The 5 Best & Worst Movies With Hapkido In Them
When we think of martial arts movies, hapkido is pretty near the bottom of the list. Perhaps this is due to it being Korean, with most or if not all martial arts movies being made either in Hong Kong or Japan. Whilst Hollywood has made some blockbuster titles in recent years, they mostly surround the life stories of famous martial artists or events. Hapkido does not have a rich history compared to wing chun, or at least if it does – we aren’t really aware of these stories in the west.
Therefore you have to dig quite hard to find some decent (or any) movies with hapkido in them. In all fairness, hapkido still looks really good when portrayed in movies. It is not a million miles away from wing chun or general kung fu when you think about the similarities in style. Perhaps if there was ever a resurgence in popularity, we may see the hapkido equivalents of Ip Man in the future.
For now, due to the stagnant popularity of hapkido in modern day. We will have to make do with what we have, which is really not a bad selection, but certainly not abundant either.
Table of Contents
#1 Lady Kung Fu (aka Hapkido)
Depending on where you are in the world this movie will have either name. The movie features a young Angela Mao & Jackie Chan moving to China to set up their own Hapkido school. “The Black Bear Gang” (I know it made me scared too), are not happy about this and view hapkido as an inferior martial art. It has some scenes very similar to Enter The Dragon with a lot of circle fighting. The hero/ine is in the middle fighting 8 guys who attack one at a time. Whilst this movie did actually remove Enter The Dragon off #1 position in the US box office at some point – I really don’t know how. With that being said, it’s not a serious movie, as martial arts movies shouldn’t be. At one point in the film, Angela Mao beats up a guy with her hair…
#2 Intergalactic Combat
Perhaps the best worst film I have ever seen – yes, you did read that correctly.
This film is unbelievable, in the sense that I have no idea why it was made. I can’t tell you how good the hapkido is in the movie since I couldn’t sit through it all. Released in 2007, it looks like it has been made on microsoft clip art in 1995. Some of the backgrounds and special effects are absolutely horrendous. Remember, The Matrix was released in 1999, some 8 years before this movie which stuns me why they thought this would be a good idea. It honestly is one of the weirdest plots I have ever seen. The premise of the movie is that various fighters from earth must beat aliens from other planets in order to join a galactic federation. If this was truly it, I wouldn’t want to join!
#3 Billy Jack
Billy Jack is a hapkido master (although his belt is never seen) and goes around town beating people up. Ok, there is a little bit more to it than this, but it’s not far from the truth. Billy Jack is pretty much the wild west version of batman but without the batmobile or batsuits. He sees injustice and then he puts it right. The movie has some terrible acting throughout but is not awful. It was really a massive success when first released in 1971 with the budget coming in at only $800k, whilst it generated over $30 million in VHS rentals. The hapkido is pretty good throughout and you can see Billy Jack truly knows what he is doing. If you want to check it out, the DVD is available for $5.
#4 The Trial Of Billy Jack
If you’re wondering which of the Billy Jack movies to watch, definitely choose the first one. Whilst this one still contains the same level of hapkido fight scenes. The plot is really bad, and you can see this movie was released as a sequal to make money. It succeded in doing so by generating $90 million in sales but killing the series dead with its final installment. The story is pretty cheesy in the first place, so I am not quite sure why the director started trying to make heavy issues with topics such as PTSD from the Vietnam war a feature of the film. It is almost 3 hours long and actually (probably unfairly) was once voted one of the 50 worst films of all time! There is a cool scene with the use of hapkido cane form though, which is nice to see.
#5 The Art of War III : Retribution
The movie has been called “complete garbage” with the leading actors having “no charisma”. A statement that I cannot disagree with or disprove. Another horror on the list, The art of war 3 really is that bad. The plot is based on the border of Korea where there are some shady goings-on between the United Nations and North Korea. Anyway, the film basically has a really boring pace, its hapkido fight scenes aren’t that good and the acting is really bad as already mentioned. It went straight to DVD but probably should have gone straight to the garbage can. Perhaps if North Korea nuked the movie studio to stop this from being released we wouldn’t feel so negatively towards them!
