Misplaced Pages

#666333

139-448: The Transporter (French: Le Transporteur ) is a 2002 English-language French action film directed by Corey Yuen and Louis Leterrier from a screenplay by Luc Besson and Robert Mark Kamen . It is the first installment in the Transporter franchise and stars Jason Statham in the title role, alongside Shu Qi , François Berléand and Matt Schulze . In the film, Frank Martin ,

278-491: A James Cameron protege who worked with Cameron on True Lies , The Abyss , and Terminator 2: Judgment Day . The film was shown in theaters before feature films in November 2002. Nissan offered a DVD of the film for $ 9.95. In 2004, Mercedes-Benz released The Porter , a 15-minute film by director Jan Wentz, starring Max Beesley and Bryan Ferry . A few years later, Bombardier Recreational Products company introduced

417-489: A 6-issue comic book limited series based on the main character of the films. The books were written by Kurt Busiek , Bruce Campbell , Katsuhiro Otomo , and Mark Waid as well as other comic book talents. Only four books were produced. "Tycoon" was the last book released (in December 2005). While the comics are still able to be purchased in collector shops and some comic book stores, they are no longer available for purchase on

556-750: A British mercenary driver living in France , finds himself involved in a human trafficking plot. The Transporter premiered at the Regency Village Theatre in Los Angeles on 2 October 2002 and was first theatrically released in the United States on 11 October by 20th Century Fox , and in France on 23 October by EuropaCorp . It received mixed reviews from critics with praise for its action sequences and Statham's performance. It grossed $ 43.9 million worldwide and

695-505: 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 (2004) and Chen Kaige 's The Promise (2005). 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

834-561: A cliff, but Lai shoots her father to save Frank, as Tarconi and the police rescue the people from the containers. The film was inspired by the short film series The Hire , which were produced as a promotional effort by BMW . Filming took place in on-location in the South of France : in Nice , Cassis , Saint-Tropez , Marseille , and Cannes . Jason Statham performed most of his own physical and driving stunts. Shu Qi spoke almost no English when she

973-570: A dark action/comedy piece by Tony Scott called Beat the Devil . The movie, shot in Scott's trademark pseudo-psychedelic style, featured James Brown enlisting the Driver to take him to Las Vegas to re-work a decades-old deal he made with the devil which evidently gave Brown his "fame and fortune". Some differences were evident. Whereas the first season was serious and subdued with tiny bursts of action and comedy,

1112-436: A fight sequence. In the 1980s, American martial arts films reflected the national move towards conservatism, reflected in films of Chuck Norris and other actors such as Sho Kosugi . The genre would shift from theatrical releases towards the end of the decade with the rise of home video, the lower box-office of American martial arts productions, and a significant portion of direct-to-video action films that first were made in

1251-518: A free DVD for customers who visited certain BMW dealerships. Due to demand, BMW ran out of DVDs. In September, BMW and Vanity Fair magazine collaborated to distribute a second DVD edition of The Hire in the magazine. The Vanity Fair disc did not include Wong Kar-Wai's The Follow . Forest Whitaker had an uncredited part in The Follow and had only agreed to be in the film if it were shown exclusively on

1390-437: 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. 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 . Kung Fu comedies appeared featuring Jackie Chan as martial arts films flourished into

1529-421: A hostage situation. A disgruntled employee has kidnapped a CEO and has hidden her, demanding $ 5,088,042 for her release. The Driver delivers the money, writing the sum on his hand as instructed by the hostage taker, and is then ordered to burn the money. As he complies, the federal agents break in and attempt to subdue the man, who shoots himself in the head without revealing the woman's location. The Driver surmises

SECTION 10

#1732848247667

1668-675: A knife against the opponents were edited, and the scene where he throws Wall Street out of the truck; the French release has him crushed under its wheels, whilst the American/international release has him simply thrown out onto the road. The film was released on VHS and DVD on 15 April 2003, and on Blu-ray on 14 November 2006. † indicates that the song did not appear in the film The original score were composed by Stanley Clarke and Alexandre Azaria (for "Love Rescue" and "Transfighter"). Review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes gives

1807-500: A moving train, while the Devil's car (a flamed Pontiac Firebird ) crashes and explodes. Having won the race, the Driver leaves James Brown in the desert, but as he drives away he sees him as a young man again. The final scene shows Marilyn Manson , who lives down the hall from the Devil, complaining that the noise is disturbing his Bible reading. Four smaller movies, dubbed "The Subplot Movies" were shot and directed by Ben Younger . Lacking any real style (and appearing to be shot with

1946-609: A party in Las Vegas, Nevada. After the disappearance of geneticist Dr. Nora Phillips, the Molecular Genetics company's illegal activities in human cloning become exposed and the FBI raids the facility. One surviving specimen, Lily, is escorted by a ruthless mercenary named Holt to be delivered to an unknown client. The Driver is hired to transport the package with Holt accompanying him, along with an armed convoy of other mercenaries. When

2085-543: A propensity for violent action, identified with the films of Chang Cheh . Violent female characters have been part of cinema since its early inception, with characters such as Kate Kelly brandishing a shotgun in The Story of the Kelly Gang (1906). Women traditionally appear in action films as romantic interests, tomboys , or sidekicks to male protagonists. Violent white women would appear in other genres as well such as

2224-579: A series of short movies on the Internet which showcased their "Sea-Doo" line of personal water craft (PWC) while Covad Business also constructed a campy internet horror film based on their products called The Ringing with the intent of showcasing VoIP technology. The Transporter was also based on The Hire film series as Luc Besson has said in interviews. In fact, many of the elements seen in The Hire were incorporated into The Transporter , right down to

2363-725: A significant portion. These films include Taxi 2 (2000), Kiss of the Dragon (2001), District 13 (2004) and Unleashed (2005). Whan asked about the Americanization of these French films, Christophe Gans , director of Brotherhood of the Wolf (2001) stated that "Hollywood ownership of certain elements [...] must be challenged, in order to show that these elements have also long been present in European culture." The most significant producers of French action films with international ambitions

