The first settings that might come to mind when thinking about martial arts films would be temples, dojos, or possibly outdoor locales/wide open spaces. Even those martial arts movies set in populated areas might not contain much “street fighting” in the traditional sense, if the films themselves are set centuries ago and therefore don’t really have what we now think of as streets as settings for fights to happen.

So, the following ranking won’t have films like or , as . That’s how the term “street fighting martial arts movie” has been chosen to be interpreted here, so, for some fighting words: take it or leave it, punk.

Well, this is one you might call a no-brainer, right? has doing his usual thing in the titular borough of New York City. He plays a man who visits there from Hong Kong for a family wedding and, while there, gets wrapped up in a conflict involving some low-level criminals, which then escalates somewhat comedically.

It’s a , and seeing Jackie Chan play someone slightly out of his element here makes for a novel watch… though it’s technically him fighting and doing stunts around Vancouver, which was passed off for New York City, given the movie wasn’t actually shot in the Bronx. Still, Rumble in the Bronx sounds a bit cooler than Rumble in Vancouver, so hopefully, most people can give it a pass.

Another obvious and/or literal pick, is indeed about a guy who fights in and around the streets. He’s played by the legendary , who was one of the best of his time as far as martial arts stars were concerned, with Chiba’s character having to fight his way through a variety of enemies while protecting a wealthy heiress.

It’s all just an excuse for some brutal (for the time) violence, with The Street Fighter being . If you want much more than action in an urban setting, you might come away disappointed, but if street fighting is what you want (and you’re okay with that being all you get), then The Street Fighter’s the movie for you.

The same year as The Street Fighter, there was also a spin-off/sequel with the not-so-creative title of . Sonny Chiba is in this one too, playing someone with a different name, but the star is , who plays a young martial artist who sets off to rescue her brother (he’s also a martial artist) after he’s taken captive by a drug lord.

Honestly, Sister Street Fighter might be a tiny bit better than The Street Fighter, though both deliver similar thrills and bursts of action complemented by (almost) comically simple storylines. Sister Street Fighter can be recognized for helping influence later martial arts movies that foregrounded female fighters as protagonists, .

is probably more of a comedy than an action movie, but a good deal of that has to do with the fact that , the film’s star, essentially becomes the sidekick. The main joke of the film is that he’s out of his element and, though charismatic, also kind of a loser, and that joke thankfully never stops being funny.

It falls on some other people here to actually get the fighting done, with Wang Chi (played by ) emerging as the real hero… or at least the guy that can properly do martial arts with style. So in Big Trouble in Little China, with much of it playing out at street level or below street level. In a sense, it manages to have both an urban and a fantastical setting, which adds further novelty value.

A few years on from Rumble in the Bronx, Jackie Chan starred in another movie that let him fight in a good many modern-day urban environments: , which is probably one of his most underrated films overall. It starts a little clunky, thanks to Chan’s character grappling with amnesia early on, and that’s always a bit of a lazy thing to have in fiction… but once it really gets going, Who Am I? gets pretty awesome.

It’s worth the price of admission for all the action that happens near the climax alone, with Jackie Chan fighting some people on a rooftop . There are too many iconic Jackie Chan stunts to keep track of, but even so, this one stands out.

While was set a while ago (taking place in the 1930s), and therefore doesn’t feature cities of a more modern-day nature, it still has an urban/street-level feel. Being set in an earlier decade of the 20th century does set it apart from martial arts classics that are set in centuries past, and The Boxer from Shantung also plays out like something of a gangster film, and those so often take place in urban environments.

That’s all to say , and largely defined by how many of its action scenes take place on the streets of Shanghai. It’s an underrated martial arts film, all things considered, too; one of so many produced by Shaw Brothers Studio, a company that specialized, for a while, in maintaining both quantity and quality release-wise.

Admittedly, you could put most movies in this space, considering they’re all set in modern times and generally have at least some of their action sequences take place on the street. Well, saying “the street” is a bit vague, given how global John Wick, as a series, eventually gets. The titular character jumps around the world a lot, finding people to fight pretty much wherever he goes.

So, why single out the final (for now, at least) film? Well, the whole climax of contains some of the best action you’ll ever see in an urban environment, as the final half-hour or so of this film goes for broke and has Wick battling his way through Paris in the early hours of the morning on his way to one final showdown. truly does have to be seen to be believed.

One of the best martial arts movies has ever starred in, might sound like something set in the past or even kind of mythical, but it instead takes place in the modern-day… well, what was the modern-day back in the 1980s, at least. Yeoh plays a police officer who sets her sights on taking down a bunch of terrorists, and that’s the movie; that’s all you need.

It’s pretty approachable as far as classic martial arts movies go, and . It’s varied, simple, and all-around entertaining, and enough of Royal Warriors takes place on a street level for it to qualify for this current ranking.

Though (2011) took place entirely within a city environment, it would be harder to call it a street fighting martial arts movie, given that basically all the fighting is confined to one building. gets a bit more expansive, and , and it feels grander/more ambitious.

It also escalates things in terms of violence, becoming perhaps one of the most gory and intense mainstream films ever made. The Raid 2 makes use of numerous arenas, too, and a good part of its (many) action scenes explode in everyday locales, with the streets of Jakarta (Indonesia’s largest city) being very much included.

It’s hard not to finish things off with another Jackie Chan classic, and could well be his greatest film overall. It’s certainly the best movie of his that doesn’t take place in the distant past, with Chan playing a detective here who’s up against a large organization of criminals, with much of the drama coming about because he has to protect a key witness who’s in great danger.

Police Story is Jackie Chan versus a bunch of gangsters, and that’s all it needs to be, because watching that play out is about as entertaining as you could imagine. Police Story excites throughout, with , with Chan defying death in his typically determined and even alarming way.

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