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139-625: The Dead Lands is a 2014 New Zealand action film directed by Toa Fraser . It was number 1 at the New Zealand box office when it was released. It was screened in the Special Presentations section at the 2014 Toronto International Film Festival where it had its world premier on 4 September 2014. It was selected as the New Zealand entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 87th Academy Awards , but

278-510: A Global release status of Chinese-language martial arts films, most notably Zhang Yimou 's Hero (2002) and House of Flying Daggers (2004), Stephen Chow 's Kung Fu Hustle (2004) and Chen Kaige 's The Promise (2005). Most Hong Kong action films in the first quarter of the 21st century, such as those in Cold War (2012), Cold War 2 (2016) and The White Storm film series have their violence toned down, especially compared to

417-483: A connection to the "art films" of Europe, the studios hired a host of young filmmakers and allowed them to make their films with relatively little studio control. Some of whom, like actor Jack Nicholson and director Peter Bogdanovich , were mentored by "King of the Bs" Roger Corman while others like celebrated cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond worked for lesser-known B movie directors like Ray Dennis Steckler , known for

556-436: A fight sequence. In the 1980s, American martial arts films reflected the national move towards conservatism, reflected in films of Chuck Norris and other actors such as Sho Kosugi . The genre would shift from theatrical releases towards the end of the decade with the rise of home video, the lower box-office of American martial arts productions, and a significant portion of direct-to-video action films that first were made in

695-520: A first-rate action adventure supernatural horror series. Siena Yates for the NZ Herald wrote, “The Dead Lands delivers all you’d want from a Hollywood supernatural action thriller but wraps it beautifully and carefully in Māori culture and myth to create something the likes of which I’ve never seen before.” Action film While the term "action film" or "action adventure film" has been used as early as

834-500: A global audience of these films in the United States and Europe, but was cut short on Lee's death in 1973 leading the phases popularity to decline. Following a period of stagnation, Chang Cheh and Lau Kar-leung revitalized the genre with shaolin kung fu films and Chor Yuen 's series of darker swordplay films based on the novels of Gu Long . Kung Fu comedies appeared featuring Jackie Chan as martial arts films flourished into

973-566: A hero overcoming enemies or obstacles and physical conflicts or challenge, usually battling other humans or alien opponents. By late 2010s studies of genre analysis, the term "genre" itself is often replaced or supplemented with the words "mode" and "narrative form" with all three terms often being used interchangeably. Johan Höglund and Agnieszka Soltysik Monnet said that the difference between these concepts are elusive, but stated that genre could be defined as belonging to specific historical and cultural moments while "mode" and "form" can refer to

1112-454: A larger pattern that operates across a wider historical and cultural field. In their book Action Cinema Since 2000 (2024), Tasker, Lisa Purse, and Chris Holmlund stated that thinking of action as a mode is more helpful than thinking of it as a genre. The three authors suggested that action frames a certain manner of filmmaking and viewing exceed genre without eclipsing it stating that websites such as IMDb and Misplaced Pages rarely label films by

1251-466: A monster known as a Taniwha in Maori mythology. Hongi, suspecting that the monster is in fact a man, tracks him down and, although reluctant, the monster agrees to help Hongi hunt down Wirepa. The monster is in fact a warrior (who is never named in the film) who murdered all the men of his own tribe, and he kills anyone who ventures there to prevent his tribe's historic lands from being occupied. The warrior

1390-473: A practice inspired by European art films and classical Hollywood directors such as D. W. Griffith and Alfred Hitchcock . Films with unorthodox editing included Easy Rider ' s use of jump cuts (influenced by the works of experimental collage filmmaker Bruce Conner ) to foreshadow the climax of the movie, as well as subtler uses, such as those to reflect the feeling of frustration in Bonnie and Clyde ,

1529-554: A propensity for violent action, identified with the films of Chang Cheh . Violent female characters have been part of cinema since its early inception, with characters such as Kate Kelly brandishing a shotgun in The Story of the Kelly Gang (1906). Women traditionally appear in action films as romantic interests, tomboys , or sidekicks to male protagonists. Violent white women would appear in other genres as well such as

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1668-500: A rough cut of Bonnie and Clyde in the summer of 1967, he hated it. Distribution executives at Warner Brothers agreed, giving the film a low-key premiere and limited release. Their strategy appeared justified when Bosley Crowther , middlebrow film critic at The New York Times , gave the movie a scathing review. "It is a cheap piece of bald-faced slapstick comedy," he wrote, "that treats the hideous depredations of that sleazy, moronic pair as though they were as full of fun and frolic as

1807-424: A secret. Hongi is devastated by this, and screams at the warrior. The two separate, but the warrior has a vision from his ancestors that convinces him to continue helping Hongi. Wirepa and his men are tracked to a mountaintop fort, where they barricade themselves inside. Wirepa taunts Hongi with his fathers head, angering him, but the warrior convinces him to regroup and return later. Wirepa's men leave Tane's head on

1946-511: A series of action sequences, stating that that the difference between Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) and Die Hard (1988), that while both were mainstream Hollywood blockbusters with hero asserting masculinity and overcoming obstacles to a personal and social solution, John McClane in Die Hard repeatedly firing his automatic pistol while swinging from a high rise was not congruent with

2085-745: A significant portion. These films include Taxi 2 (2000), Kiss of the Dragon (2001), District 13 (2004) and Unleashed (2005). Whan asked about the Americanization of these French films, Christophe Gans , director of Brotherhood of the Wolf (2001) stated that "Hollywood ownership of certain elements [...] must be challenged, in order to show that these elements have also long been present in European culture." The most significant producers of French action films with international ambitions

2224-658: A similar level of popularity to that of the Western in the United States. The most internationally known films of this era were the films Kurosawa with Seven Samurai (1954), The Hidden Fortress (1958), and Yojimbo (1961). By at least the 1950s, Japanese films were looked upon as a model to be emulated by Hong Kong film production, and Hong Kong film companies began actively enlisting professionals from Japan, such as cinematographer Tadashi Nishimoto to contribute to color and widescreen cinematography. New literary sources also developed in martial arts films of this period, with

2363-406: A single genre and that streaming services such as Amazon Prime and Netflix similarly dilutes what is marketed and received as action. In transnational cinema, there are two major trends in action films: Hollywood action films and their style being imitated around the globe and the other being Chinese-language martial arts films. The roots of action films extend into the beginning of film but it

2502-440: A spike, and most of the men leave the fort. Again, this is a ruse by Wirepa to lure Hongi in. However, when the trap is sprung, the warrior and Hongi get the upper hand and kill most of Wirepa's men. While Hongi battles Wirepa, the warrior is severely wounded but manages to return and save Hongi. Wirepa, distracted from his battle with Hongi, beats the warrior to the ground before returning his attention to Hongi. This time Hongi gains

