and Jet in Once Upon a Time in China 2 (1992) and Hero (2002). It’s shame he never got a big push in USA movies because he had a comparable level of martial arts skill. Apparently an Ip Man 5 movie was recently announced but I am a bit skeptical of it as I thought the previous Ip Man movie was disappointing.
I only really got heavily into martial arts movies after Jet Li appeared in Lethal Weapon 4 (1998). From then on I would watch his USA movies like Romeo Must Die (2000) and Kiss of the Dragon (2001) and whatever old HK movies I could get access to. The first HK ones I saw being Hitman / Contract Killer (1998) and Kung Fu Cult Master (1993) at a film festival. I was aware of Jackie Chan at the time but Jet Li became my favorite martial arts star and the one I actively chose to follow.
But even though I am biased I do legitimately think Jet was the best in terms of martial arts skill and ability. He was a Wushu prodigy at a young age and won multiple competitions so he obviously was a tier above his peers in martial arts. I think he was also also very good with weapons, especially in HuoYuanJia / Fearless (2006). I was mesmerized by the three section staff as I had never seen that weapon before.
Over his entire career Jet has had a mix of both serious roles and funny, goofy roles. Although some his USA movies weren’t that great or popular Jet portrayed different types of characters in some of them. He portrayed a villain for the first time in his USA debut (perhaps a dubious achievement but he was extremely impactful in his limited screen time nonetheless) then later on a mentally stunted man who acts like an attack dog, and both the good and bad versions of a character in a multiverse sci-fi movie before Marvel went multiverse crazy in their movies. Ocean Heaven was a movie that Jet starred in later in his career, which was purely a dramatic role with zero martial arts. I wouldn’t say Jet was some great dramatic actor but he was better and more versatile than Jackie and Donnie.
I think this is what made Jet Li appealing to me. He definitely had screen presence but also diversity in fighting and acting. Despite being small he seemed to have both incredible speed and strength. If I were to mention one downside it would be that his character was usually portrayed as unquestionably the best at fighting and he mostly dominated his fights. As the hero/protagonist, the only time I know of when he actually lost a fight was in Hitman / Contract Killer. I’d argue some of the other martial artists like Jackie had fights that went back and forth a lot more often, which could make a fight more interesting to watch overall with more tension. If we want to expand the scope further, while I’m sure Jet had some input into the fight choreography he was not a fight/action choreographer or director like both Jackie and Donnie. They both have that advantage over Jet.
I’d argue Jackie Chan isn’t really a pure martial artist but more of a general stunt performer and choreographer who could do martial arts at a very high level. His main training was in Beijing Opera but that training was multi-disciplinary, including martial arts and acrobatics. The theatrical aspect clearly influenced Jackie’s style. He essentially invented a unique combination of comedy, martial arts, and wild-ass stunts that I think will never be matched. The first three Police Story (1985, 1988, 1992) movies have some of the best stunts of all time. Drunken Master 2 (1994) has that crazy final fight against Ken Lo where Jackie gets kicked onto hot coals. The Criterion blurays of the first two Police Story movies are great. And Warner Archive apparently released a proper version of Drunken Master II that is the original cut and not the USA cut. Jackie was definitely the most fearless star as evidenced by his films and I do hope to explore his other lesser known movies one day.
Another aspect of Jackie’s movies was who he often collaborated with. Jackie had a great supporting cast as he often teamed up with Sammo Hung and Yuen Biao. Both were also very talented and they could all push each other to greater heights. Dragons Forever (1988) being one of their most popular collaborations from what I could tell. Ignoring nitpicky semantics and in terms of how much involvement he had in all aspects of his movies, I can definitely understand that for many Jackie Chan is the greatest martial arts star.
I also enjoyed reading his first autobiographical book, I am Jackie Chan (1998), and the list of injuries documented in it was truly painful. I only recently found out he wrote another one, Never Grow Up (2018), which I haven’t read. But I admit in recent times when more details of his personal life and beliefs have come to light, it has soured me a bit on him overall.
