Some facts about Challenge of The Masters:

• Lau Kar-Fai (Gordon Liu) plays Wong Fei-Hung
• One of the climactic battles is with his adopted brother, Lau Kar Leung
• Lau Kar Leung also direct the film

So yeah, Challenge of the Masters is pretty good.
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Simply, Ip Man is a great pure martial arts movie. Everything that's right about the genre is present here and, for my money, that makes this one a keeper.

Directed by Wilson Yip (SPL) and starring Donnie Yen, one of the greatest screen fighters of all time, The film tells the story of the Wing Chun master (and teacher to Bruce Lee) and does so in a wildly appealing style.

Appealing? Why, you ask? Fights, baby. Fights. Intricate, bone-crunching and impeccably filmed, the fights in this film are as good as screen fights can be. For someone like me who got into this stuff because of the incredible fight and stunt work done in the 1980s and early 1990s, seeing the tight choreography on display here was a real joy. While the wuxia flavored, art-house favorites like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Hero, and House of Flying Daggers and the effects heavy, comic book stories like The Storm Riders and Seven Swords are absolutely adored here at DrunkenFist manor, they don't really produce the same visceral impact that a film like this does. With the recent exception of Jet Li's Fearless, that impact has really been missing since 1994, the end of the last great martial arts movie boom.

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I went to the Brattle Monday and checked out Ashes of Time Redux, Wong Kar Wai's "definitive" version of his 1994 wuxia pian. Fifteen years and three distinct versions of the movie later, Ashes of Time is still a baffling, yet strangely beautiful film.
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I guess you can't really know what a joy it is to see these Shaw Brothers films presented in clear, remastered editions without having been around in the pre-Celestial era where the only way to see these incredible films was on 2nd and 3rd generation dubbed bootlegs. Clear transfers, Chinese language and novelties like translated songs and signs make for a well-deserved, first class viewing experience.

That said, while I eventually came around I wasn't that into The Deadly Breaking Sword, a Ti Lung, Alexander Fu Sheng starring feature, for nearly sixty minutes of its running time. It started out promisingly enough with a strong opening set-piece and a very creative "hook" (the titular "Deadly Breaking Sword") and then it proceeded to meander a bit through the next hour.
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There are worse ways to start off my year in movies than with a film like The Warrior From Shaolin. Sure it was dubbed and it's not the greatest martial arts movie from the era, but it's still got plenty of classic old school fight choreography to keep me occupied. It also features Lau Kar-Fai and Eric Tsang- two personal favorites. Lau, of course, is the focus. He once again proves why he's one of the greatest screen fighters of all time, with 90 minutes of sharp action. Tsang is along for comic relief and, sad to say, it's not one of his best performances in that regard, but it's still fun to watch him so early in his career.

Did I mention that watching a ton more martial arts movies was one of my New Year's resolutions? It is.

Good start!