Passed down the generations - A love of chop sockey movies and Asian cinema

Nope, this isn't yet another post about martial arts lineages and authentic kung fu schools. It is simply about my love of cheesy Chop Sockey movies. As my daughter is now 11 and already has an interest in all things anime, I'm wondering if now is the time to try to pique her interest in the old school martial art movies that I so loved in my teens and 20s.

Back when VHS was king, I used to have a huge collection of such movies, and Hong Kong cinema in general. I was lucky enough to have a couple of friends who were also into such movies and we would swap recommendations all the time. So many conversations rattled on arguing who was the best oriental action star and which director's films were coolest.

Maybe I need to start by building up our DVD collection once again. There are a few good movies on various streaming services, but nowhere near enough!

Netflix and Prime Video - The greatest threat to diligent martial arts practice?

Recently, I've been doing pretty well with my baguazhang training. Despite being unable to attend class due to lockdown, I've been training at home pretty regularly. Aided to a great extent by my teacher generously spending a lot of his time creating videos to help us get the most from our training at home.

A threat to this progress, though, is the fact I have discovered a wealth of chop-sockey movies on Netflix and Amazon Prime Video. Despite having discovered this treasure trove only a matter of weeks ago, I have already gorged myself on such classics as "36th Chamber of Shaolin", "Five Deadly Venoms" and several Jackie Chan movies.

To be frank, I've surprised myself. Watching so many classic martial arts movies has me feeling like a teenager again. In contrast to training at home which, usually after about twenty minutes, has me feeling like a decrepit old man.

Still no chop-sockey

Despite my renewed attendance at class and the extra training I am getting done, I still haven't seen a decent martial arts movie in ages. I have a real hankering for a proper 1970s chop-sockey movie but haven't got around to watching one yet.

This might be because we have been watching a lot of Netflix recently, and, while there are a couple of decent martial arts movies on there, proper cheesy chop sockey movies are conspicuous in their absence.

Might have to root out my old 'Half a Loaf of Kung Fu' VHS from the cupboard - or maybe some Jimmy Wang Yu. "One Armed Boxer", anyone?

Buying into the Baguazhang market concept

Baguazhang is such a big part of my life that, despite hardly being an avid consumer, I feel the need to express my love of the art through the medium of merchandise.

My wife often complains that I have way too many t-shirts, so bagua themed clothing maybe isn't a good idea for me. Regardless of how much I'd like some more bagua shirts (I have three shirts with our class logo, but that is it).

Books on baguazhang are always a consideration - but I prefer to limit those to just the ones recommended by my teacher, for obvious reasons.

More than anything, though, I find there is nothing I'd thirst for more after a class than some cool chop-sockey movies!