2641-522: A splash in the United States – the huge market of disaffected youth seemed to find relevance and artistic meaning in movies like Michelangelo Antonioni 's Blowup , with its oblique narrative structure and full-frontal female nudity. The desperation felt by studios during this period of economic downturn, and after the losses from expensive movie flops, led to innovation and risk-taking, allowing greater control by younger directors and producers. Therefore, in an attempt to capture that audience that found

2780-451: A three-act structure centered on survival, resistance and revenge with narratives where the physical body of the hero is tested, traumatized and ultimately triumphant. The third shift in action cinema, the postclassical, was defined by the predominance of Eastern cinema and its aesthetics, primarily the wire-work of Hong Kong action cinema from the classical era, through the convention of the increasingly computer generated effects. This saw

2919-594: A tough police officer protects society by upholding the law against systematic corruption. This extended into films which O'Brien described as "knee-jerk responses" to perceived threats with rogue cop and vigilante films such as Dirty Harry (1971) and Death Wish (1974) where the restoration of order is only possible by force and antisocial characters prepared to act when society does not. The vigilantism reappears in other films that were exploitative of southern society such as Billy Jack (1971) and White Lightning (1973) and "good ol' boy" comedies like Smokey and

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3058-463: Is Luc Besson 's France-based EuropaCorp , who released films like Taxi (1998) and From Paris with Love (2010). EuropaCorp produced Transporter franchise starred British actor Jason Statham and made him an action film star, which led him to feature in The Expendables series by the end of the 2010s. The action film genre has been a staple of Bollywood cinema . In the 1970s,

3197-574: Is a generic term to refer to several types of films containing martial arts. The wuxia film is the oldest genre in Chinese cinema. Stephen Teo wrote in his book on Wuxia that there is no satisfactory English translation of the term, with it often being identified as "the swordplay film" in critical studies. It is derived from the Chinese words wu denoting militarist or martial qualities and xia denoting chivalry, gallantry, and qualities of knighthood. The term wuxia entered into popular culture in

3336-729: Is based on Twin Dragons (1992). Other films such as the martial arts film Bhadrachlam (2001), borrows from American cinema with the Jean-Claude Van Damme film Kickboxer (1989). SS Rajamouli 's RRR (2022) was among the highest budgeted films made in India, and became a rare hit film outside of Indian diaspora, where it broke box office records in Japan and performed exceptionally well in American box office. Japan

3475-516: Is innocent, but offers to kill Hongi if it will prevent war. Wirepa refuses, saying war is imminent. Wirepa's tribe returns later in force, kills the men of the tribe and beheads Tane, taking his head as a trophy. Hongi is knocked away from the battle, and survives. Hongi leaves and attempts to track down Wirepa. On the way, he discovers that Wirepa and his men have entered the Dead Lands, an area where any who venture in are believed to be killed by

3614-442: Is itself empowering and, if not, whether a hypersexualized female character can still represent strength and autonomy. Hypersexualized female action leads had tight fitting or revealing costumes that Tasker identified as "exaggerated statements of sexuality" and in the tradition of "fetishistic figure of fantasy" derives from comic books and soft pornography . This originated in television with characters like Buffy Summers ( Buffy

3753-459: Is motivated by a desire to redeem himself and thus be led to the afterlife by his vengeful ancestors. While tracking down Wirepa, Hongi has a series of visions of his long dead grandmother, who helps them on their way. Hongi and the warrior track down Wirepa and kill several of his men before Wirepa flees with his surviving warriors. Hongi and the warrior go after them, and the warrior kills a small band of hunters they come across to keep his identity

3892-578: The femme fatales in film noir and horror films of the 1970s. Violent women were common in action films since the 1960s. These films featured working-class women exacting revenge. Films of the 1970s featured black women such as Pam Grier in films like Foxy Brown (1974). In the 1980s, a new symbolically transgressive character emerged in the form of Ellen Ripley in Aliens (1986) and Sarah Connor in Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991) and

4031-550: The Bollywood action film consolidated with two films starring Amitabh Bachchan : Prakash Mehra 's Zanjeer (1973) and Yash Chopra 's Deewaar (1975). The box office success of these films made Bachchan a star and spawned the "angry young man" film in Bollywood cinema. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, the action genre film declined considerably with new films predominantly featuring former bodybuilders failing to reach

4170-517: The Hong Kong action cinema , such melodramatic male bonding and marginalized women characters, while the Korean films also have greater elements of tragedy and romance emphasized. Most martial arts films made before the mid-1960s were Cantonese-language productions. In comparison, Mandarin-language films were an integral part of Hong Kong cinema due to the influx of Shanghai film talent in

4309-526: The Julie Andrews vehicle Star! , each failed attempts to replicate the success of Mary Poppins , Doctor Zhivago and The Sound of Music , put great strain on the studios. By the time the Baby Boomer generation started to come of age in the 1960s, " Old Hollywood " was rapidly losing money; the studios were unsure how to react to the much-changed audience demographics. The change in

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4448-535: The New American Cinema of the 1960s that was part of avant-garde underground cinema ), was a movement in American film history from the mid-1960s to the early 1980s, when a new generation of filmmakers came to prominence. They influenced the types of film produced, their production and marketing, and the way major studios approached filmmaking. In New Hollywood films, the film director, rather than

4587-564: The September 11 attacks in 2001, which suggested an end to fantastical elements that defined the action hero and genre. Following the release of Quentin Tarantino 's Kill Bill: Volume 1 (2003) and Kill Bill: Volume 2 (2004) revisited the tropes of 1970s action films leading a renaissance of vengeance narratives in films like The Brave One (2007) and Taken (2008). O'Brien found that Tarantino's films were post-modern takes on

4726-510: The xinpai wuxia xiaoshuo (or "new school martial arts fiction") coming into prominence with the success of Liang Yusheng 's Longhu Dou Jinghua (1954) and Jin Yong 's Shujian enchou lu (1956) which showed influence of the Shanghai martial arts films but also circulated from Hong Kong to Taiwan and Chinese communities overseas. This led to a growing demand in both local and regional markets in

4865-462: The 1910s, the contemporary definition usually refers to a film that came with the arrival of New Hollywood and the rise of anti-heroes appearing in American films of the late 1960s and 1970s drawing from war films , crime films and Westerns . These genres were followed by what is referred to as the "classical period" in the 1980s. This was followed by the post-classical era where American action films were influenced by Hong Kong action cinema and

