, also colloquially known as karate or kung fu films, are a subgenre of action films that feature numerous martial arts combat between characters. These combats are usually the films' primary appeal and entertainment value, and often are a method of storytelling and character expression and development. Martial arts are frequently featured in training scenes and other sequences in addition to fights. Martial arts films commonly include other types of action, such as hand-to-hand combat, stuntwork, chases, and gunfights.
The J-Film Pow-Wow has been going for nearly four years now and during that time we've reported on the annual Top Ten lists put out by various online and print sources and Chris, Bob, Marc, Matt and Eric have spent our fair share of time scouring and critiquing other people's Top 100 lists of Japanese films. It got to the point where we thought we'd put ourselves out there with our own list, something beyond our monthly Top Ten lists. With that in mind we pooled our collective movie-going experiences and have come up with the J-Film Pow-Wow's own Top 100 Japanese Films list.
Now, before you read on you should keep something in mind. This list was tabulated by all five of the Pow-Wow crew making lists of their own favorite Japanese films - not films we felt were historically important and not films that parroted other lists that have created the present canon of Japanese cinema. Our main concern was to come up with films that we held a real heartfelt love for. Once we drew up our lists we ranked them, assigned a points system and cross referenced all five to come up with this Top 100 list. There are some obvious picks ranking in obvious positions, there are some critically-favoured films in the Japanese film canon that didn't fare as well, and there are a lot of surprises. Those are the films on the list we're all most excited about.
Source: http://jfilmpowwow.blogspot.ch/2011/01/toronto-j-film-pow-wow-top-100-favorite.html
The Maestro. The Megalodon. The Murder Hornet. The Mama. The Toe-Mashing Mackerel Musketeer. The Madly Mopey Dopey Shieldmaiden Unladen. The Mop Up Job. The Mist-Mash Mystical Ninja Man Mono-No-Oshara Big Daddy Mac.
The Majordomo Loanin', Missy Bonin', Muppet In Towin', Incalculably Mysterious Metal-Show-Goin' Maniac. The Malpracticing Mullover Walk-a-Mile-in-my-Shoes Medic. The Musical Mallsoft Mistress With The Microlock.
The Mess Mixing, Multiverse Misleading, Meticulous Military-Grade 'Oh-Shi*-is-this-Malware' Mega Malware Megadrop. The Mess Hall Molly. The MP4-Minded Manmade Machine. The Unmalleable Not-So-Mellowed Out Mean-Mugger-Lubber. The Monitored Mar-Cin. The Multi-Core Magnet Link Mainframe Moose. The Midget Widget & Lemony Snicket's Muddled, Mindless, Motley, Miscellaneous Movies You'll Read But Never See Main Monster of a List.
The next mission in your mabblin' multinational macabre melodramatic mnemonic run-on I've assembled. More more more, of that sweet sweet mimetic musk. I bet my melted nougat you wouldn't read this much. And uh-oh brother, this, my, maldin-mana-jama is none other than The Third. But don't mask my mic, this molten molded malefic myriad is what's mogging you and malady's map to our macros. Care not to mention our Mister Meat & and Misses Muff Milk's minx magazines, and that's what most mentally middle-ground morally martial manipulating maggotbators most definitely, certainly, maptasticlapatagazzardly, want...
Not depicted by you.
Martial Arts Films
by Theko Kali