When I was a kid in high school you used to hear whispers about a certain type of movie. Action movies. From Hong Kong. And they were unlike anything you could see in a pre-World Wide Web North America.
The granddaddy of all these was The Killer and as teenagers we scoured the video stores of Ottawa in search of it. I still remember seeing it and recognizing that this was a very different type of cinema than what was going on at the local Famous Players.
Fast forward 20 years: there are no more video stores, these movies still can't be found in iTunes but we're now in the wonderful world of YouTube.
And thus, here are links to a variety of classic HK movies that you absolutely need to watch.
Let's start with The Killer:
After that, it's on to my personal favourite, Hard Boiled, a classic of Gun Fu. The opening scene in the tea shop is just incredible:
There's also the movie that started the John Woo & Chow Yun Fat collaboration: A Better Tomorrow.
Now let's switch gears to some classic Jackie Chan. For Chan, Crime Story is a rare serious movie, based on the story of kidnapped executive Teddy Wang and with final scenes filmed in the emptied Kowloon Walled City:
Enjoy these movies; I guarantee you won't be wasting your time if you watch them.