2502-653: 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). 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. New literary sources also developed in martial arts films of this period, with

2641-406: A single genre and that streaming services such as Amazon Prime and Netflix similarly dilutes what is marketed and received as action. 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. The roots of action films extend into the beginning of film but it

2780-434: A standard consumer-level DV-cam), they were designed to "fill in the gaps" between the five films and featured a man who appeared to be tracking the Driver, finding "clues" usually scribbled, in pen, on small pieces of paper. The films, at first glance, have no real connection to the Driver movies at all and made no real sense – they contained "clues" that were part of an alternate reality game that would lead intuitive fans to

2919-516: A third (and final) DVD compilation of The Hire . The new DVD made its debut at The Palais des Festival during the 2003 Cannes Film Festival and contained all eight movies, including Wong Kar-Wai's previously absent The Follow . Once again, the disc became available at select dealerships but fans could also obtain the disc for a nominal shipping fee via the BMW Films website. During the last quarter of 2004, Dark Horse Comics and BMW planned to publish

SECTION 20

#1732848247667

3058-451: A three-act structure centered on survival, resistance and revenge with narratives where the physical body of the hero is tested, traumatized and ultimately triumphant. The third shift in action cinema, the postclassical, was defined by the predominance of Eastern cinema and its aesthetics, primarily the wire-work of Hong Kong action cinema from the classical era, through the convention of the increasingly computer generated effects. This saw

3197-594: A tough police officer protects society by upholding the law against systematic corruption. This extended into films which O'Brien described as "knee-jerk responses" to perceived threats with rogue cop and vigilante films such as Dirty Harry (1971) and Death Wish (1974) where the restoration of order is only possible by force and antisocial characters prepared to act when society does not. The vigilantism reappears in other films that were exploitative of southern society such as Billy Jack (1971) and White Lightning (1973) and "good ol' boy" comedies like Smokey and

3336-459: A week before the film's internet debut. The party, co-hosted by Vanity Fair , was also a charity and benefit for the homeless. A month after the premiere of Beat the Devil , DirecTV began airing the entire series in half-hour loops for five weeks, on one of the blank satellite channels the system offered. The films were a success and, as a result, DirecTV considered using blank channels to air other companies' ads. In 2003, BMW decided to make

3475-416: A wider historical and cultural field. In their book Action Cinema Since 2000 (2024), Tasker, Lisa Purse, and Chris Holmlund stated that thinking of action as a mode is more helpful than thinking of it as a genre. The three authors suggested that action frames a certain manner of filmmaking and viewing exceed genre without eclipsing it stating that websites such as IMDb and Misplaced Pages rarely label films by

3614-456: Is Luc Besson 's France-based EuropaCorp , who released films like Taxi (1998) and From Paris with Love (2010). EuropaCorp produced Transporter franchise starred British actor Jason Statham and made him an action film star, which led him to feature in The Expendables series by the end of the 2010s. The action film genre has been a staple of Bollywood cinema . In the 1970s,

3753-569: Is a generic term to refer to several types of films containing martial arts. The wuxia film is the oldest genre in Chinese cinema. Stephen Teo wrote in his book on Wuxia that there is no satisfactory English translation of the term, with it often being identified as "the swordplay film" in critical studies. It is derived from the Chinese words wu denoting militarist or martial qualities and xia denoting chivalry, gallantry, and qualities of knighthood. The term wuxia entered into popular culture in

3892-409: Is a highly-proficient professional driver of BMW automobiles. The plot of each film varies, but all involve the Driver being hired to perform tasks for various clients, typically to transport important individuals and/or cargo while evading pursuing antagonists. While escorting an elderly man in the middle of the night, the Driver is confronted by a van full of armed thieves and is told that the old man

4031-406: Is alive. Tarconi questions Frank about the bombing of his car, which Frank claims was stolen, and Lai supports his alibi by introducing herself as his girlfriend. Tarconi leaves, and Wall Street's men attack the house with missiles and automatic weapons , but Frank and Lai narrowly escape through an underwater passage to a nearby safe house where Lai seduces Frank. Later, while being questioned at

4170-470: Is arrested. Tarconi suggests Frank take matters into his own hands, posing as his hostage to allow him to escape police custody. Recovering a weapons stash from his boat at the harbour of Cassis , Frank tracks the criminals to the Marseille docks, where the containers full of people depart on trucks. Chased to a bus depot, Frank fights his way through the thugs in a motor oil-drenched melee before escaping into

4309-702: Is based on Twin Dragons (1992). Other films such as the martial arts film Bhadrachlam (2001), borrows from American cinema with the Jean-Claude Van Damme film Kickboxer (1989). SS Rajamouli 's RRR (2022) was among the highest budgeted films made in India, and became a rare hit film outside of Indian diaspora, where it broke box office records in Japan and performed exceptionally well in American box office. Japan

The Transporter - Misplaced Pages Continue

4448-412: Is carrying a large amount of diamonds. The old man claims to have swallowed the diamonds and that the men will likely cut him open to retrieve them. The Driver decides to save his client and attempts to evade the van while being shot at. The Driver eventually baits the thieves into dying in a collision with a parked bulldozer. The Driver delivers the old man to his destination and asks if he really swallowed

4587-442: Is chosen by a spoiled and shallow celebrity to drive her to a venue. Unbeknownst to her, her manager has actually hired the Driver to teach the celebrity a lesson. Pretending to escape her pursuing bodyguards, the Driver drives recklessly through the city, tossing the hapless celebrity all around the backseat. They eventually arrive at the venue, where she is thrown out of the car and photographed by paparazzi in an embarrassing end on

