If you watch a good many martial arts and/or kung fu movies, you’re probably well aware that many of them revolve around revenge in one form or another. It’s a clean and easy way to make a hero worth rooting for and a villain (or team of villains) effectively despicable. And since it often helps to keep the stories simple when action is the focus, revenge is something that can be reliably unearthed and explored time and again.
It never really gets old within this genre, and the following films will hopefully demonstrate that. By no means are these the very best martial arts movies, since revenge isn’t a huge part of monumental films like The Raid or Police Story, but if you do want kung fu/martial arts action combined with explorations of vengeance, and stories about people taking justice into their own hands, then you’re in the right place.
10
‘Lone Wolf and Cub: Sword of Vengeance’ (1972)
Directed by Kenji Misumi
The good news is that if you like Lone Wolf and Cub: Sword of Vengeance, you’ve got five more movies in the same series that’ll all scratch the same itch. Essentially, the Lone Wolf and Cub series focuses on a man who loses everything except his infant son, so he goes on an extended – and bloody – journey to take down those responsible for all he’s lost.
The Lone Wolf and Cub series is one of the best multi-movie revenge epics of its era, or maybe even of all time.
Lone Wolf and Cub: Sword of Vengeance and the other films are more easily definable as samurai movies, sure, but it’s a different kind of martial arts and the action is, in the end, still largely of a personal and hand-to-hand variety. It’s one of the best multi-movie revenge epics of its era, or maybe even of all time, and Sword of Vengeance is a naturally great starting point for the series overall.
9
‘The Return of the 5 Deadly Venoms’ (1978)
Directed by Chang Cheh
The Return of the 5 Deadly Venoms sometimes has the slightly less politically correct title of “Crippled Avengers,” but either way, the movie remains the same. It’s about a group of people who are all wronged by a supremely evil martial arts master or, more specifically, they’re all maimed and/or injured in different ways.
So, when they band together, they learn to overcome what they’ve lost and focus on what they have, all the while complementing each other well and becoming an effectively organized five-man vengeance-seeking team. The Return of the 5 Deadly Venoms is rather extreme and over-the-top, but it works, even with the very simple structure and degree of repetition that comes with telling the story at hand. You want the heroes to win, the bad guy to lose, and the former all have an underdog thing going for them that makes the conflict all the more exciting (and novel).
8
‘Vengeance!’ (1970)
Directed by Chang Cheh
Speaking of over-the-top kung fu movies from the 1970s that may or may not qualify as B-grade movies (but in a good way), here’s Vengeance!, which is about exactly what you’d expect it to be based on that title. It almost doesn’t get simpler, and Vengeance! is indeed very simple as far as revenge movies go… for a while, at least.
Vengeance! is hard to look away from, no matter how dark and bloody it gets, because it’s just so visceral and uncompromising.
The “hero” here does have an understandable motive, but then as he’s getting that vengeance, complete with the exclamation mark, of course, he starts to cross lines, and then there’s a hard-to-shake feeling, at a point, that he starts going too far. As a viewer, Vengeance! is hard to look away from, no matter how dark and bloody it gets, because it’s just so visceral and uncompromising, being easily among the most violent martial arts movies made up until that time.
7
‘The Avenging Eagle’ (1978)
Directed by Sun Chung
The Avenging Eagle is another down-and-dirty and very straightforward revenge-fueled kung fu movie from the 1970s worth mentioning. There are three principal characters, including the central antagonist, one of the antagonist’s underlings who wants to break away from his life of violence, and another young man who is out for revenge against the main villain for murdering his loved ones.
Basically, alliances shift and reform in a way that maximizes the potential number of action scenes that could happen, and this makes The Avenging Eagle a blast to watch for pretty much the entirety of its runtime. Each fight sequence is a little more gonzo than the last, and it does indeed save its best stuff for the end while not skimping when it comes to all the action scenes that happen before the end. It tends to get overshadowed a bit by other kung fu movies of its era, but it really shouldn’t. It’s too good to overlook.
6
‘Enter the Dragon’ (1973)
Directed by Robert Clouse
While it’s hard to point to one martial arts movie as being the one that made the genre popular worldwide, one of the ones worth singling out, without a doubt, is Enter the Dragon. This is influential and endlessly entertaining stuff, with three prominent characters all ending up on a strange island for a mysterious martial arts tournament, each having their own reasons to be there.
As it turns out, Bruce Lee’s character is partly motivated by revenge, but he’s also a spy. And then because there’s a martial arts tournament going on, Enter the Dragon is also kind of a sports movie. And then it goes wild at the end, barreling headfirst into full-on chaos and over-the-top action. It manages to feel both untamed and controlled at different points, and it all works surprisingly well. It’s not just about revenge, sure, but that’s one of the many things it does manage to successfully explore.
