In general, I don’t like martial arts movies, or movies where martial arts are heavily featured. I don’t like dramatic, theatrical, showy martial arts with roundhouses and fly kicks and whatever.
However, I did enjoy the martial arts in The Bourney Identity, because they were extremely aggressive, straight to the point, not showy at all. The minimum amount of motion to cause the maximum amount of damage in the minimum time possible. There were no one-liners, or dramatic flashy moves - just extremely practical and aggressive martial arts.
I saw “The Hunted” a while back and also liked the fighting in that movie - different, a lot slower, more basic self defense sort of stuff they’d teach in the army than a martial art, it seemed, but again, it was very practical, very straight to the point, not flashy.
So, given these preferences, does anyone have any good movies I should check out?
Keep an eye out for the sequel to the Bourne Identity which should be coming out this year. Hopefully they’ll keep the same style and not do a Matrix on us.
You could also try Grosse Point Blank. There’s a brilliant fight scene in that between John Cusack and som bad guy.
the important thing to know is that the bad guy character is played by Benny “the Jet” Urquidez, one time world champion kickboxer and John Cusack is also a skilled kickboxer in real life. Not a lot of martial arts in it apart from that but I recommend it anyway.
They use a (fictional) form of martial arts in this that they call “gunkata” or something. It’s a blend of fighting and guns. But I think the fighting might be similar to “Bourne Identity”.
Now, a lot of people didn’t like this movie maybe because its clearly derivative of a lot of sources (Brave New World, Fahrenheit 451), but personally, I enjoyed it.
The style of fighting in The Bourne Identity is called Kali, according to a Matt Damon interview. It originates in the Phillipines.
http://filipino-kali.gungfu.com/
My friends loved the “gunkata” style from Equilibrium and I’ll admit the look of it was awesome. But come on, am I the only person that gets a whiff of Cheddar when I hear about it.
Maximising firing spread whilst dodging the highest probable trajectories of enemy fire = Standing in the middle of a room, doing a little dance with guns, and all your enemies dying without a scratch on you. :rolleyes:
I would have to say that the Gun Kata simultaneously meets the utilitarian requirements of the OP and manages to disqualify itself for being showy as hell. If it worked by shooting each target in the head once it would be ok, but instead each scene involves Christian Bale shooting guys in the chest 5-10 times each. The fight scence in Fight Club tend to be to the point.
No, I do too, even though I like it. That movie kind of walks a tightrope. They want you to believe this dystopia could exist, but then present completely unrealistic fight scenes.
You have to just “let it be” to enjoy it, really. Watch it like an old Ah-nuld movie.
You are correct, sir - I’ve taken a year and a half of Kali in the LaCoste-Inosanto flavor and it was great to see it done well in a major motion picture. It’s primarily a blade art, but the movements translate well into open-handed attacks. Coupled with a grappling art such as Brazilian jiu-jitsu (as was also taught in our school), it can make one a very formidable person.
I hate to say it, but Steven Seagal (yes, I know he can’t act and is a complete tosser) uses Akidio extensively. Straight, to the point and rarely with any fancy kicks.
The Manchurian Candidate features a truly impressive practical-martial-arts scene between Frank Sinatra and Henry Silva (playing a rather improbable Korean) in which they beat the crap out of each other and destroy all of Laurence Harvey’s furniture.
If the upcoming remake has a similar scene, no doubt wires will be involved.
And then there’s Roddy Piper vs. Keith David in They Live… good ol’ fist fu.
Damn you Bryan Ekers, you stole my thundar! They Live is probably the best all around fight scene ever filmed. Not really tight or martial arts, but the most brutally realistic fight scene to date! After the first three minutes, you’re just begging for it to end, but it keeps on going…BEAUTIFUL!!!
As for the fights in Equilibrium, I enjoyed the second to last one because it, too, was insanely realistic in its brievity. The final fight was pretty interesting as well, but overall, the movie was rather silly.