I've seen plenty of kung-fu movies. I've almost exhausted the supply in my local Blockbuster looking for more of them, and I'm always willing to sit down and watch one, even going so far in my obsession as to travel across the state to show Five Deadly Venoms to a love-interest. The romance never panned out, but the fandom did.

As much good kung-fu I have seen in these movies, I have seen about one third as much bad. For as large a body of work as this genre encompasses, that's an excellent ratio, however, for as large a body of work as this genre encompasses, a renter may watch his limit of horrible kung-fu and never return for more. Knowing what makes a kung-fu movie good is important!

So what makes a kung-fu movie a good one? The answers may surprise you, because unlike other movies where acting, or plot, or direction make a difference, all of these things mean little to nothing in kung-fu. Some necessities:

Skill. I've been told that kung-fu in Chinese simply means "skill." So one can easily have good cooking kung-fu, or kung-fu in juggling or taking notes. Tell everyone that your kung-fu is excellent! When characters in the movie talk about it however, they only mean skill in martial arts or killing. If they mean anything else, that's a mark against. On the same lines, the actors, stuntmen, and choreographers must have good skill, or else the movie will be unwatchable. Certainly there are elements of plot and style in the movie, but try watching one with no fighting in it. Right.

Choreography. Worth a second or third mention. You can get the finest martial artists to look like flopping fools with poor choreography. You can make your average shmo look like a hardened Sifu with good choreography. Its all about the way they move. They must have shapes. Unfortunately there's little telling whether or not this will happen in a movie or not before watching it. It will be obvious, however, when you find one without. Take 18 Weapons of Kung Fu as an example. I should mention that I have no kung-fu training, and no reason to be able to judge the quality of kung-fu action, and yet I can, and you will too.

Characters. I list this as a necessity, though it would seem to be obvious. A movie without characters, Kaz? I tell you, yes, there can be such a movie. When all of the actors portray not characters but stereotypes or roles, this is a bland movie. The drunkard is a drunkard, the rambunctious youth a rambunctious youth, the villain a villain. They need to have a narrative, some reason for doing all this cooky fighting. It can be a ludicrous or weak narrative "let's eat, then we will plan revenge" but it needs to be there. Putting ninjas in your movie for no reason reeks of this poor choice of characterization I am talking about. The tendency with more recent film has been toward emphasis on characters and story, which takes away some of the fighting, but secures bonus points for the film. Watching a fight out of context can be fun, but will be thrilling if you have made an emotional investment in one of the fighters. That's character.

Art. Completely unnecessary. The movies we are talking about are not academy award winners (as if that rewards art anyway), or Cannes favorites. This is pulp, cult film. None of the good/bad criterion I list regard the symbolism, message, or beauty of the film as a work of art. Each, in its own right, is a work of art, but not for the same reasons that, say, Spirited Away is. The art of a kung-fu movie is in its holding to the practices and teaching of martial arts: your audience is your opponent. To entertain them you must defeat them. To defeat them you must know them. Know that they like kung-fu action.

Plot. I admit, plot takes a backseat to action. As kenpo teaches, "only action is action." In the same way you need some characterization, you need some reason for them to be running around, seeking revenge, fighting each other. There are great kung-fu movies that have a broad range of plot levels and emphasis, but there is not one good one that has no plot at all.

Acting. Also unnecessary. I cannot speak Cantonese or Mandarin, so I will never be able to judge the speaking quality of the actors on screen. The crappy English dubbing promotes the idea that these people cannot act at all, which may be true sometimes, but has no effect on the movie quality as a whole. It is important only that the audience get some sense of plot and characters, to accomplish this you can have the worlds worst actors. Its when the action stars start thinking that they are actors that you run into problems. Jackie Chan for instance. Direction factors into this too. The director's role is ultimately secondary to that of the choreographer.

