Action
Action films involve one or more heroes thrust into a series of challenges requiring physical feats, extended fights and frenetic chases. Story and character development are generally secondary to explosions, fist fights, gunplay and car chases. Both historically and currently, action films have wide commercial appeal and enjoy box office success. The action film revolves around a narrative, to be sure, but more importantly than that, a hero; when a moviegoer thinks of an action picture, more often than not they are thinking of a specific actor (Harrison Ford, Errol Flynn, Bruce Willis, Sylvester Stallone, Bruce Lee, Steve McQueen, Jean-Paul Belmondo, Arnold Schwarzenegger, or Douglas Fairbanks Sr., to name but a few) and the obstacles their character(s) must overcome. Long the most popular of genres among male moviegoers, the action picture has been the dominant film genre of American and many foreign film markets (notably Hong Kong), since action translates across language barriers. It is impossible to think of the cinema without the action adventure film (Raiders Of The Lost Ark), the cop action film (Bullitt), the confined-space action film (Die Hard and countless variations on it ), the space-action film (Aliens), the martial arts action film (Enter The Dragon, or the action comedy, including most Jackie Chan films) and the various other action subgenres too numerous to mention. In the '80s and '90s, Hollywood was producing more action films than ever before, but in an attempt to keep up with jaded audience expectations, increasingly bigger special effects and ultraviolence were emphasized over character, plot, or even coherence. Though its popularity continued unabated, its lean towards the bigger/faster/more-is-better ideology had left many a fan of the action film pondering its future.
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