5004-479: The 1950s "the horrible decade" for Hollywood. It was dubbed a "New Hollywood" by a press. In the 1950s and early 1960s, Hollywood was dominated by musicals, historical epics, and other films that benefited from the larger screens, wider framing, and improved sound. However, audience shares continued to dwindle, and had reached alarmingly low levels by the mid-1960s. Several costly flops, including Tora! Tora! Tora! , Gene Kelly 's adaptation of Hello, Dolly! and

5143-428: The 1960s with films like The Born Losers (1967) which was predominantly a drama, interspersed with martial arts scenes. American martial arts films predominantly came into production following the release of Enter the Dragon (1973), with the only higher-budgeted American film to follow in its wake being The Yakuza (1974). Lott noted the two films would lead to the two subsequent styles of martial arts films in

5282-639: The 1962 Arch Hall Jr. vehicle Wild Guitar and the 1963 horror musical flick The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies . This, together with the breakdown of the Motion Picture Production Code following the Freedman v. Maryland court case in 1965 and the new ratings system in 1968 (reflecting growing market segmentation) set the scene for the New Hollywood. A defining film of

5421-609: The 1970s. James Monaco wrote in 1979 in American Film Now: The People, The Power, The Money, the Movies that "the lines that separate on genre from another have continued to disintegrate." Tasker said that most post-classical action films are hybrids, drawing from genres as varied as war films, science fiction , horror , crime, martial arts , and comedy films . In Chinese-language films, both wuxia and kung fu are genre-specific terms, while martial arts

5560-784: The 1980s. Other films again modernized the form with gangster films of John Woo ( A Better Tomorrow (1986), The Killer (1989)) and the Wong Fei Hung saga returning in Tsui Hark 's Once Upon a Time in China featuring Jet Li which again revitalized the swordplay styled films. By the turn of the century Hollywood action films would look towards Hong Kong cinema and bringing some of their major actors and directors over to apply their style to their films, such as Chan, Woo, Li, Michelle Yeoh and Yuen Woo-Ping . The release of Ang Lee 's Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000) led to

5699-706: The 21st century have been comic book adaptations, which commenced with the X-Men and is seen in other series such as Spider-Man , and Iron Man series. Tasker wrote that despite the central characters in superhero cinema being extraordinary, occasionally even God-like, they often followed the traces of the central character becoming powerful of which is fundamental to action films, often dealt with origin stories in superhero films. Action films often interface with other genres. Tasker wrote that films are often labelled action thrillers, action-fantasy and action-adventure films with different nuances. Tasker later discussed that

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5838-522: The Bandit (1977). This era also emphasizes the car chase scenes as moments of spectacle in films like Bullitt and The French Connection (1971). O'Brien described these films as emphasizing "the fusion of man and machine" with the drivers and vehicles acting as one, concluding with what he described as "the ultimate in apocalyptic modernity and social erasure" in Mad Max 2 (1981). O'Brien described

5977-682: The Beach Boys and Hal Ashby as the Kinks ). Los Angeles Times article film critic Manohla Dargis described New Hollywood as the "halcyon age" of 1970s filmmaking, that "was less revolution than business as usual, with rebel hype". She also pointed out in her New York Times article that the era's enthusiasts insist this was "when American movies grew up (or at least starred underdressed actresses); when directors did what they wanted (or at least were transformed into brands); when creativity ruled (or at least ran gloriously amok, albeit often on

6116-754: The Bollywood press who reported on him in the headlines of Bollywood magazines for his public brawls and affairs with leading actresses. In Dabangg (2010), Khan continued with this public persona, which was repeated in several of his later films such as Ready (2011), Bodyguard (2011), Ek Tha Tiger (2012) and Dabangg 2 (2012). From the 1980s, generations of actors in Telugu cinema have invoked Hong Kong action films, such as Srihari who stated he wanted to become an actor after watching his first Bruce Lee film. Several films in Telugu cinema were remakes of Hong Kong films, such as Hello Brother (1994) which

6255-598: The Dragon briefly allowed an influx of Hong Kong films to Japan, but the trend did not last, with 28 Hong Kong films, mostly kung fu films, being released in 1974, and the number decreasing to five in 1975, four in 1977 and only two in 1978. Ryuhei Kitamura , director of Versus (2000), said in 2004 that he grew frustrated with the Japanese film industry as producers felt they couldn't make action films in competition with Hong Kong or American productions. Versus grew to become popular outside of Japan, and Kitamura said he

6394-590: The Heart marked the end of the era. In fact, The Wild Angels was kind of a... it was a big success for the New Hollywood . It was Roger Corman , it was Peter Fonda , Nancy Sinatra , it was a New Hollywood kind of movie, and it was very anti-the Old Hollywood, it was very hard-edged, violent, you know, it was not at all an Old Hollywood movie. And I didn't, I wasn't particularly aware of it. Then

6533-502: The Hollywood Golden Age, which deals with the relationship of characters and plot. He argues that plot in classical Hollywood films (and some of the earlier New Hollywood films like The Godfather ) "tended to emerge more organically as a function of the drives, desires, motivations, and goals of the central characters". However, beginning with mid-1970s, he points to a trend that "characters became plot functions". During

6672-602: The Hong Kong film industry after the handover in 1997. Anglophone action film scholarship has tended to emphasize bigger budget American action films, with academics tending to find films that fall out of Hollywood productions as not quite fitting definitions of the genre. By 2024, many national and regional industries were known for action films. These include international films such as Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam , South Korean, Japanese, Thai , Brazilian , Chinese , South African , French and Italian action titles. At

6811-444: The New Hollywood generation was Bonnie and Clyde (1967). Produced by and starring Warren Beatty and directed by Arthur Penn , its combination of graphic violence and humor, as well as its theme of glamorous disaffected youth, was a hit with audiences. The film eventually won Academy Awards for Best Supporting Actress ( Estelle Parsons ) and Best Cinematography . When Jack L. Warner , then-CEO of Warner Bros. , first saw

6950-407: The New Hollywood movement marked a significant shift towards independently produced and innovative works by a new wave of directors, but that this shift began to reverse itself when the commercial success of Jaws and Star Wars led to the realization by studios of the importance of blockbusters , advertising and control over production (even though the success of The Godfather was said to be

7089-807: The Red Lotus (1965) and King Hu 's Come Drink with Me (1966). In the 1970s, the Hong Kong martial arts films began to grow under the format of yanggang ("staunch masculinity") mostly through the films of Chang Cheh which were popular. This transition led to the kung fu film sub-genre at beginning of the decade and moved beyond the swordplay films with contemporary settings of late Qing or early Republican periods and had more hand-to-hand combat over supernatural swordplay and special effects. A new studio, Golden Harvest quickly became one of independent filmmakers to grant creative freedom and pay and attracted new directors and actors, including Bruce Lee . The popularity of kung fu films and Bruce Lee led to attract

