5 Underrated Modern Martial Arts Movies

gamerant.com:

The heyday of the martial arts film was the 1970s, but though the Bruce Lee phenomenon came and went, there have always been new icons in the medium. This action subgenre rises and falls in popularity, retaking the public eye every few years with the newest big name.

While countless modern action films borrow elements from classic martial arts movies, the subgenre is marked by minimized special effects and maximized hand-to-hand combat mastery. Often, the films serve as showcases and cultural platforms for the specific fighting systems that make up the action scenes. The world of martial arts cinema remains fascinating and unique, and interesting new films are coming out every year.

Great Martial Arts Movies For the Uninitiated

Directed by Timo Tjahjanto and Kimo Stamboel, this Indonesian action film stars one of the biggest names in modern martial arts cinema, Iko Uwais. The star of The Raid appears here as an amnesiac who adopts the name Ishmael. Ishmael awakens after a near-fatal head injury and must do battle with an army of organized crime enforcers to protect the doctor who saved his life.

The film takes a fighting game approach to its characters, outfitting almost every major player with their own distinct martial art, including Uwais' iconic silat or wushu. The narrative is extremely bare-bones, a very basic rescue quest to save an innocent woman's life. But the hardcore action is the draw, and it's incredible.

Keanu Reeves's first and thus far only film in the director's chair is a powerful journey of a martial artist using his typically peaceful techniques to compete in underground combat. The film stars Tiger Chen, who began his career as a fight choreographer on The Matrix, where he and Reeves became close