4726-506: Is given a briefcase to transport. As Frank stops to buy drinks for the cops in his trunk, a bomb in the briefcase explodes. A vengeful Frank returns to Wall Street's villa, killing several henchmen and stealing a Mercedes-Benz S-Klasse , only to find "the package" hiding in the back seat. He brings the young woman, Lai, to his home, where she discovers he is a decorated former special operations soldier. Wall Street visits one of his surviving men in hospital, killing him after discovering Frank

4865-452: Is hired to deliver a 50 kilograms (110 lb) package to American client Darren "Wall Street" Bettencourt. While changing a flat tire, Frank realizes the package contains a person; he violates his third rule in order to give the captive something to drink, and discovers a woman bound and gagged. She attempts to escape, but Frank recaptures her and is forced to subdue two policemen who spot them. Frank delivers her to Wall Street as promised, and

5004-442: Is itself empowering and, if not, whether a hypersexualized female character can still represent strength and autonomy. Hypersexualized female action leads had tight fitting or revealing costumes that Tasker identified as "exaggerated statements of sexuality" and in the tradition of "fetishistic figure of fantasy" derives from comic books and soft pornography . This originated in television with characters like Buffy Summers ( Buffy

5143-479: The Houston Chronicle , said, "It's junk with a capital J. The sooner you realize that, the more quickly you can settle down to enjoying it." Action film 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 anti-heroes appearing in American films of

5282-521: The Los Angeles Times , complimented the action, saying, "[Statham] certainly seems equipped to develop into a mid-weight alternative to Vin Diesel . That's particularly true if he keeps working with director Corey Yuen , a Hong Kong action veteran whose talent for hand-to-hand mayhem is truly something to see." Roger Ebert wrote, "Too much action brings the movie to a dead standstill." Eric Harrison, of

5421-568: The femme fatales in film noir and horror films of the 1970s. Violent women were common in action films since the 1960s. These films featured working-class women exacting revenge. Films of the 1970s featured black women such as Pam Grier in films like Foxy Brown (1974). In the 1980s, a new symbolically transgressive character emerged in the form of Ellen Ripley in Aliens (1986) and Sarah Connor in Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991) and

5560-540: The Bollywood action film consolidated with two films starring Amitabh Bachchan : Prakash Mehra 's Zanjeer (1973) and Yash Chopra 's Deewaar (1975). The box office success of these films made Bachchan a star and spawned the "angry young man" film in Bollywood cinema. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, the action genre film declined considerably with new films predominantly featuring former bodybuilders failing to reach

5699-512: The Devil to re-negotiate the deal he made as a young man, in which he traded his soul for fame and fortune. James is worried about his aging and the fact he can no longer perform like he used to. To renew his contract, James proposes that they have a drag race on the Las Vegas Strip at dawn, wagering the Driver's soul for another 50 years of success. The race ends with the Driver swerving to pass

The Transporter - Misplaced Pages Continue

5838-508: The Hong Kong action cinema , such melodramatic male bonding and marginalized women characters, while the Korean films also have greater elements of tragedy and romance emphasized. Most martial arts films made before the mid-1960s were Cantonese-language productions. In comparison, Mandarin-language films were an integral part of Hong Kong cinema due to the influx of Shanghai film talent in

5977-554: The September 11 attacks in 2001, which suggested an end to fantastical elements that defined the action hero and genre. Following the release of Quentin Tarantino 's Kill Bill: Volume 1 (2003) and Kill Bill: Volume 2 (2004) revisited the tropes of 1970s action films leading a renaissance of vengeance narratives in films like The Brave One (2007) and Taken (2008). O'Brien found that Tarantino's films were post-modern takes on

6116-501: 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 overseas. This led to a growing demand in both local and regional markets in

6255-428: The 1960s with films like The Born Losers (1967) which was predominantly a drama, interspersed with martial arts scenes. American martial arts films predominantly came into production following the release of Enter the Dragon (1973), with the only higher-budgeted American film to follow in its wake being The Yakuza (1974). Lott noted the two films would lead to the two subsequent styles of martial arts films in

6394-593: The 1970s. James Monaco wrote in 1979 in American Film Now: The People, The Power, The Money, the Movies that "the lines that separate on genre from another have continued to disintegrate." Tasker said that most post-classical action films are hybrids, drawing from genres as varied as war films, science fiction , horror , crime, martial arts , and comedy films . In Chinese-language films, both wuxia and kung fu are genre-specific terms, while martial arts

6533-768: 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. 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 . The release of Ang Lee 's Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000) led to

6672-702: The 21st century have been comic book adaptations, which commenced with the X-Men and is seen in other series such as Spider-Man , and Iron Man series. Tasker wrote that despite the central characters in superhero cinema being extraordinary, occasionally even God-like, they often followed the traces of the central character becoming powerful of which is fundamental to action films, often dealt with origin stories in superhero films. Action films often interface with other genres. Tasker wrote that films are often labelled action thrillers, action-fantasy and action-adventure films with different nuances. Tasker later discussed that

6811-413: The BMW website. On February 17, 2007, MINI (BMW) launched a new short film series called Hammer & Coop . The series is a comedic parody of 1970s action-television shows like Starsky & Hutch and Charlie's Angels , and showcases BMW's Mini Cooper line of cars as the featured product. On September 20, 2016, it was reported that BMW Films has resurrected the series fourteen years after

6950-547: The BMW website. On October 21, 2005, BMW stopped distribution of The Hire on DVD and removed all eight films from the BMW Films website just four years after the first film debuted. The series was abandoned, reportedly because the project had become too expensive. BMW's Vice President of Marketing James McDowell, originator of the BMW Films project, left BMW to become the VP of sales and marketing for BMW's "Mini USA" division. BMW also split from longtime ad partner Fallon Worldwide which

7089-513: The Bandit (1977). This era also emphasizes the car chase scenes as moments of spectacle in films like Bullitt and The French Connection (1971). O'Brien described these films as emphasizing "the fusion of man and machine" with the drivers and vehicles acting as one, concluding with what he described as "the ultimate in apocalyptic modernity and social erasure" in Mad Max 2 (1981). O'Brien described