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7228-484: The United States, Europe and Japan had during this period. Yip described Japanese cinema as the most advanced in Asia at the time. This was showcased by the international breakthrough of Akira Kurosawa 's films like Rashomon (1950). The film genre known as the chanbara was at its height in Japan. The style was a sub-genre to the jidai-geki , or period drama with an emphasis on sword fighting and action. It had

7367-406: The United States, with films like Enter the Dragon about people who reveled in combat, often in a tournament setting, and The Yakuza which had several genres attached to it, but featured several martial arts sequences. By the end of the 1970s, the style was an established genre in American cinema, often featuring tough heroic characters who would fight and not think about their actions until after

7506-591: The Vampire Slayer (1997–2003)) and Xena ( Xena: Warrior Princess (1995–2001)). These series popularity demonstrated a growing market for female action film heroes, in films of the 2000s like Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001), Charlie's Angels (2000), Ultraviolet (2006), Salt (2010) and series like Underworld and Resident Evil . These series like their television series earlier, had their leads eroticized as active and physically capable while also being scantily-clad, hyper-feminized similar to

7645-553: The action heroine's dual status of an active subject and sexual object was overturning the traditional gender binary because the films "assume that women are powerful" without resorting to justify her physical aggression through narratives involving maternal drive, mental instability or trauma. Purse found that female leads in films like Elektra (2005), Kill Bill , Underworld , Charlie's Angels and Mr. & Mrs. Smith (2005) did showcase women having expensive cars, clothing, travel, homes and often high-paying jobs, but that this

7784-399: The anti-everything cynicism... Was everything a bummer? Was everything a drag? Was every movie about some guy with problems?" In 1980, film historian/scholar Robert P. Kolker examined New Hollywood film directors in his book A Cinema of Loneliness: Penn, Kubrick, Coppola, Scorsese, Altman , and how their films influenced American society of the 1960s and 1970s. Kolker observed that "for all

7923-402: The art cinema movement as a significant industry force with its peak in 1974–75 with Nashville and Chinatown . Geoff King sees the period as an interim movement in American cinema where a conjunction of forces led to a measure of freedom in filmmaking, while Todd Berliner says that 70s cinema resists the efficiency and harmony that normally characterize classical Hollywood cinema and tests

8062-570: The audience off balance at Bonnie and Clyde . The brutality that comes out of this innocence is far more shocking than the calculated brutalities of mean killers." Kael also noted the reaction of audiences to the violent climax of the movie, and the potential to empathize with the gang of criminals in terms of their naiveté and innocence reflecting a change in expectations of American cinema. The cover story in Time magazine in December 1967, celebrated

8201-435: The book Australian Genre Film , Amanda Howell suggested that this label was used to help distance Australian cinema from Hollywood films as it would be suggesting commerce over culture and that it would be "quite unacceptable to make Australian movies using conventions established in the U.S.A." Howell stated this to be the case with action films of the 1970s and 1980s with Brian Trenchard-Smith 's Turkey Shoot (1982) being

8340-628: The business from the producer-driven Hollywood system of the past as Todd Berliner has written about the period's unusual narrative practices. The 1970s, Berliner says, marks Hollywood's most significant formal transformation since the conversion to sound film and is the defining period separating the storytelling modes of the studio era and contemporary Hollywood. New Hollywood films deviate from classical narrative norms more than Hollywood films from any other era or movement. Their narrative and stylistic devices threaten to derail an otherwise straightforward narration. Berliner argues that five principles govern

8479-407: The challenge and adventure, their films speak to a continual impotence in the world, an inability to change and to create change." John Belton points to the changing demographic to even younger, more conservative audiences in the mid 1970s (50% aged 12–20) and the move to less politically subversive themes in mainstream cinema, as did Thomas Schatz, who saw the mid- to late 1970s as the decline of

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8618-550: The classical form of action cinema to be the 1980s. The decade continued the trends of formative period with heroes as avengers ( Lethal Weapon (1987)), rogue police officers ( Die Hard (1988)) and mercenary warriors ( Commando (1985)). Following the continuity of the car and man hybrid of the previous decade, the 1980s featured weaponized men with who were either also carrying weapons such as Sudden Impact (1983), trained to be weapons ( American Ninja (1985)) or imbued with technology ( RoboCop (1987)). O'Brien noted that

8757-502: The counterculture of the late 1960s." Easy Rider also affected the way studios looked to reach the youth market. The success of Midnight Cowboy , in spite of its "X" rating, was evidence for the interest in controversial themes at the time and also showed the weakness of the rating system and segmentation of the audience. For Peter Biskind, the new wave was foreshadowed by Bonnie and Clyde and began in earnest with Easy Rider . Biskind's book Easy Riders, Raging Bulls argues that

8896-684: The darker elements of humanity and society within the context of the American Dream in the mid-1960s to the early 1980s, with themes that were reflective of sociocultural issues and were centered around the potential meaninglessness of pursuing the American Dream as generation upon generation was motivated to possess it. In comparison, American Eccentric Cinema does not have a distinct context, its films show characters who are very individual and their concerns are very distinctive to their own personalities. The following

9035-464: The decline of overt masculinity in the action film which corresponded with the end of the Cold War in 1991, while the rise of self-referential and parodies of this era grew in films like Last Action Hero (1993). O'Brien described this era as being soft where the hard bodies of the classical era were replaced with computer generated imagery such as that of Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991). This

9174-501: The demise of the studio system and the rise of television, the commercial success of films was diminished. Successful films of the early New Hollywood era include Bonnie and Clyde , The Graduate , Rosemary's Baby , Night of the Living Dead , The Wild Bunch , and Easy Rider while films that failed at the box office such as New York, New York , Sorcerer , Heaven's Gate , They All Laughed and One from

9313-559: The direct-to-video field, or in similarly low-budget theatrical releases such as Bulletproof Monk (2003). While the American styled-films were predominantly made in the United States, productions were also made in Australia, Canada, Hong Kong and South Africa, and were predominantly shot in the English-language. Heroic Bloodshed is a that originates with English-language Hong Kong action and crime film fan communities in

9452-487: The earlier work of directors like Woo and Johnnie To . Antong Chen, in his study on the Hong Kong action film, wrote that the influence of China and the amount of Chinese co-productions made with Hong Kong created a shift in these films, particularly following the release of Infernal Affairs (2002). Harvey O'Brien wrote in 2012 that the contemporary action film emerged through other genres, primarily Westerns , crime and war films and can be separated into four forms:

9591-432: The early 1960s and saw a surge in production of Hong Kong martial arts films that went beyond the stories about Wong Fei-hung which were declining in popularity. These new martial arts films featured magical swordplay and higher production values and more sophisticated special effects than the previous films with Shaw Brothers a campaign of "new school" ( xinpai ) martial arts swordplay films such as Xu Zenghong's Temple of

