Editing Action film (section)

==Subgenres==
===Hybrid genres===
{{Main|Hybrid genre}}
{{See also|Action comedy}}
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.{{sfn|Tasker|2004|pp=3-4}} Tasker went further to state that the both the action and adventure are often used in hybrid or as interchangeable terms.{{sfn|Tasker|2015|p=17}} 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.{{sfn|Holmlund|Purse|Tasker|2024|p=2}}

Screenwriter and academic [[Jule Selbo]] expanded on this, describing a film as "[[crime film|crime]]/action" or an "action/crime" or other hybrids was "only a semantic exercise" as both genres are important in the construction phase of the narrative.{{sfn|Selbo|2014|pp=229–232}} 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.{{sfn|Bould|2013|p=34}}{{sfn|Bould|2013|p=44}}

Film Studies began to engage generic hybridity in 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."{{sfn|Monaco|1979|p=56}} Tasker said that most post-classical action films are hybrids, drawing from genres as varied as war films, [[science fiction film|science fiction]], [[horror film|horror]], crime, [[martial arts films|martial arts]], and [[comedy films]].{{sfn|Tasker|2004|pp=3-4}}

===Martial arts film===
{{Main|Martial arts film}}
In Chinese-language films, both ''wuxia'' and kung fu are genre-specific terms, while martial arts is a generic term to refer to several types of films containing martial arts.{{sfn|Teo|2016|p=2}}

====Wuxia====
{{Main|Wuxia}}
The ''wuxia'' film is the oldest genre in Chinese cinema.{{sfn|Teo|2016|p=1}} 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.{{sfn|Teo|2016|p=2}} The term ''wuxia'' entered into popular culture in the serialization of ''Jinaghu qixia zhuan'' (1922) ({{translation|Legend of the Strange Swordsmen}}).{{Sfn|Teo|2016|p=3}} In ''wuxia'', the emphasis is on chivalry and righteousness and allows for phantasmagoric actions over the [[kung fu film]]'s more ground-based combat.{{sfn|Teo|2016|p=4}}

====Kung fu film====
{{Main|Kung fu film}}
The Kung fu film emerged in the 1970s from the swordplay films.{{sfn|Yip|2017|p=26}} Its name is derived from the Cantonese term ''[[Chinese martial arts|gong fu]]'' which has two meanings: the physical effort required to completing a task and the abilities and skills acquired over time.{{sfn|Yip|2017|p=48}} 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.{{sfn|Yip|2017|p=26}}

The kung fu film came out of the ''wuxia'' films.{{sfn|Teo|2016|p=2}}  In comparison to the ''wuxia'',  film, the focus on the kung fu film is on the martial arts over chivalry,{{Sfn|Teo|2016|pp=4-5}} The martial arts films 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.{{sfn|Yip|2017|p=49}} Unlike the ''wuxia'', the kung fu film primarily focuses on fighting on the ground.{{sfn|Teo|2016|p=4}} While heroes in kung fu films often display chivalry, they generally hail from different fighting schools, namely ''[[Wudangquan|wudang]]'' and [[Shaolin kung fu|shaolin]].{{sfn|Teo|2016|p=2}}{{sfn|Teo|2016|p=4}}

====American-styled productions====
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.{{sfn|Lott|2004|pp=7-8}} Martial arts began routinely appearing in fight scenes in American films in the 1960s with films like ''[[The Born Losers]]'' (1967) which was predominantly a drama, interspersed with martial arts scenes.{{sfn|Lott|2004|p=28}}{{sfn|Lott|2004|p=42}} 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).{{sfn|Lott|2004|p=1}}{{sfn|Lott|2004|p=15}} Lott noted the two films would lead to the two subsequent styles of martial arts films in 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.{{sfn|Lott|2004|p=19}} 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 a fight sequence.{{sfn|Lott|2004|p=67}} 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]].{{sfn|Lott|2004|p=69}} 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 the late 1980s in the United States were martial arts films.{{sfn|Lott|2004|p=1}}{{sfn|Lott|2004|p=69}}{{sfn|Lott|2004|p=101}} 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.{{sfn|Lott|2004|p=199}}{{sfn|Lott|2004|p=200}} Even internationally popular films like ''Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon'' (2000) had negligible effects in American productions in either the direct-to-video field, or in similarly low-budget theatrical releases such as ''[[Bulletproof Monk]]'' (2003).{{sfn|Lott|2004|p=206}}

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.{{sfn|Lott|2004|p=8}}

===Heroic bloodshed===
{{main|Heroic bloodshed}}
Heroic Bloodshed is genre a that originates with English-language Hong Kong action and crime film fan communities in the late 1980s and early 1990s.{{sfn|Van Den Troost|2024|p=234}} Author Bey Logan stated that the term was coined by Rick Baker, in the British fanzine ''Eastern Heroes''.{{sfn|Van Den Troost|2024|p=234}}{{sfn|Logan|1995|p=126}} The term is used broadly.{{sfn|Van Den Troost|2024|p=234}} 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 the late 1980s and early 1990s.{{sfn|Logan|1995|p=126}}{{sfn|Van Den Troost|2024|p=234}}

In the Chinese language, the term used for these films is ''jinghungpin'', literally meaning "hero films".{{sfn|Van Den Troost|2024|p=234}} 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.{{sfn|Pang|2005|pp=35-37}}
The key directors of the genre were [[John Woo]] and [[Ringo Lam]], and producer [[Tsui Hark]], with 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.{{sfn|Bitel|2019}} The style of these films would influence American productions, such as [[Michael Bay]]'s ''[[Bad Boys II]]'' (2003) and the [[Wachowskis]]' ''[[The Matrix]]'' (1999).{{sfn|Bitel|2019}} Korean media recognized the more fatalistic and pessimistic tone of these films, leading to Korean journalists to label the style as "Hong Kong ''noir''".{{sfn|Kelso-Marsh|2020|p=59}} 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 film)|A Better Tomorrow]]'' (2010), ''[[Cold Eyes]]'' (2013) and ''[[New World (2013 film)|New World]]'' (2013).{{sfn|Kelso-Marsh|2020|p=60}}

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 the Hong Kong film industry after the handover in 1997.{{sfn|Martin|2009|p=31}}