SECTION 50

#1732848247667

7228-746: The Bollywood press who reported on him in the headlines of Bollywood magazines for his public brawls and affairs with leading actresses. In Dabangg (2010), Khan continued with this public persona, which was repeated in several of his later films such as Ready (2011), Bodyguard (2011), Ek Tha Tiger (2012) and Dabangg 2 (2012). From the 1980s, generations of actors in Telugu cinema have invoked Hong Kong action films, such as Srihari who stated he wanted to become an actor after watching his first Bruce Lee film. Several films in Telugu cinema were remakes of Hong Kong films, such as Hello Brother (1994) which

7367-593: The Dragon briefly allowed an influx of Hong Kong films to Japan, but the trend did not last, with 28 Hong Kong films, mostly kung fu films, being released in 1974, and the number decreasing to five in 1975, four in 1977 and only two in 1978. Ryuhei Kitamura , director of Versus (2000), said in 2004 that he grew frustrated with the Japanese film industry as producers felt they couldn't make action films in competition with Hong Kong or American productions. Versus grew to become popular outside of Japan, and Kitamura said he

7506-408: The Driver realizes that Lily possesses humanity, he forces Holt to get out of the car. The Driver thwarts Holt and his mercenaries in a pursuit and then drives the girl to a harbor, where she is happily reunited with Dr. Phillips—the unknown client that hired the Driver. BMW's idea for the series came from the fact that 85% of its customers shop online before purchasing their cars. If BMW could attract

7645-413: The Driver that the man is an imposter, indicated by his footwear, just visible under his robe. The impostor monk tries to kidnap the child, but the Driver thwarts him and rescues the boy. Before leaving, the Driver opens the gift, which is revealed to be an adhesive bandage for his bleeding ear. The Driver is hired by a nervous manager to spy on a paranoid actor's wife. The Driver narrates while following

7784-597: The Hong Kong film industry after the handover in 1997. Anglophone action film scholarship has tended to emphasize bigger budget American action films, with academics tending to find films that fall out of Hollywood productions as not quite fitting definitions of the genre. By 2024, many national and regional industries were known for action films. These include international films such as Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam , South Korean, Japanese, Thai , Brazilian , Chinese , South African , French and Italian action titles. At

7923-426: The Internet in 2001 and 2002. A form of branded content , the shorts were directed by popular filmmakers from around the globe and starred Clive Owen as "the Driver" while highlighting the performance aspects of various BMW automobiles. The series made a comeback in 2016, fourteen years after its original run ended. This series of short films center on a nameless protagonist, known as "The Driver" ( Clive Owen ), who

8062-443: The Internet. In early 2006, BMW released a line of free "BMW Audiobooks" to take advantage of the growing popularity of portable MP3 players (and the fact that most BMW's came with an iPod dock pre-installed in their vehicles). While the stories had the same pulp-action feel as The Hire , the character of "the Driver" was absent. The audiobooks were free (like the films that preceded them) but are no longer available for download from

8201-427: The Internet. When the movie was released on DVD, Whitaker allegedly exercised an option in his contract which stipulated that the movie would not be released in any other format without authorization from the actor himself. The Vanity Fair disc, in lieu of carrying The Follow , contained a link to the website with instructions to the viewer to watch the movie online. The DVD was highly sought on Internet forums after

8340-802: The Red Lotus (1965) and King Hu 's Come Drink with Me (1966). 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. 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 . The popularity of kung fu films and Bruce Lee led to attract

8479-533: The September 2001 issue of Vanity Fair quickly vanished from shelves and became a rare find. The movies were reviewed by Time Magazine and The New York Times , who praised BMW for creating entertaining content for "discerning movie watchers". The series continued in October 2002, replacing producer David Fincher with Ridley and Tony Scott due to Fincher's continuing work on Panic Room . Season 2 debuted with

SECTION 60

#1732848247667

8618-480: The United States, Europe and Japan had during this period. Yip described Japanese cinema as the most advanced in Asia at the time. This was showcased by the international breakthrough of Akira Kurosawa 's films like Rashomon (1950). The film genre known as the chanbara was at its height in Japan. The style was a sub-genre to the jidai-geki , or period drama with an emphasis on sword fighting and action. It had

8757-406: The United States, with films like Enter the Dragon about people who reveled in combat, often in a tournament setting, and The Yakuza which had several genres attached to it, but featured several martial arts sequences. By the end of the 1970s, the style was an established genre in American cinema, often featuring tough heroic characters who would fight and not think about their actions until after

8896-584: The Vampire Slayer (1997–2003)) and Xena ( Xena: Warrior Princess (1995–2001)). These series popularity demonstrated a growing market for female action film heroes, in films of the 2000s like Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001), Charlie's Angels (2000), Ultraviolet (2006), Salt (2010) and series like Underworld and Resident Evil . These series like their television series earlier, had their leads eroticized as active and physically capable while also being scantily-clad, hyper-feminized similar to

9035-553: The action heroine's dual status of an active subject and sexual object was overturning the traditional gender binary because the films "assume that women are powerful" without resorting to justify her physical aggression through narratives involving maternal drive, mental instability or trauma. Purse found that female leads in films like Elektra (2005), Kill Bill , Underworld , Charlie's Angels and Mr. & Mrs. Smith (2005) did showcase women having expensive cars, clothing, travel, homes and often high-paying jobs, but that this

9174-521: The backstreets of Cairo. British author and academic Yvonne Tasker expanded on this topic, stating that action films have no clear and constant iconography or settings. In her book The Hollywood Action and Adventure Film (2015), she found that the most broadly consistent themes tend to be a characters quest from freedom from oppression such as a hero overcoming enemies or obstacles and physical conflicts or challenge, usually battling other humans or alien opponents. By late 2010s studies of genre analysis,

