#5 Great Martial Arts Movies To Stream After Shang-Chi And The Legend Of The Ten Rings

The most fantastical and outrageous movie on this list (by a long shot), “Kung Fu Hustle” is the type of movie where a guy shoots swords out of a harp, another guy steps on people’s toes so hard that he flattens them like he’s Bugs Bunny, and yet another turns into a bizarre frog-man — and that’s not even the half of it. It’s also a film that helped inspire “Shang-Chi,” because as producer Jonathan Schwartz told me earlier this week:

“I think my favorite creative decision is probably the change from Wenwu’s finger rings to the kung fu, hung gar-inflected iron rings around his wrists. It came from a day when we were in the writers’ room – me and Destin [Daniel Cretton] and Dave Callaham – and we kind of hit a wall when it came to the writing and needed a refresher, and we put on a kung fu movie called “The 36th Chamber of Shaolin,” which starts with a big kung fu training montage that includes the iron rings. Destin pointed at the iron rings and said, “We should just do that!” and he was totally right. It’s the coolest thing. It took me all the way back to watching “Kung Fu Hustle,” where those rings are very prominent and very cool.”

(I know this list is only supposed to include five movies, but do yourselves a favor and add “The 36th Chamber of Shaolin” to this list as another bonus recommendation.)

These selections provide a good sample of several different styles of martial arts films. If you find that you’re drawn to one particular style over another, each of these movies can serve as a branch that can lead you toward more of that style. This is a varied genre with tons of major players and a rich and vibrant history, and I hope “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings” helps shine a light on this amazing collection of jaw-dropping cinema.