That pretty much covers what every good kung-fu movie needs about the same way that every book needs to have words in it. Stylistic choice is important, and what you can expect to see in these movies is well worth discussing:

The Soundtrack. There will be music, and it will make you hurt. Sometimes awkward or misplaced, or utterly absent, the soundtrack will carry you through fight sequences with powerful drums, through traveling sequences with flute and harp, or through anything else with absolutely anything else you can imagine. I have watch scenes introducing the villain of the piece with nothing more than him exercising to the sounds of this goofy pulsing techno noise. The soundtrack has no rules, and even if it is horrid, or random, or hard to listen to, it can be endearing: a part of the style of the genre that you get used to after awhile.
 Sometimes different characters will have their own theme music, like pro-wrestling. They appear, you hear their song. Or maybe the lead gets the upper hand in a fight, you'll know it for sure when his theme is playing. One important theme song to know is that of Wong Fei-Hung, legendary hero of China.

The People. These are characters that seem to come up everywhere. The writers use legendary names to make us understand what kind of person the character is. Wong Fei-Hung is always a teacher, doctor, and hero. We know this as soon as we hear his name, or as soon as his music, Legendary Hero of China, starts playing. Pai Mei is always a wicked and highly skilled monk with bright bright white hair and a long moustache. I have never seen the pair in a single movie, but I'm sure its happened somewhere considering how often they appear (Fei-Hung more than Mei, the bitch is everywhere doing everything). Even movies that have no characters named Fei-Hung will sometimes use his theme music. Someday I will learn about this man outside of a kung-fu movie context, or otherwise piece his life and times together from a kung-fu movie context. People also includes actors. If you find a movie with an actor you like, and then see his name in another movie, chances are its a good one. This property does not hold true for general movie watching, or for Jackie Chan (because he has over time become more of an actor than a kung-fu movie actor). I have never seen, for example, Jet Li in a kung-fu movie I didn't like, even going so far as to say I like Lethal Weapon 4, and The One in a kung-fu movie kind of way.

The Hero. You will probably be made aware of who the good guy or guys are early on. You will follow this hero though his travels and training. You will like his style of fighting over others. You will appreciate his theme music more than others. You will reel when he gets hurt and feel satisfied when he delivers a solid blow. There is little alteration from this form, all of it good. Get used to seeing the hero lose early on, find a master to train him, or find a new willingness in an old master, train in the most absurd ways conceivable, and discover the impossibly difficult and unbeatable technique that is the only way to defeat the villain, about whom you will know relatively little. The best movies are the ones that modify this form, or even disregard it completely (who is really the main character in Against the Drunken Cat Paws or the real villain in Revenge of the Tai Chi Master?)

The Impossible. Sometimes the movie focuses on symbolic fighting or impossible feats (like Legend of the Swordsman) making the action more rhetorical than representative, but usually impossible feats crop up somewhere along the line. I'm not talking about the general presentation that everybody seems to be able to flip and punch, or that the main character can withstand unbelievable pain without really getting hurt. Those are all taken as the general suspension of disbelief. I'm talking about people running up walls, throwing needles through stone, superheating their own bodies, forging their body parts as iron, bending swords against their skin, dodging arrows or bullets or missiles, or (mundane sounding at this point) flying. The goal is to make these impossible feats seem perfectly ordinary to the audience, often to great success. Of course the Invincible Monk can make his shoe fly around and kick people's asses when he's half way across the country, that's what he does. Many of these movies grace or wax the notion of superheroes, although none seems to use that as a base of reference. I would not, for example, criticize X-Men as a kung-fu movie. The best impossible feats are based on less extraordinary actual feats, which are amazing to see in person.

The Villain. He's evil. He will be defeated. Often he has something going for him that makes him personally a tough customer, or will otherwise whip the hero mercilessly early in the movie. He perpetuates the cycle of revenge. Some of the best movies distort the role of villain, or make him just some guy with a bunch of really tough bodyguards. The traditional kung-fu movie ends immediately after the villain is defeated, sometimes not even letting him hit the ground before showing you "The End."