9730-491: The end of the 1990s. Films such as Chunhang (2000) and Memento Mori (2000) and action films Shiri (1999) and Nowhere to Hide (1999) received commercial releases in North America, Asia, and Europe. The success of the latter two films was unprecedented, and was followed by other South Korean action films in the early 2000s reaching the top of the local box office. These South Korean films mimic some traits of

9869-532: The female leads in implausible elements, such as in Charlie's Angels , Fantastic Four (2005) and My Super Ex-Girlfriend (2006). The fighting styles of women also tend towards more traditionally feminine fluid movements of martial arts, over using guns or directly punching. Purse wrote that the contemporary female action film lead's sexualized brand had her in close proximity of post-feminism discourse about choice, power and sexuality. Marc O'Day interprets

10008-680: The film to be re-released, thus proving its commercial success and reflecting the move toward the New Hollywood. The impact of this film is important in understanding the rest of the American New Wave, as well as the conditions that were necessary for it. These initial successes paved the way for the studio to relinquish almost complete control to these innovative young filmmakers. In the mid-1970s, idiosyncratic, startling original films such as Paper Moon , Dog Day Afternoon , Chinatown , and Taxi Driver , among others, enjoyed enormous critical and commercial success. These successes by

10147-477: The film's period setting, was inspired by the Martin Scorsese classics Taxi Driver and The King of Comedy while Alexander Payne 's 2023 film The Holdovers took inspiration from Ashby's works. American Eccentric Cinema has been noted as influenced by this era. Both traditions have similar themes and narratives of existentialism and the need for human interaction. New Hollywood focuses on

10286-414: The following films were voted the top ten best action films of all time. In Hong Kong, the "new school" of martial arts films that Shaw Brothers brought in 1965 featured what featured what Yip described as "strong, active female characters as protagonists." These female-centered films were challenged with the rise of a new male heroic prototype marked by a strong sense of youthful energy and defiance and by

10425-552: The following year was Bonnie and Clyde . Shadows had come out in the early '60s, so that was really the first sign of a kind of off-Hollywood movement. – Peter Bogdanovich Following the Paramount Case (which ended block booking and ownership of theater chains by film studios) and the advent of television (where Rod Serling , John Frankenheimer , Arthur Penn , Paddy Chayefsky and Sidney Lumet worked in their earlier years), both of which severely weakened

10564-448: The formative trends at this point had become "identifiably generic" as film industries began to reproduced these films during the decade producers like Joel Silver and production companies like The Cannon Group, Inc. began to formulate production of these films with both high and low budgets. The action films of this era have roots in classical story telling, specifically rooted from martial arts films and Westerns, and are built around

10703-548: The formative, the classical, the post-classical and neoclassical phases. Yvonne Tasker reiterated this in her book on action and adventure films , saying that action films became a distinct genre during the New Hollywood period of the 1970s. The formative films would be from the 1960s to the early 1980s where the Anti-hero appears in cinema, featuring characters who act and transcend the law and social conventions. This appears initially in films like Bullitt (1968) where

10842-551: The former was one of the highest-grossing movies of the year in Japan. Following LoveDeath , Kitamura's next directing work was in the United States. The action cinema of South Korea mostly existed on the margins of the film industry in South Korea. The genre was initially called the Hwalkuk ("living theatre") was a term that indicated plays and films driven by action scenes, while this term has not been used regularly since

10981-505: The genre include chase sequences, fights, shootouts, explosions, and stunt work while other scholars asserted there were more underlying traits that define the genre. David Bordwell in The Way Hollywood Tells It wrote that audiences are "told that spectacle overrides narrative" in action cinema while Wheeler Winston Dixon echoed that these films were typified by "excessive spectacle" as a "desperate attempt to mask

11120-484: The genre is regularly lambasted for favoring spectacle over finely tuned narrative." Bordwell echoed this in his book, The Way Hollywood Tells It , writing that the reception to the genre as being "the emblem of what Hollywood does worst." In the Journal of Film and Video , Lennart Soberson stated that the action film genre has been a subject of scholarly debate since the 1980s. Soberson wrote that repeated traits of

11259-430: The ground. While heroes in kung fu films often display chivalry, they generally hail from different fighting schools, namely wudang and shaolin . American martial arts films feature what author M. Ray Lott described as a more realistic style of violence over the Hong Kong wuxia films with more realism and are often low-budget productions. Martial arts began routinely appearing in fight scenes in American films in

11398-463: The growing using of computer generated imagery in film. Following the September 11 attacks , a return to the early forms of the genre appeared in the wake of Kill Bill and The Expendables films. Scott Higgins wrote in 2008 in Cinema Journal that action films are both one of the most popular and popularly derided of contemporary cinema genres, stating that "in mainstream discourse,

11537-591: The height of the studio system, films were made almost exclusively on set in isolated studios. The content of films was limited by the Motion Picture Production Code, and though golden-age film-makers found loopholes in its rules, the discussion of more taboo content through film was effectively prevented. The shift towards a "new realism" was made possible when the Motion Picture Association of America film rating system

11676-489: The image of Indiana Jones in Raiders swinging his whip to fend off villains in the backstreets of Cairo. British author and academic Yvonne Tasker expanded on this topic, stating that action films have no clear and constant iconography or settings. In her book The Hollywood Action and Adventure Film (2015), she found that the most broadly consistent themes tend to be a characters quest from freedom from oppression such as

11815-433: The impact of critic Pauline Kael in her positive review of the film (October 1967, New Yorker ) led other reviewers to follow her lead and re-evaluate the film (notably Newsweek and Time ). Kael drew attention to the innocence of the characters in the film and the artistic merit of the contrast of that with the violence in the film: "In a sense, it is the absence of sadism — it is the violence without sadism — that throws

11954-481: The jazz-age cut-ups in Thoroughly Modern Millie ..." Other notices, including those from Time and Newsweek magazines, were equally dismissive. Its portrayal of violence and ambiguity in regard to moral values, and its startling ending, divided critics. Following one of the negative reviews, Time magazine received letters from fans of the movie, and according to journalist Peter Biskind ,

12093-557: The lack of content." Geoff King argued that the spectacle can also be a vehicle for narrative, opposed to interfering with it. Soberson stated that Harvey O'Brien had "perhaps the most convincing understanding of the genre", stating that the action film was "best understood as a fusion of form and content. It represents the idea and ethic of action through a form in which action, agitation and movement are paramount." O'Brien wrote further in his book Action Movies: The Cinema of Striking Back to suggest action films being unique and not just