9313-435: The book Australian Genre Film , Amanda Howell suggested that this label was used to help distance Australian cinema from Hollywood films as it would be suggesting commerce over culture and that it would be "quite unacceptable to make Australian movies using conventions established in the U.S.A." Howell stated this to be the case with action films of the 1970s and 1980s with Brian Trenchard-Smith 's Turkey Shoot (1982) being

9452-541: The border they are confronted by a guard, who becomes hostile when Jacobs is taking pictures and refuses to stop. The Driver drives through a hail of gunfire towards safety, but finds Jacobs has died in the escape. The Driver returns to America to visit Jacobs' mother, returning his dog tags and telling her that Jacobs had won the Pulitzer Prize . The Driver is hired by the Federal Bureau of Investigation to help defuse

9591-550: The classical form of action cinema to be the 1980s. The decade continued the trends of formative period with heroes as avengers ( Lethal Weapon (1987)), rogue police officers ( Die Hard (1988)) and mercenary warriors ( Commando (1985)). Following the continuity of the car and man hybrid of the previous decade, the 1980s featured weaponized men with who were either also carrying weapons such as Sudden Impact (1983), trained to be weapons ( American Ninja (1985)) or imbued with technology ( RoboCop (1987)). O'Brien noted that

9730-435: The country for many years. Should he die, his heir will be a tyrannical army General, whose soldiers had been attempting to stop them the entire time. The Driver finally reaches a military base and brings the heart to waiting surgeons, who successfully save the leader from dying. The General tries to intervene, but realizes he has failed and decides to leave with his men. The Driver is employed by James Brown , who goes to meet

9869-459: The decline of overt masculinity in the action film which corresponded with the end of the Cold War in 1991, while the rise of self-referential and parodies of this era grew in films like Last Action Hero (1993). O'Brien described this era as being soft where the hard bodies of the classical era were replaced with computer generated imagery such as that of Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991). This

10008-406: The diamonds. The client merely chuckles and walks away before the Driver departs. The Driver is hired to protect an Asian holy child who is brought to America by boat. The child gives the Driver a gift, but tells him not to open it yet. After being pursued by kidnappers and being grazed in the ear by a gunshot, he successfully delivers the boy to a waiting monk. However, the child signals silently to

10147-586: 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

10286-546: The direct-to-video field, or in similarly low-budget theatrical releases such as Bulletproof Monk (2003). While the American styled-films were predominantly made in the United States, productions were also made in Australia, Canada, Hong Kong and South Africa, and were predominantly shot in the English-language. Heroic Bloodshed is a that originates with English-language Hong Kong action and crime film fan communities in

10425-487: The earlier work of directors like Woo and Johnnie To . 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). Harvey 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:

10564-432: 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. 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

10703-512: The early forms of the genre appeared in the wake of Kill Bill and The Expendables films. 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." Bordwell echoed this in his book, The Way Hollywood Tells It , writing that

10842-484: The end of the 1990s. Films such as Chunhang (2000) and Memento Mori (2000) and action films Shiri (1999) and Nowhere to Hide (1999) received commercial releases in North America, Asia, and Europe. The success of the latter two films was unprecedented, and was followed by other South Korean action films in the early 2000s reaching the top of the local box office. These South Korean films mimic some traits of

10981-527: The female leads in implausible elements, such as in Charlie's Angels , Fantastic Four (2005) and My Super Ex-Girlfriend (2006). The fighting styles of women also tend towards more traditionally feminine fluid movements of martial arts, over using guns or directly punching. Purse wrote that the contemporary female action film lead's sexualized brand had her in close proximity of post-feminism discourse about choice, power and sexuality. Marc O'Day interprets

11120-462: The film an approval rating of 54% based on 128 reviews, with an average rating of 5.6/10. The site's critics consensus reads: " The Transporter delivers the action at the expense of coherent storytelling." At Metacritic , the film received a weighted average score of 51 out of 100, based on 27 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B+" on an A+ to F scale. Manohla Dargis , of

11259-414: The following films were voted the top ten best action films of all time. In Hong Kong, the "new school" of martial arts films that Shaw Brothers brought in 1965 featured what featured what Yip described as "strong, active female characters as protagonists." These female-centered films were challenged with the rise of a new male heroic prototype marked by a strong sense of youthful energy and defiance and by

11398-448: The formative trends at this point had become "identifiably generic" as film industries began to reproduced these films during the decade producers like Joel Silver and production companies like The Cannon Group, Inc. began to formulate production of these films with both high and low budgets. The action films of this era have roots in classical story telling, specifically rooted from martial arts films and Westerns, and are built around

11537-598: The formative, the classical, the post-classical and neoclassical phases. Yvonne Tasker reiterated this in her book on action and adventure films , saying that action films became a distinct genre during the New Hollywood period of the 1970s. The formative films would be from the 1960s to the early 1980s where the Anti-hero appears in cinema, featuring characters who act and transcend the law and social conventions. This appears initially in films like Bullitt (1968) where

11676-540: The former was one of the highest-grossing movies of the year in Japan. Following LoveDeath , Kitamura's next directing work was in the United States. The action cinema of South Korea mostly existed on the margins of the film industry in South Korea. The genre was initially called the Hwalkuk ("living theatre") was a term that indicated plays and films driven by action scenes, while this term has not been used regularly since

11815-517: The genre. David Bordwell in The Way Hollywood Tells It wrote that audiences are "told that spectacle overrides 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." Geoff King argued that the spectacle can also be a vehicle for narrative, opposed to interfering with it. Soberson stated that Harvey O'Brien had "perhaps

11954-430: The ground. While heroes in kung fu films often display chivalry, they generally hail from different fighting schools, namely wudang and shaolin . American martial arts films feature what author M. Ray Lott described as a more realistic style of violence over the Hong Kong wuxia films with more realism and are often low-budget productions. Martial arts began routinely appearing in fight scenes in American films in

12093-520: 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. He wrote that they lacked the kind of dazzling action choreography as expected today and had crude and rudimentary special effects. 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

