The action film is a film genre that predominantly features chase sequences, fights, shootouts, explosions, and stunt work. The specifics of what constitutes an action film has been in scholarly debate since the 1980s. While some scholars such as David Bordwell suggested they were films that favor spectacle to storytelling, others such as Goeff King stated they allow the scenes of spectacle to be attuned to story telling. Action films are often hybrid with other genres, mixing into various forms ranging to comedies, science fiction films, and horror films.
While the term "action film" or "action adventure film" has been used as early as the 1910s, the contemporary definition usually refers to a film that came with the arrival of New Hollywood and the rise of antiheros 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 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.
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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, the genre is regularly lambasted for favoring spectacle over finely tuned narrative."[1] 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."[2]
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.[3] Soberson wrote that repeated traits of the genre include chase sequences, fights, shootouts, explosions, and stunt work while other scholars asserted there were more underlying traits that define the genre.[3] David Bordwell in The Way Hollywood Tells It wrote that audiences are "told that spectacle over rides narrative" in action cinema while Wheeler Winston Dixon echoed that these films were typified by "excessive spectacle" as a "desperate attempt to mask the lack of content."[2][4] Geoff King argued that the spectacle can also be a vehicle for narrative, opposed to interfering with it.[5] 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."[3]
O'Brien wrote further in his book Action Movies: The Cinema of Striking Back to suggest action films being unique and not just 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 the image of Indiana Jones in Raiders swinging his whip to fend off villains in the backstreets of Cairo.[6]
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.[7] Films have been described "action films" or "action-adventure film" as early as the 1910s, while Paul Willemen wrote that prior to the mid-1980s, action was a descriptive term applied to a wide variety of genres. Using Variety as reference, "action" was used to infer a characteristic of certain films, likes referring to films as "nudies" with a lot of naked bodies exposed, that a film was made with or without "extra action".[3][8]
The first Chinese-language martial arts films can be traced to Shanghai cinema of 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.[9] He wrote that they lacked the kind of dazzling action choreography as expected today and had crude and rudimentary special effects.[9] 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 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.[10] Yip continued that these Hong Kong films were still lagging behind in aesthetic and technical standards that films from the United States, Europe and Japan had during this period.[11]
Yip described Japanese cinema as the advanced in Asia at the time. This was showcased with the international breakthrough of Akira Kurosawa's films like Rashomon (1950).[11] During this period was the popularity of the chanbara in Japan, a sub-genre to the jidai-geki, or period drama with an emphasis on sword fighting and action.[12] It had 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).[13] 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.[11] New literary sources also developed in martial arts films of this period, with 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 over seas. This led to a growing demand in both local and regional markets in 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.[14] 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 the Red Lotus (1965) and King Hu's Come Drink with Me (1966).[15]
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.[17] 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.[18] The popularity of kung fu films and Bruce Lee led to attract 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.[16] 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.[16] Kung Fu comedies appeared featuring Jackie Chan as martial arts films flourished into 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.[16] 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.[19] The release of Ang Lee's Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000) led to 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 and Chen Kaige's The Promise (2005).[20] 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 the earlier work of directors like Woo and Johnnie To.[21] 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).[22]
Yvonne Tasker reiterated this in her book on action and adventure films, stating that action films became a distinct genre during the New Hollywood period of the 1970s.[23] 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: the formative, the classical, the postclassical and neoclassical phases.[24] 0852c4b9a8
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