Almost
in every martial arts movie nowadays, fights have
to be fast, long, furious, and acrobatic. People like
Jackie Chan and Jet Li are setting new precedents
in action movies with crazy long fist fights mixed
with high kicking acrobatics. After all, the faster
and crazier the fight scene is, the better. But, lately
there have been misconceptions about the martial arts
rising.
When
people think of the Martial Arts, they think of long,
fast and tough fights when that's not the idea at
all. I am a first Dan in Tae Kwon Do and have experienced
other types of martial arts from friends, and one
thing all of these martial arts have in common is
the idea that short, quick, power moves win. If you
think about it, it's common sense. But, movies seem
to have lost the idea. ith.
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""When
martial arts movies first started coming up,
martial arts stars such as Bruce Lee and Sonny
Chiba held to this discipline."
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When
martial arts movies first started coming up, martial
arts stars such as Bruce Lee and Sonny Chiba held
to this discipline. That is why instead of fighting
a couple of people in their movies, they fight more
like armies. They realized that in order to show the
physical and inert prowess of the characters they
played, they would have to resort to their own disciplines
in their martial art. They also showed responsibility
in keeping the lessons true.
Now,
it is thrown away. Fights have to be long and insane
in order to captivate an audience. As a result, the
perceptions of martial arts increase in falsehood
and even the lessons of discipline taught in all the
martial arts soon fade away. This didn't happen until
Hollywood's influence grew out of the United States
and into Asian Cinema. After Hollywood had seen the
power of martial arts in movies with the American
release of Enter The Dragon in the 70's, they started
taking away the principles and discipline of the techniques
and styles and bastardized them. Not only did Hollywood
twist it, many Americans themselves started making
horrible incorrect martial arts disciplines such as
the horrible American pronunciation of Karate.
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"That
is why instead of fighting a couple of people
in their movies, they fight more like armies."
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McDojos
started springing up and were based on people's fascinations
with what Hollywood perceived as a martial art. And
with the growing influence of Hollywood over the world,
this will spread just as quickly to Asia. But, lately
there has been a resurgence of the old traditional
styles and disciplines. Though they may be hard to
find, people are starting to take responsibility in
what they know as a martial art and respect the teachings
of martial artists whose experience spans generations.
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"Hollywood
is starting to catch back on with the Kung-Fu
craze..."
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This
maybe countered as Hollywood is starting to catch
back on with the Kung-Fu craze and may make it worse
by using computer-generated effects to take away the
natural abilities that a martial artist must have.
Using the CGI to let people like Billy Bob Thornton
to do a jump spinning hook kick in mid air in some
future action sequel to "Monster's Ball".
Only time will tell, and maybe we just need another
Bruce Lee or Sonny Chiba to get our perceptions of
martial arts in the right place. Well, maybe Sonny
Chiba isn't done yet.
Kevin
Johnson
04/13/2002