12232-400: 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

12371-564: The late 1970s, with "action movie" becoming the more familiar term. The Korean action films came from Japanese cinema, James Bond series , and Hong Kong action cinema. As North Korea borders China, it block access to the continent from a South Korean perspective, the Cold War allowed South Koreans to substitute deferred travel beyond the border through films with locations shot in Hong Kong. While melodrama and comedy were staples in South Korean cinema, most action films were sporadic and tied to

12510-501: The late 1980s and early 1990s. In the Chinese language, the term used for these films is jinghungpin , literally meaning "hero films". Academic Laikwan Pang asserts that these gangster films appeared at a time when Hong Kong citizens felt particularly powerless with the handover of Hong Kong from the United Kingdom to China set for 1997. The key directors of the genre were John Woo and Ringo Lam , and producer Tsui Hark , with

12649-508: The late 1980s and early 1990s. Author Bey Logan stated that the term was coined by Rick Baker, in the British fanzine Eastern Heroes . The term is used broadly. Baker described the style as Hong Kong action films which feature gangsters and gunplay and martial arts that were more violent than kung fu films and academic Kristof Van Den Troost described it a term used to distinguish Hong Kong gun-heavy action films from period martial arts films from

12788-431: The late 1980s in the United States were martial arts films. Towards the end of the 1990s, production of low-budget martial arts films declined as no new stars in the genre developed and older actors such as Cynthia Rothrock and Steven Seagal started showing up in less and less films. Even internationally popular films like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000) had negligible effects in American productions in either

12927-507: The leader kills and abandons one of his men. After evading police in a high-speed chase, the leader offers Frank more money to drive them to Avignon , but he refuses; the robbers flee in another car, but are foiled by their amateur driving. At Frank's villa on the French Riviera , local Police Inspector Tarconi questions him about his black BMW 735i , seen at the scene of the robbery, but Frank has carefully disposed of all evidence. Frank

13066-452: The man while under helicopter attack. During the chase, the briefcase is struck by a bullet, causing it to leak grey fluid and the number on its display to begin counting down. The Driver manages to cause the helicopter to crash, but refuses to proceed without knowing the contents of the damaged briefcase. It is revealed that the man guards a human heart that is to be transplanted into the nation's leader, who has brought peace and prosperity to

13205-425: 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." 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

13344-617: The most notorious. Smith had previously released films like Deathcheaters (1976) and Stunt Rock (1979) when financial incentives were available for overtly commercial projects. She commented that action films did tell identifiably Australian stories such as the Sandy Harbutt 's biker film Stone (1974) and Miller's post-apocalyptic film Mad Max (1979) derived from Australia's social and cultural realities, as well as how George Miller 's later Mad Max: Fury Road (2015) derived from Australia's long-standing cinematic fascination with

13483-604: The notion that traditional marks of masculinity are not exclusive to men and that musculature was not natural, but something to be achieved. Accusations of these muscular women of the era were levelled at that them by 1993 were that they were "men in drag" and that the films generally have to "explain" why their female leads displayed physical aggression and why they were "driven to do it." As the 1990s went on, Hollywood films began having more conventional looking women in their action films such as The Long Kiss Goodnight (1996). A vibrant debate exists about whether hypersexualization

13622-468: The original production wrapped, with Clive Owen returning to reprise his role as the Driver. The first episode was revealed to be titled The Escape , which premiered on October 23, 2016, on BMW Films' official website. In 2023 BMW released The Calm , starring Pom Klementieff and Uma Thurman . Produced by Joseph Kosinski and directed by Sam Hargrave , the new film features the BMW i7 M70 . Shortly after

13761-435: The physical effort required to completing a task and the abilities and skills acquired over time. Films from the period reflected on the cultural and social climate from the period, as seen in invoking Japanese or Western imperialist forces as foils. The kung fu film came out of the wuxia films. In comparison to the wuxia , film, the focus on the kung fu film is on the martial arts over chivalry, The martial arts films

13900-435: The police station by Tarconi, Lai accesses his computer to find information on Wall Street. She reveals that he is a human trafficker with 400 Chinese immigrants trapped in shipping containers, and Frank reluctantly agrees to help. They confront Wall Street at his office, where Lai's father, Mr. Kwai, is revealed to be his partner in crime. Tarconi arrives as Wall Street subdues Frank and accuses him of kidnapping Lai, and Frank

14039-567: The popularity Bachan had. These films predominantly earned their revenue through longer runs at B-grade theatres. A cycle of action films came from these films in the 1980s and 1990s called the Avenging Woman film, where female protagonists seek justice for a rape victim, where the protagonist seeks revenge through violence. In 2009, the action genre was re-popularized with the box office success of Wanted (2009) starring Salman Khan . Khan reinvented his screen persona with that of his image in

14178-543: The postwar period. These films were targeted at the more educated and more refined middle-class audiences who saw themselves as above the contemporary martial arts films. Scott Higgins wrote in 2008 in Cinema Journal that Hollywood 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." Bordwell echoed this in his book, The Way Hollywood Tells It , writing that

14317-434: The previous year. The movies were viewed over 11 million times in four months. Two million people registered with the website and a large majority of users, registered to the site, sent film links to their friends and family. The series was originally created by members of famed indie New York City film studio – Shooting Gallery – such as CJ Follini, Paul Speaker, and Eamonn Bowles. The films were so popular that BMW produced

14456-487: The ransom amount is actually the woman's cellphone number, and tracks her location to the trunk of a sinking car. The woman is rescued and brought to the hospital to confront the kidnapper. It is revealed that she and the kidnapper were actually lovers, and the woman coldly tells the kidnapper she only used him for sex before he dies. In an unnamed foreign country, a man carrying a mysterious briefcase survives an ambush en route to his destination. The Driver rescues and escorts

14595-471: The reception to the genre as being "the emblem of what Hollywood does worst." 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. 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