In a way, I feel Tony Jaa had some traits of both Jet and Jackie but also brought his own signature style. It helped a lot that Muay Thai was not really well known at the time and is very different from Chinese martial arts. He could do acrobatic stunts like Jackie and perhaps was even better than him physically in some maneuvers. Or a better comparable would be Yuen Biao who was really good at acrobatics, better than Jackie according to some. Along with amazing acrobatic skill, Jaa was also hard hitting and fast like Jet. His breakout movies, Ong Bak (2003) and The Protector / Tom Yum Goong (2005) were revelations to me. I remember being absolutely stunned when Jaa did that flaming spinning kick. It was so bad-ass. The fight vs the capoeira fighter was super cool and the first time I’d seen it in a movie. Previously, I had only seen capoeira in Tekken 3 that I bought for the first Playstation console. It’s too bad his personal issues or whatever interrupted his career as he had a huge amount of momentum early on. But by the time he got back into martial arts movies it was too late for him to recover that momentum. At 47 years of age as of this writing, he’s getting old.
I haven’t mentioned Sonny Chiba, a very popular Japanese martial artist whose made a lot of movies. The reason being I have never seen any of his movies because I wasn’t able to access them when I was younger or even as I got older. I will have to remedy this one day. Besides Sonny I’ve never really heard much fanfare about Japanese martial arts movies or stars. The only other notable Japanese martial arts actor I can think of is Yasuaki Kurata. He has appeared in both Chinese and Japanese martial arts movies and fought Jet Li in Fist of Legend (1994).
I’m not aware of any popular Korean martial artists who were leads in movies. The only Korean martial artist of note I’m aware of is Hwang Jang-Iee (or Hwang Jang-Lee) who fought Jackie in Drunken Master (1978).
I thought guys like Wu Jing and Max Zhang had potential to be big martial arts stars. Wu’s fight against Donnie in SPL / Killzone (2005) is one of my favorite fights ever. Then in the sequel in name only, SPL 2 / Killzone 2 (2015), Wu and Jaa teamup to fight Zhang in a superb final fight that is arguably somehow better than the already amazing fights in the first movie. However, like Jaa they were born in the 70s and are actually a bit older than him.
Iko Uwais certainly made an impression with The Raid (2011) and its sequel. The first movie was probably the first time I ever thought a final fight went on too long. I generally prefer the sequel as it’s a better overall movie with more of a story, more characters, and more locations with better paced action. Iko is still relatively “young” at 40 years of age and born in the 80s. But after The Raid 2 (2014) it doesn’t seem like he has appeared in anything remotely as big since then.
As for female martial arts stars, I recently came across Angela Mao. She trained in martial arts from a young age but also did ballet and Beijing opera. She was in Enter the Dragon with Bruce Lee although I hadn’t realized it at the time when I watched that movie. I’ve yet to watch any films where Angela is the lead but am definitely curious to do so in the future as she was once promoted as the female Bruce Lee.
Before her there was Cheng Peipei in King Hu’s Come Drink With Me (1966). Although she strictly wasn’t a martial artist having trained in ballet and dance but clearly that helped in transitioning into martial arts roles. King Hu apparently wanted her in particular over another actress who had Beijing Opera training because he thought someone with a dance background would be better suited for more realistic action. Her early roles were purely dramatic from what I could see before going on a martial arts streak.
Perhaps the most well known currently is Michelle Yeoh, who is another example of someone who did dance before becoming a martial arts/action star. She initially did a few dramatic roles but then after a hiatus she returned in a big way with her first action role in Police Story 3: Supercop (1992) with Jackie Chan. I believe this is what catapulted her to greater popularity. She’s the only woman to be almost as fearless as Jackie with performing her own stunts with the motorbike jump onto a moving train being super gutsy. Nowadays she has mostly gone back to mainly dramatic roles and showcasing her acting. She deserves all the recent attention she’s been getting.
Other lesser known but prominent martial arts actresses I recently learned about include Cynthia Rothrock, Michiko Nishiwaki, Cynthia Khan, Moon Lee, and Yukari Oshima. They aren’t the only ones but these are the ones who seemed to be in more movies. I was surprised there were a decent number of significant female martial artists or actresses who did martial arts movies in the past. A lot of times they were villains or supporting characters but they all brought something different too. Nishiwaki was not only a martial artist but also a bodybuilder and Rothrock won martial arts competitions before she was scouted for movies. Khan seemed to follow in the footsteps of other Taiwanese actresses turned martial arts actresses coming from a dance background. I’ve seen Cynthia Khan in In the Line of Duty 3 & 4 (1988, 1989) where she was the lead (4 also has Donnie Yen in it in one of his earlier roles). She did some impressive stunts in those movies.