5
‘Lady Snowblood’ (1973)
Directed by Toshiya Fujita
If you know about Lady Snowblood nowadays, it’s probably because it was a big influence on another soon-to-be-mentioned martial arts movie that came out 30 years later. But what’s important to stress is that it’s still a great movie that stands on its own, and combines samurai action with a straightforward tale of bloody revenge in a way that feels pretty close to perfect.
There’s an energy to Lady Snowblood that’s hard to put into words. It’s kind of somber, even if there is a good deal of action and blood spraying everywhere, and it would make for a good double feature with the aforementioned Vengeance!, as far as dark/gritty/downbeat revenge movies go. If you want something that feels somehow both old school and, in other ways, somewhat timeless, then Lady Snowblood’s a must-watch.
Lady Snowblood
- Release Date
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March 22, 1974
- Runtime
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97 Minutes
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Toshio Kurosawa
Ryūrei Ashio
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Masaaki Daimon
Gō Kashima
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Miyoko Akaza
Sayo Kashima
4
‘Kill Bill: Vol. 1’ (2003)
Directed by Quentin Tarantino
Yep, that movie that took heavy influence from Lady Snowblood was Kill Bill, especially the first half of the overall revenge epic, 2003’s Kill Bill: Vol. 1. You still get some solid dialogue here, and the characters are memorable (even if they’re all pretty straightforward at this point in the story), but Kill Bill: Vol. 1 is most focused on delivering great action, above anything else.
On that front, it delivers fully, because this one feels non-stop, extremely bloody, and frequently over-the-top, all done in a way that playfully homages – or arguably copies – kung fu and samurai movies of old. If you want English-language martial arts movies, they don’t get much better than Kill Bill: Vol. 1, and that’s perhaps largely because it was influenced by so many martial arts movies from prior decades made in places like Hong Kong and Japan.
3
‘Kill Bill: Vol. 2’ (2004)
Directed by Quentin Tarantino
While Kill Bill: Vol. 2 might not have nearly as much action as the first half of the story did, this one still functions as a martial arts movie of sorts. Instead of featuring lots of elaborate fight sequences, the kung fu stuff here is mostly relegated to a long flashback showing the Bride’s training, and it’s done in a way that feels so reminiscent of training montages and general storylines found in martial arts movies of old.
Also, while Vol. 1 has the central character starting her quest for vengeance, Kill Bill: Vol. 2 is the one where she achieves what she’s been fighting for, so it’s hard not to include both volumes here, when the topic is specifically “revenge movies.” Vol. 2 is a little slower and more dialogue-heavy, but just as successful at paying homage to martial arts movies of old while bringing a roaring rampage of revenge to a close just as satisfyingly as that rampage was commenced in Vol. 1.
2
‘The 36th Chamber of Shaolin’ (1978)
Directed by Lau Kar-Leung
Gordon Liu played two roles in Kill Bill, and before then, was one of the greatest martial arts actors of his generation. He starred in both The 36th Chamber of Shaolin and the movie that’s #1 in this ranking, and it was his role in The 36th Chamber of Shaolin that he got to homage, sort of, in Kill Bill: Vol. 2. In that film, he was the mentor, while in The 36th Chamber of Shaolin, he’s the troubled yet ultimately gifted student.
The story here is simple, as revenge-focused martial arts movies usually are, with Liu playing a young man who wants revenge, and so he undertakes the grueling process of becoming a martial arts master. The 36th Chamber of Shaolin spends way more time on the training than the actual fighting, but it makes it work. The only other movies out there that make training so enjoyable to watch can be found in the Rocky series, and the structure allows for some undeniable catharsis once he is sufficiently skilled enough to enact vengeance on those who’ve had it coming.
1
‘The 8 Diagram Pole Fighter’ (1984)
Directed by Lau Kar-Leung
And then after The 36th Chamber of Shaolin, Gordon Liu was also in The 8 Diagram Pole Fighter, which feels a bit more savage, in-your-face, and explosive as far as revenge movies go. It has a similar structure to The 36th Chamber of Shaolin, albeit the training isn’t undertaken quite as successfully, emotions generally run a bit higher, and then the climax is a great deal bloodier.
There’s a level of carnage here that needs to be seen to be believed, but even before that ending, The 8 Diagram Pole Fighter is still very generous when it comes to both the quantity and quality of action it offers. Kung fu movies from the 1980s don’t get much better than this one, and it’s a perfect starting point for anyone who’s seen some more recent martial arts movies and wants to better get a handle on the great older ones out there; those waiting to be dug up and rediscovered.
The 8 Diagram Pole Fighter
- Release Date
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February 17, 1984
- Runtime
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98 minutes
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Gordon Liu Chia-hui
Yang 5th Brother
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Alexander Fu Sheng
Yang 6th Brother