14734-402: The reception to the genre as being "the emblem of what Hollywood does worst." Tasker wrote that when action and adventure films secured awards, it is often in categories such as visual effects and sound editing. Time Out magazine conducted a poll with fifty experts in the field of action cinema, including actors, critics, filmmakers and stuntmen. Out of the 101 films ranked in the poll,

14873-474: The red carpet. In a war-torn Latin-American country, war photographer Harvey Jacobs witnesses a massacre and is wounded trying to escape. The UN assigns the Driver to rescue Jacobs from hostile territory. Jacobs tells the Driver about the horrors he saw as a photographer, and his regrets for being unable to help any victims. He gives the Driver the film needed for a New York Times story and his dog tags , which are to be given to his mother. When they reach

15012-424: The release of the "Subplot Films", reports circulated around the Internet that Apple, Starbucks, BMW Films First Illinois Mortgage, and Susstones' all had a small, hidden link on their website that had a direct connection with the movies. Upon further investigation, three phone numbers and a web address were found in the four films, which led many viewers to call those numbers and go to that website. Thousands took to

15151-447: The right kind of traffic to their website, the type of person who enjoys art films from influential directors and actors, they could translate that into sales. BMW stated that John Frankenheimer's film Ronin served as creative inspiration for The Hire series. On April 26, 2001, John Frankenheimer's Ambush premiered on the BMW Films website and, two weeks later, was followed by Ang Lee's Chosen . Soon after, director Wong Kar-Wai

15290-441: The road and cars and a history of cultural anxiety towards a bleak and forbidding outback landscape opposed to the optimism of American action films. France is a major European country for film production and has made co-production commitments with 44 countries around the world. Around beginning of the 21st century, France began producing a series of films explicitly intended for international markets, with action films representing

15429-505: The second season was all flash and fun. To fit this motif, John Woo and Joe Carnahan were hired to direct Hostage and Ticker , respectively. The other main difference was that, instead of showcasing several different BMW cars (like the first season had done), the only car showcased was the then-new BMW Z4 Roadster . To celebrate the premiere of the second season, BMW threw a party at the ArcLight Hollywood on October 17, 2002, just

15568-516: The serialization of Jinaghu qixia zhuan (1922) ( transl.  Legend of the Strange Swordsmen ). In wuxia , the emphasis is on chivalry and righteousness and allows for phantasmagoric actions over the kung fu film 's more ground-based combat. The Kung fu film emerged in the 1970s from the swordplay films. Its name is derived from the Cantonese term gong fu which has two meanings:

15707-479: The starting point of the genre being traced to Woo's A Better Tomorrow (1986) make a record-breaking HK$ 34.7 million at the Hong Kong box office. The style of these films would influence American productions, such as Michael Bay 's Bad Boys II (2003) and the Wachowskis ' The Matrix (1999). Korean media recognized the more fatalistic and pessimistic tone of these films, leading to Korean journalists to label

15846-433: The style as "Hong Kong noir ". The influence of these films was evident in early Korean films such as Im Kwon-taek 's General's Son (1990) and later films such Song Hae-sung 's A Better Tomorrow (2010), Cold Eyes (2013) and New World (2013). Postcolonial Hong Kong cinema has struggled to maintain its international identity as a provider of these types action films because the talents involved had abandoned

15985-434: The term "genre" itself is often replaced or supplemented with the words "mode" and "narrative form" with all three terms often being used interchangeably. Johan Höglund and Agnieszka Soltysik Monnet said that the difference between these concepts are elusive, but stated that genre could be defined as belonging to specific historical and cultural moments while "mode" and "form" can refer to a larger pattern that operates across

16124-450: The term action film genre and adventure are often used in hybrid, and are even used interchangeably. Along with Holmund and Purse, Tasker wrote that the action films expansiveness complicates easy categorization and though the genre is often spoken of as singular genre, it is rarely discussed as singular style. Screenwriter and academic Jule Selbo expanded on this, describing a film as " crime /action" or an "action/crime" or other hybrids

16263-445: The themes that rescinded irony to restore " cinephile re-actualization of the genre's conventions." The genre went into full circle resurrecting films from the classical period with Live Free or Die Hard (2007) and Rambo (2008) finding the characters navigating a contemporary world while also acknowledging their age, culminating into The Expendables (2010) film. The most commercially successful action films and franchise of

16402-525: The title character in China O'Brien (1990) who were physically muscular and or enacted more extreme violence that was usually reserve for male action leads. In her book Contemporary Action Cinema (2011), Lisa Purse described the media response to female leads in action films reveal a discomfort about their presence and are often described with hesitant terms of women moving into territories that are perceived as masculine. Revealing woman in this form deconstructs

16541-533: The turn of the millennium, Australian genre films have gained increasing acceptance in the Australian feature film industry, while the action genre represented a small percentage of its output in the 21st century. Scholars of Australian genre film generally used the term "action-adventure" which allows them to apply it to various forms of narratives such as tongue in cheek heroic posturing stories like Crocodile Dundee (1986), road movies or bush/outback films. In

16680-422: The use of locations such as Hong Kong. These films often featured one-legged or otherwise handicapped action characters similar to those of Japanese films ( Zatoichi ) and Hong Kong films ( The One-Armed Swordsmen ). These included Im Kwon-taek's Returned Left-Handed Man (1968), Aekkunun Bak's One-Eyd Park (1970) and Lee Doo-yong's Returned One-Legged Man (1974). In the 1990s, the country's national cinema

16819-399: The water. He steals an old car and gives chase at dawn before it breaks down, then commandeers a small airplane and parachutes down to the highway. After a lengthy fight on the moving trucks, Frank throws Wall Street onto the road to his death (in the American version, Wall Street is thrown out of the truck onto the highway), only to be held at gunpoint by Kwai. He marches Frank to the edge of

16958-517: The web, taking place in the hunt but only 250 solved the puzzle, which allowed the lucky few to be entered in a drawing to win a 2003 BMW Z4, seen in Hostage . The final piece of the puzzle was a voicemail, instructing participants to meet with a correspondent in Las Vegas, the site of a VIP Party for BMW where the Grand Prize Z4 was given away to a couple from Bellingham, Washington . The first prize