However, a common outcome for most of these actresses was that when they got married they usually retired from acting to raise a family, somewhat understandable since that was a general trend with female actresses during that era regardless of genre. Despite the recent movement to encourage the USA film industry to create more significant and lead roles for women, it seems like HK & Taiwan were already doing this back in their golden years. They didn’t need an internet hashtag to get it going.
The last female martial artist to get some sort of push was Jeeja Yanin, which started with Chocolate (2008), a movie that doesn’t appear to be about confectionery. That push didn’t last very long. What little I’ve seen, she seemed quite talented. The last movie she’s credited as being in was Triple Threat, which also had Iko Uwais and Tony Jaa.
Sadly I do think there will never be a martial arts star again. I don’t know the reason for sure. It could be just changing tastes or the emergence of CGI allowing for other genres like superhero movies to actually look good on screen and showcase something new in a high quality way. What I don’t think is a reason is the popularity of mixed martial arts like UFC, Bellator or ONE. The fighting in MMA is very different from the fighting in movies. Sometimes MMA fights can be downright boring. Sure there are some people who only want to watch “real fighting” but these people were never the audience for martial arts movies anyway. l think the biggest reason that there is no martial arts superstar on the horizon is that there’s just nothing really new to showcase. I think most martial arts have already appeared on film. It would be nice to be proven wrong. Ultimately, I believe for a pure martial arts movie to be successful today it does have to showcase some relatively unknown martial arts or some really creative ways of using techniques that haven’t been seen before. It has to innovate in some way.
If I am allowed to dream I think one last great martial arts movie could be made with the following: Iko Uwais, Wang Baoqiang, Jeeja Yanin, and Rina Takeda. And you know what, if they’re willing, toss in a Japanese wrestler like Asuka, Shinsuke Nakamura, Io Sky or Kazuchika Okada into the mix. And get martial artists from other parts of the world to do different styles. I’d definitely like to see capoeira again in a movie.
There are a couple names in the previous paragraph that I haven’t mentioned before.
Rina Takeda was born in the early 90s and is a Japanese actress and martial artist with a black belt in karate. I haven’t seen any of her karate movies but I’ve seen her in Dead Sushi and that was great fun and nonsense. There are also video clips of her smashing bricks with her head and breaking a baseball bat with her kick.
Wang Baoqiang might seem like an odd choice as I think he is seen mostly as a comedic actor but he has trained in Shaolin martial arts and fought against Donnie twice at least.
A few others could also be involved although I only mention them in passing here because I’m not too familiar with them. Ludi Lin, Andrew Koji, Lewis Tan, Max Huang, Joe Taslim, and Jon Foo all have martial arts backgrounds with four of them being in the recent Mortal Kombat movie reboot and presumably in the upcoming sequel. Taslim was also in the Raid. Koji currently stars in TV series Warrior which after years of absence came back with season 3.
As an aside of sorts, I guess I should mention some martial arts / action movies that are very good but which I have deliberately not mentioned so far because they star mainly dramatic actors who were trained to do martial arts. Keanu Reeves in the original Matrix and more recently the John Wick movies is a noteworthy example. They had action choreography by none other than Yuen WooPing. But I think the only martial arts actor in those movies was Collin Chou in The Matrix Reloaded. The Wick series did bring in various martial artists into later movies including villains from The Raid movies then Donnie Yen and Scott Adkins in the fourth entry. Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon was also a culture phenomenon with again Yuen WooPing doing the action choreography. Out of the main cast only Michelle Yeoh was the closest to a martial arts star at that time. Chow Yun Fat was known more for guns (and he doesn’t fight much in that movie). Zhang YiZi was very convincing with her fighting and would do more martial arts roles afterwards as she got a bit typecast but she wasn’t a martial artist. The Man from Nowhere and The Villainess are two really good and intense martial arts action movies from South Korea but again they were one offs for the respective main leads. Marvel’s Shang Chi had some good martial arts fights scenes with Simu Liu. The fight in the bus was quite creative and showed how advanced tech and effects could be combined with old school martial arts to create a great fight sequence.
Film Beats (from the East) 