12232-520: The late 1920s. These films were popular during the period, which comprised almost 60% of the total Chinese films. Man-Fung Yip stated that these film were "rather tame" by contemporary standards. He wrote that they lacked the kind of dazzling action choreography as expected today and had crude and rudimentary special effects. These films came under increasing attack by both government officials and cultural elites for their allegedly superstitious and anarchistic tendencies, leading them to be banned in 1932. It

12371-570: The late 1970s, with "action movie" becoming the more familiar term. The Korean action films came from Japanese cinema, James Bond series , and Hong Kong action cinema. As North Korea borders China, it block access to the continent from a South Korean perspective, the Cold War allowed South Koreans to substitute deferred travel beyond the border through films with locations shot in Hong Kong. While melodrama and comedy were staples in South Korean cinema, most action films were sporadic and tied to

12510-508: The late 1980s and early 1990s. In the Chinese language, the term used for these films is jinghungpin , literally meaning "hero films". Academic Laikwan Pang asserts that these gangster films appeared at a time when Hong Kong citizens felt particularly powerless with the handover of Hong Kong from the United Kingdom to China set for 1997. The key directors of the genre were John Woo and Ringo Lam , and producer Tsui Hark , with

12649-513: The late 1980s and early 1990s. Author Bey Logan stated that the term was coined by Rick Baker, in the British fanzine Eastern Heroes . The term is used broadly. Baker described the style as Hong Kong action films which feature gangsters and gunplay and martial arts that were more violent than kung fu films and academic Kristof Van Den Troost described it a term used to distinguish Hong Kong gun-heavy action films from period martial arts films from

12788-431: The late 1980s in the United States were martial arts films. Towards the end of the 1990s, production of low-budget martial arts films declined as no new stars in the genre developed and older actors such as Cynthia Rothrock and Steven Seagal started showing up in less and less films. Even internationally popular films like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000) had negligible effects in American productions in either

12927-458: The limits of Hollywood's classical model. According to author and film critic Charles Taylor ( Opening Wednesday at a Theater or Drive-In Near You ), he stated that "the 1970s remain the third — and, to date, last — great period in American movies". Author and film critic David Thomson also shared similar sentiment to the point of dubbing the era "the decade when movies mattered". Author A.D. Jameson ( I Find Your Lack of Faith Disturbing ), on

13066-606: The market during the period went from a middle-aged high school-educated audience in the mid-1960s to a younger, more affluent, college-educated demographic: by the mid-1970s, 76% of all movie-goers were under 30, 64% of whom had gone to college. European films, both arthouse and commercial (especially the Commedia all'italiana , the French New Wave , the Spaghetti Western ), and Japanese cinema were making

13205-423: The members of the New Hollywood led each of them in turn to make more and more extravagant demands, both on the studio and eventually on the audience. The new generation of Hollywood filmmakers was most importantly, from the studios' view, young, therefore able to reach the youth audience they were losing. This collective of actors, screenwriters and directors, dubbed the "New Hollywood" by the press, briefly changed

13344-624: The most notorious. Smith had previously released films like Deathcheaters (1976) and Stunt Rock (1979) when financial incentives were available for overtly commercial projects. She commented that action films did tell identifiably Australian stories such as the Sandy Harbutt 's biker film Stone (1974) and Miller's post-apocalyptic film Mad Max (1979) derived from Australia's social and cultural realities, as well as how George Miller 's later Mad Max: Fury Road (2015) derived from Australia's long-standing cinematic fascination with

13483-455: The movie and innovation in American New Wave cinema. This influential article by Stefan Kanfer claimed that Bonnie and Clyde represented a "New Cinema" through its blurred genre lines, and disregard for honored aspects of plot and motivation, and that "In both conception and execution, Bonnie and Clyde is a watershed picture, the kind that signals a new style, a new trend." Biskind states that this review and turnaround by some critics allowed

13622-419: The narrative strategies characteristic of Hollywood films of the 1970s: Seventies cinema also dealt with masculine crises featuring flawed male characters, downbeat conclusions and pessimistic subject matters alongside hard-nosed depictions of a America reeling from tense conflicts like The Vietnam War and President Richard Nixon 's Watergate scandal . Thomas Schatz points to another difference with

13761-604: The notion that traditional marks of masculinity are not exclusive to men and that musculature was not natural, but something to be achieved. Accusations of these muscular women of the era were levelled at that them by 1993 were that they were "men in drag" and that the films generally have to "explain" why their female leads displayed physical aggression and why they were "driven to do it." As the 1990s went on, Hollywood films began having more conventional looking women in their action films such as The Long Kiss Goodnight (1996). A vibrant debate exists about whether hypersexualization

13900-698: The other hand, claimed that Star Wars was New Hollywood's finest achievement that actually embodied the characteristics of the respected "serious, sophisticated adult films". Steven Hyden, writing for Grantland , called the Movie Brats the "cinematic version" of classic rock (to the point of roll calling Spielberg as the Beatles , Scorsese as the Velvet Underground , Coppola as Bob Dylan , Lucas as Pink Floyd , Robert Altman as Neil Young , Brian De Palma as Led Zeppelin , Bogdanovich as

14039-435: The physical effort required to completing a task and the abilities and skills acquired over time. Films from the period reflected on the cultural and social climate from the period, as seen in invoking Japanese or Western imperialist forces as foils. The kung fu film came out of the wuxia films. In comparison to the wuxia , film, the focus on the kung fu film is on the martial arts over chivalry, The martial arts films

14178-574: The popularity Bachan had. These films predominantly earned their revenue through longer runs at B-grade theatres. A cycle of action films came from these films in the 1980s and 1990s called the Avenging Woman film, where female protagonists seek justice for a rape victim, where the protagonist seeks revenge through violence. In 2009, the action genre was re-popularized with the box office success of Wanted (2009) starring Salman Khan . Khan reinvented his screen persona with that of his image in

14317-543: The postwar period. These films were targeted at the more educated and more refined middle-class audiences who saw themselves as above the contemporary martial arts films. Scott Higgins wrote in 2008 in Cinema Journal that Hollywood action films are both one of the most popular and popularly derided of contemporary cinema genres, stating that "in mainstream discourse, the genre is regularly lambasted for favoring spectacle over finely tuned narrative." Bordwell echoed this in his book, The Way Hollywood Tells It , writing that

14456-408: The precursor to the blockbuster phenomenon). Writing in 1968, critic Pauline Kael argued that the importance of The Graduate was in its social significance in relation to a new young audience, and the role of mass media, rather than any artistic aspects. Kael argued that college students identifying with The Graduate were not too different from audiences identifying with characters in dramas of

