Ever wanted a book which is all about action movies?
When I got my hands on this number, called The Good, The Tough and The Deadly, I opened up and realized that this is a mammoth, encyclopedia of physical action. This book is absolutely packed!
I feel like you guys definitely need to know about this book, but you may be wondering – what’s the idea behind it?
What this book is all about.
Well these days most action movies are jam packed with CGI, fake action and bad jokes. What about the days of physical performance?
Guys who performed dangerous stunts, their own martial arts and were really alpha male tough guys in real life is what really sucked me into watching movies. Physical action is what this book is all about.
David Moore has been working on action films for decades and knows his stuff. So he organized himself and a group of action movie experts to compile this book with what seems to be the idea of creating a guide for action movie buffs to draw upon and learn about their favorite stars and films.
The final result is this book which is a monster resource.
This isn’t just a cheap paperback.
What many don’t know, including David when I spoke to him about this book, is that I’m a Graphic Designer and Web Designer and have been working with offset printers for almost 15 years, and before I even get into the content, I’d like to say that the quality of this book blew me away.
This is a big book – Blu-ray case is for scale.
I ripped open the package this came in and the cover art first of all was eye catching and paints a good picture of our typical action movie heroes (only without the famous faces, which I’m guessing is due to copyright law.)
The book is solid and kinda heavy with a thick hard cover and quality paper. This book is built to last, unlike a lot of other books I’ve bought in the past which just kind of fall to bits after a few years.
The book itself packed with photos and movie posters – which I had fun just flicking through looking at to begin with. The presentation itself definitely had me excited to start reading about my favorite flicks, and seeing what some of these action stars had to say in their interviews.
So I started reading…
Once I got this book I realized that a page to page reading was simply too huge a task to accomplish and that this is a book that needs exploring. Boy it was fun!
So you get the idea, the book is packed. The bulk of it’s 500+ pages alphabetically explores the best action movies of the past 50 years, one by one with a small summarized review which gives you an idea of the quality and what to expect from the film. This alone is an extremely handy resource of information as I’ve already found a handful of movies I’m keen on watching.
But spread throughout the book’s reviews are some interesting interviews.
These good ol’ fashioned Q & A’s discuss everything from film history to anything worth discussing. Some fans of my website will be interesting in reading interviews with some big names like Scott Adkins, Mark Dacascos, Kane Kosugi, Dolph Lundgren, Cynthia Rothrock, Darren Shahlavi and Tony Jaa to name a small percentage of them, with many more extremely well known names in action and martial arts.
Some of these interviews stretch a few pages offer very interesting insight into the people themselves aswell as the going-ons behind the scenes of some big movies. While I enjoyed the movie reviews, I loved the interviews even more.
The next best thing is the index of action movie stars in the back, with a brief background, list of films reviewed in the book and a page number to any interview with that person. The index itself is very in depth, ranging from the very famous all time legends of action films down to minor players with smaller releases.
By comparison, the information in this book makes me feel kind of stupid for running a website with reviews and information, it’s ridiculously well researched and a seemingly bottomless bag of goodies and information.
Who is this book best for?
Any fan of physically driven action films will find this book interesting. While some of the films covered do have some heavy CGI, the primary drive is the performances of the actors and stuntmen.
Let me be clear, this isn’t a novel, it’s an encyclopedia style resource. But It’s definitely something you can get lost in. I personally find myself going through the index of actors and flicking back to to their interviews and then searching for their movie reviews afterwards. I’ve collectively spent hours doing this!
It’s not just for fans of martial arts films but action film fans in general. I don’t know what else to say, it’s a definitive resource of information and top place to quickly research any films you’re thinking of watching to see if it’s worth your time – while also discovering movies to watch along the way.
If you watch a lot of action films, this book will help you avoid a lot of low quality films as it quiet honestly tells you what to expect without spoiling things.
Does it have my recommendation?
Have you read the review above? Hell yes it does!
It’s something I’ve psent hours going through, and still have plenty left to explore. If you want to see what the fuss is all about, you can grab a copy here at Amazon.
Thanks for reading!
