do we need to scrutinise jackie chan, jet li & steven segal?
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do we need to scrutinise jackie chan, jet li & steven segal?
Who's seen 'Musa - The Warrior' here?
Awesome Korean flick with Chinese princess Ziyi Zhang thrown in for good measure.
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Goktimus, I guess you could say that about me. The more impossibly unrealistic/over-the-top/outlandish fighting sequences - the better
Who's seen 'Musa - The Warrior' here?
Awesome Korean flick with Chinese princess Ziyi Zhang thrown in for good measure.
Rank 8 - Deluxe Member
Isn't that what fans do?Originally Posted by Saintly
(moreso +internetz)
I like Jackie Chan. Jackie Chan isn't a martial artist and never claims to be. He's an acrobat and a great physical comedian in the same vein as Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton, only that his physical comedy is largely based on martial arts as his movies are spoofs of the "chop saki" genre. In interviews Jackie Chan talks about how he set out taking the mickey out of guys like Bruce Lee... when comparing himself with Lee in his movies he would say, "where he jumped high, I jump low," and "where he punch like this" (does a Bruce Lee style strong punch with a mean look on his face) "I punch like this" (does a quick punch before reeling his hand back in pain and nearly crying like a baby). My problem isn't so much with Jackie Chan but his ignorant or stupid fans who confuse his comedic antics for being martial arts - as in, they don't recognise parody when they see it. :/
Ditto Stephen Chow, but his parodies are so over the top that nobody ever confuses his routines for being actual martial arts (not when he's making up crazy kung fu styles like "Sleeping Fist" and "Shaolin Soccer"
Jet Li was a martial artist - and before he became a star, he was pretty good. Mainly practised Drunken Boxing and he was a provincial champion in Shanghai by the age of 12 specialising in whip and flail weapons. I've seen videos of his early Kung Fu demonstrations and practice and it's quite good. Unfortunately I've never seen him do any real Kung Fu in his movies... ever.
For example, the movie Fearless is based on actual history (albeit loaded with historical inaccuracies) where Jet Li played the role of the famous Kung Fu practitioner Huo Yuanjia. In real life Huo practised a very obscure internal form of Long Fist called "Mizongyi" (which I think translates as "silk reeling"). Compare actual Mizongyi with Li's 'fighting' in Fearless...
Mizongyi
Fearless (music video)
Ironically the moves that the singer Jay Chou does in that music clip is more realistic than anything Jet Li does (Jay is performing a few moves from the "Tan Tui" (springing legs) form from Islamic Long Fist*, albeit modified with his dance form)
I strongly suspect that he's stopped practicing actual Kung Fu and has traded it for Modern Wushu (performance fighting used in movies etc). Not that I blame him - it's garnered him great success. But yeah, he's certainly not a martial artist anymore. Acting-wise Li works well in his native Chinese but suffers when they force him to speak English. Actors and singers seldomly perform well in languages that they're not fluent in - and even if they are, they seldomly perform as well in their second language as in their native tongue -- e.g.: although Jean Reno speaks good English, IMO he performs a lot better in his native French.
Steven Seagal is a practitioner of Aikido and he actually speaks fluent Japanese (he appears in a lot of Japanese TV commercials) and I've seen him do some Aikido demos on TV... not enough for me to gauge whether he's any good or not. The stuff he does in movies doesn't really impress me... and of course... there's his acting... (-_-)
Yeah, that's another neat epic. The weird thing is that "musa" is Korean for "warrior" so the title is "Warrior the warrior."
In Sydney we used to have this Japanese festival every year called the Sydney Fiesta Matsuri Festival -- "fiesta" is Spanish for festival and "matsuri" is Japanese for festival, so it's the Sydney Festival Festival Festival.
____
*Islamic Long Fist: a form of Changquan (Long Fist) Kung Fu created by Muslims in Northern China; Muslim soldiers in Turkey were taught this form during The Crusades.
Last edited by GoktimusPrime; 25th February 2008 at 10:48 PM.
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I've seen this one before. Liked it. But can't say I'm a fan of Zhang.
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