14595-429: The previous decade. She also compared this era of cinema to "tangled, bitter flowering of American letters in the 1850s". Filmmaker Quentin Tarantino identified in his 2022 book Cinema Speculation that: "regular moviegoers were becoming weary of modern American movies. The darkness, the drug use, the embrace of sensation-the violence, the sex, and the sexual violence. But even more than that, they became wear of

14734-428: The primeval quest genre, but its battle scenes boast enough visceral thrills to carry viewers through the more mundane moments." According to Metacritic , which sampled 14 critics and calculated an weighted average score of 59 out of 100, the film received "mixed or average reviews". Simon Abrams of RogerEbert.com gave the film 2 stars out of 4. Deborah Young of The Hollywood Reporter put it in her top ten films of

14873-461: The production code enabled New Hollywood films to feature anti-establishment political themes, the use of rock music, and sexual freedom deemed "counter-cultural" by the studios. The youth movement of the 1960s turned anti-heroes like Bonnie and Clyde and Cool Hand Luke into pop-culture idols, and Life magazine called the characters in Easy Rider "part of the fundamental myth central to

15012-402: The reception to the genre as being "the emblem of what Hollywood does worst." Tasker wrote that when action and adventure films secured awards, it is often in categories such as visual effects and sound editing. Time Out magazine conducted a poll with fifty experts in the field of action cinema, including actors, critics, filmmakers and stuntmen. Out of the 101 films ranked in the poll,

15151-640: The right and responsibility of every actor or crew member to yell, 'Cut!' The films of New Hollywood influenced future mainstream and independent filmmakers such as Tarantino, Paul Thomas Anderson and Noah Baumbach . They also influenced both the Poliziotteschi genre films in Italy and a decade later the Cinéma du look movement in France. Todd Phillips 's 2019 DC Comics adaptation Joker , alongside

15290-441: The road and cars and a history of cultural anxiety towards a bleak and forbidding outback landscape opposed to the optimism of American action films. France is a major European country for film production and has made co-production commitments with 44 countries around the world. Around beginning of the 21st century, France began producing a series of films explicitly intended for international markets, with action films representing

15429-529: The serialization of Jinaghu qixia zhuan (1922) ( transl.  Legend of the Strange Swordsmen ). In wuxia , the emphasis is on chivalry and righteousness and allows for phantasmagoric actions over the kung fu film 's more ground-based combat. The Kung fu film emerged in the 1970s from the swordplay films. Its name is derived from the Cantonese term gong fu which has two meanings:

15568-485: The starting point of the genre being traced to Woo's A Better Tomorrow (1986) make a record-breaking HK$ 34.7 million at the Hong Kong box office. The style of these films would influence American productions, such as Michael Bay 's Bad Boys II (2003) and the Wachowskis ' The Matrix (1999). Korean media recognized the more fatalistic and pessimistic tone of these films, leading to Korean journalists to label

15707-425: The studio's dime)." This era was also infamous for its excessive decadence and on-set mishaps. Incidents plaguing the behind-the-scenes of some of the horror films from this era (such as Rosemary's Baby , The Exorcist , Twilight Zone: The Movie and The Omen ) were also the subjects for the docuseries Cursed Films . Even Spielberg, who co-directed/co-produced Twilight Zone with John Landis ,

15846-493: The studio, took on a key authorial role. The definition of "New Hollywood" varies, depending on the author, with some defining it as a movement and others as a period. The span of the period is also a subject of debate, as well as its integrity, as some authors, such as Thomas Schatz, argue that the New Hollywood consists of several different movements. The films made in this movement are stylistically characterized in that their narrative often deviated from classical norms. After

15985-433: The style as "Hong Kong noir ". The influence of these films was evident in early Korean films such as Im Kwon-taek 's General's Son (1990) and later films such Song Hae-sung 's A Better Tomorrow (2010), Cold Eyes (2013) and New World (2013). Postcolonial Hong Kong cinema has struggled to maintain its international identity as a provider of these types action films because the talents involved had abandoned

16124-893: The subjectivity of the protagonist in The Graduate and the passage of time in the famous match cut from 2001: A Space Odyssey . Also influential were the works of experimental filmmakers Arthur Lipsett , Stan Brakhage , Bruce Baillie , Jordan Belson , John Whitney , Scott Bartlett , Maya Deren and Kenneth Anger with their combinations of music and imagery and each were cited by George Lucas , Francis Ford Coppola and Martin Scorsese as influences. The New Hollywood generation of directors and screenwriters (each educated at either USC , UCLA , NYU and AFI ) such as Coppola, Lucas, Scorsese, Steven Spielberg , John Milius and Paul Schrader were sometimes jokingly labeled as "Movie Brats" or " Young Turks ". The end of

16263-450: The term action film genre and adventure are often used in hybrid, and are even used interchangeably. Along with Holmund and Purse, Tasker wrote that the action films expansiveness complicates easy categorization and though the genre is often spoken of as singular genre, it is rarely discussed as singular style. Screenwriter and academic Jule Selbo expanded on this, describing a film as " crime /action" or an "action/crime" or other hybrids

16402-445: The themes that rescinded irony to restore " cinephile re-actualization of the genre's conventions." The genre went into full circle resurrecting films from the classical period with Live Free or Die Hard (2007) and Rambo (2008) finding the characters navigating a contemporary world while also acknowledging their age, culminating into The Expendables (2010) film. The most commercially successful action films and franchise of

16541-529: The title character in China O'Brien (1990) who were physically muscular and or enacted more extreme violence that was usually reserve for male action leads. In her book Contemporary Action Cinema (2011), Lisa Purse described the media response to female leads in action films reveal a discomfort about their presence and are often described with hesitant terms of women moving into territories that are perceived as masculine. Revealing woman in this form deconstructs

16680-445: The traditional studio system , Hollywood studios initially used spectacle to retain profitability. Technicolor developed a far more widespread use, while widescreen processes and technical improvements, such as CinemaScope , stereo sound, and others, such as 3-D , were invented to retain the dwindling audience and compete with television. However, these were generally unsuccessful in increasing profits. By 1957, Life magazine called

16819-539: The turn of the millennium, Australian genre films have gained increasing acceptance in the Australian feature film industry, while the action genre represented a small percentage of its output in the 21st century. Scholars of Australian genre film generally used the term "action-adventure" which allows them to apply it to various forms of narratives such as tongue in cheek heroic posturing stories like Crocodile Dundee (1986), road movies or bush/outback films. In

16958-432: The upper hand, and is about to kill Wirepa. This pleases Wirepa, because it will allow him to be remembered as a great warrior who died in battle about whom songs will be sung, and stories will be told. Hongi denies Wirepa this honor, spares his life and makes him swear to leave his land, and allows him to leave. Defeated and alone, Wirepa walks off in shame. Hongi returns to the warrior, who is mortally wounded. Hongi adopts