17097-490: The wife, describing the right methods to survey someone, as well as his fear of what he might learn of the wife's tragic life. He eventually discovers the wife is fleeing the country to return to her mother in Brazil , and that she's been given a black eye—likely by her husband. The Driver returns the job's money to the manager, refuses to tell him where the wife is, and tells him to never call him again before driving off. The Driver

17236-468: The woman of exploitation films of the 1970s such as Caged Heat (1974) and Big Bad Mama (1974). While characters like Frank in The Transporter series are permitted to visibly sweat, strain and be bloodied, Purse found a reluctance for filmmakers to have their female leads have any appearance warping injuries to ensure a perfectly made-up face. Comedy is often used in films of this period to place

17375-448: Was "only a semantic exercise" as both genres are important in the construction phase of the narrative. Mark Bould in A Companion to Film Noir (2013) said that categorization of multiple generic genre labels was common in film reviews who are rarely concerned with succinct descriptions that evoke elements of the film's form, content and make no claims beyond on how these elements combine. Film Studies began to engage generic hybridity in

17514-509: Was a BMW Q3.s mountain bike, awarded to a student from the University of New Hampshire . The game was designed and co-written by Mark Sandau and Russ Stark. Several companies attempted to capitalize on the success of BMW's film series. In 2002, the Nissan car company produced their own short film featuring their newly introduced 350Z . Entitled The Run , the film was directed by John Bruno,

17653-408: Was a difficult market for Hong Kong action cinema to break into. Prompted by the success of Enter the Dragon and the popularity of Bruce Lee, Toei made their own Bruce Lee-style martial arts films, with The Street Fighter and its two sequels starring Sonny Chiba as well as a spin-off with a female lead similar to Hong Kong's Angela Mao called Sister Street Fighter . The success of Enter

17792-466: Was aiming for the foreign audience, as he was disappointed with the current state of Japanese films. Kitamura's characters have been described as "a careful combination of the maverick independence of 1980s Hollywood action heroes and the calmness and acceptance of Japanese samurai, a consistent criticism of Japanese people today." Kitamura followed up Versus with two manga-inspired big-budget action films, Azumi and Sky High . Both released in 2003,

17931-406: Was cast, and had to learn most of her lines phonetically. Director Louis Leterrier originally intended Martin to be gay. However, this angle was dropped during filming, and a sex scene between Martin and Lai was added. The Transporter premiered in 2,573 theaters. With a production budget of $ 20.5 million, it grossed $ 25,296,447 in the United States and a total of $ 43,928,932 worldwide. The film

18070-573: Was cut to receive a PG-13 rating in the United States , and this version was also released in the United Kingdom and several other countries. Japan was the only country besides France to receive the uncut versions. Certain sequences of violence were either cut or toned down for the PG-13 cut. The scenes changed in the American/international release are the fight on the bus, where scenes of Frank using

18209-417: Was displayed in corresponding with corresponded with millennial angst and apocalypticism showcased in films like Independence Day (1996) and Armageddon (1998). Action films of mass destruction began requiring more overtly super heroic characters with further comic book adaptations being made with increased non-realistic settings with films like The Matrix (1999). The fourth phase arrived following

18348-406: Was followed by a sequel, Transporter 2 , in 2005. Frank Martin is a highly skilled driver for less-than-legal jobs in southern France who follows three strict rules: In Nice , Frank is hired as the getaway driver for three bank robbers, but they have brought a fourth man. Explaining that the extra weight will affect his precisely planned escape, Frank refuses to drive until, in desperation,

18487-464: Was in decline by the mid-1970s in Hong Kong in relation to the stock market crash which went from over 150 films in 1972 to just over 80 in 1975, which led to a downfall in martial arts films produced. When the economy became to rebound, a new trend of martial arts films, the Shaolin kung fu films emerged and sparked a revival of the genre. Unlike the wuxia , the kung fu film primarily focuses on fighting on

18626-509: Was in decline leading to Hong Kong gangster films filled in this void leading to large commercial success at the national box office. Early Korean heirs to Hong Kong action films include Rules of The Game (1994), Beat (1997), and Green Fish (1997) involving men who gain confidence and achieve personal growth as they embark on journeys to protect national state and meet devastating ends. South Korean cinema only received international attention in both art film and blockbuster formats towards

18765-599: 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 . Yip continued that these Hong Kong films were still lagging behind in aesthetic and technical standards that films from

18904-504: Was only in the mid-20th century when action films developed into their own recognizable genre instead of being a collection of other types of films such as Westerns, swashbucklers or adventure films. Films have been described "action films" or "action-adventure film" as early as the 1910s. Only by the 1980s was the term action as its own unique genre used routinely in terms of promotion and reviewing practices. The first Chinese-language martial arts films can be traced to Shanghai cinema of

19043-535: Was only shown as being applicable to white middle-class women. Purse found that these women were empowered at the price of women of other ethnicities. This is seen in Aeon Flux (2005) where Sithandra dies protecting Aeon and Rain's death to make way for Alice in Resident Evil (2002). The Hire The BMW film series The Hire consists of eight short films (averaging about ten minutes each) produced for

19182-474: Was tapped to make a third film entitled The Follow , a dramatic piece about a runaway wife being followed by "the Driver". The films debuted at the Cannes Film Festival and received mixed reviews, perhaps due to the films' purpose as advertising. It was followed by Guy Ritchie's Star and Alejandro González Iñárritu's Powder Keg . After the series began, BMW saw their 2001 sales increase 12% from

19321-534: Was the creative production outlet for the series and BMW's German division had attempted to become involved with the US division of the company, cutting costs. The series was viewed over 100 million times in four years and had changed the way products were advertised. Copies of the DVD are still found in Internet shops and auction sites. The films themselves continue to appear on many torrent searches and viral video sites around

#666333