17097-422: The use of locations such as Hong Kong. These films often featured one-legged or otherwise handicapped action characters similar to those of Japanese films ( Zatoichi ) and Hong Kong films ( The One-Armed Swordsmen ). These included Im Kwon-taek's Returned Left-Handed Man (1968), Aekkunun Bak's One-Eyd Park (1970) and Lee Doo-yong's Returned One-Legged Man (1974). In the 1990s, the country's national cinema

17236-421: The warrior into his tribe, so that his own ancestors will guide the warrior into the afterlife. The film ends with a final vision of Hongi's grandmother, who is very pleased, as Hongi begins his return home. The film received mixed reviews. It has a 69% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 51 reviews, with an average rating of 6.1/10. The critics consensus reads: " The Dead Lands doesn't add anything new to

17375-475: The woman of exploitation films of the 1970s such as Caged Heat (1974) and Big Bad Mama (1974). While characters like Frank in The Transporter series are permitted to visibly sweat, strain and be bloodied, Purse found a reluctance for filmmakers to have their female leads have any appearance warping injuries to ensure a perfectly made-up face. Comedy is often used in films of this period to place

17514-502: The year. In 2019, AMC Entertainment 's streaming service Shudder and TVNZ said they would create a TV series based on the film. The first two episodes of The Dead Lands premiered on 23 January 2020 on Shudder's platforms followed by TVNZ shortly afterwards with later shown on both Shudder and TVNZ OnDemand. Decider called it an exciting and funny Ancient-Māori Riff on the Z-word Genre Locus Magazine saw it as

17653-448: Was "only a semantic exercise" as both genres are important in the construction phase of the narrative. Mark Bould in A Companion to Film Noir (2013) said that categorization of multiple generic genre labels was common in film reviews who are rarely concerned with succinct descriptions that evoke elements of the film's form, content and make no claims beyond on how these elements combine. Film Studies began to engage generic hybridity in

17792-408: Was a difficult market for Hong Kong action cinema to break into. Prompted by the success of Enter the Dragon and the popularity of Bruce Lee, Toei made their own Bruce Lee-style martial arts films, with The Street Fighter and its two sequels starring Sonny Chiba as well as a spin-off with a female lead similar to Hong Kong's Angela Mao called Sister Street Fighter . The success of Enter

17931-466: Was aiming for the foreign audience, as he was disappointed with the current state of Japanese films. Kitamura's characters have been described as "a careful combination of the maverick independence of 1980s Hollywood action heroes and the calmness and acceptance of Japanese samurai, a consistent criticism of Japanese people today." Kitamura followed up Versus with two manga-inspired big-budget action films, Azumi and Sky High . Both released in 2003,

18070-766: Was cheaper (no sets need to be built) New Hollywood filmmakers rapidly developed the taste for location shooting, resulting in a more naturalistic approach to filmmaking, especially when compared to the mostly stylized approach of classical Hollywood musicals and spectacles made to compete with television during the 1950s and early 1960s. The documentary films of D.A. Pennebaker , the Maysles Brothers and Frederick Wiseman , among others, also influenced filmmakers of this era. However, in editing, New Hollywood filmmakers adhered to realism more liberally than most of their classical Hollywood predecessors, often using editing for artistic purposes rather than for continuity alone,

18209-417: Was displayed in corresponding with corresponded with millennial angst and apocalypticism showcased in films like Independence Day (1996) and Armageddon (1998). Action films of mass destruction began requiring more overtly super heroic characters with further comic book adaptations being made with increased non-realistic settings with films like The Matrix (1999). The fourth phase arrived following

18348-469: Was in decline by the mid-1970s in Hong Kong in relation to the stock market crash which went from over 150 films in 1972 to just over 80 in 1975, which led to a downfall in martial arts films produced. When the economy became to rebound, a new trend of martial arts films, the Shaolin kung fu films emerged and sparked a revival of the genre. Unlike the wuxia , the kung fu film primarily focuses on fighting on

18487-509: Was in decline leading to Hong Kong gangster films filled in this void leading to large commercial success at the national box office. Early Korean heirs to Hong Kong action films include Rules of The Game (1994), Beat (1997), and Green Fish (1997) involving men who gain confidence and achieve personal growth as they embark on journeys to protect national state and meet devastating ends. South Korean cinema only received international attention in both art film and blockbuster formats towards

18626-551: Was introduced and location shooting was becoming more viable. New York City was a favorite spot for this new set of filmmakers due to its gritty atmosphere. Because of breakthroughs in film technology (e.g. the Panavision Panaflex camera, introduced in 1972; the Steadicam , introduced in 1976), the New Hollywood filmmakers could shoot 35mm camera film in exteriors with relative ease. Since location shooting

18765-402: Was not nominated. Tane, a Māori chief, his 15-year-old son Hongi and their tribe allow a rival tribe access to the remains of the second tribe's fallen warriors. Hongi does not trust the rival tribe's leader, Wirepa, and follows him. As Hongi suspected, the visit is a ruse, and Wirepa desecrates the grave site as a pretext for war, blaming Hongi for disturbing the remains. Tane believes his son

18904-599: Was not until the base of Chinese commercial filmmaking was relocated from Shanghai to Hong Kong in the late 1940s that martial arts cinema was revived. These films contained much of the characteristics of the previous era. During this period, over 100 films were based on the adventures of real life Cantonese folk hero Wong Fei-hung who first appeared in film in 1949. These films primarily on circuited within Hong Kong and Cantonese-speaking areas with Chinese diaspora . Yip continued that these Hong Kong films were still lagging behind in aesthetic and technical standards that films from

19043-504: Was only in the mid-20th century when action films developed into their own recognizable genre instead of being a collection of other types of films such as Westerns, swashbucklers or adventure films. Films have been described "action films" or "action-adventure film" as early as the 1910s. Only by the 1980s was the term action as its own unique genre used routinely in terms of promotion and reviewing practices. The first Chinese-language martial arts films can be traced to Shanghai cinema of

19182-556: Was only shown as being applicable to white middle-class women. Purse found that these women were empowered at the price of women of other ethnicities. This is seen in Aeon Flux (2005) where Sithandra dies protecting Aeon and Rain's death to make way for Alice in Resident Evil (2002). New Hollywood The New Hollywood , Hollywood Renaissance , American New Wave , or New American Cinema (not to be confused with

19321-432: Was so disgusted by the latter's handling of a deadly helicopter accident that resulted in the death of three actors, that he ended their friendship and publicly called for the end of New Hollywood. When approached by the press about the accident, he stated: "No movie is worth dying for. I think people are standing up much more now, than ever before, to producers and directors who ask too much. If something isn't safe, it's

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