bell - a verbalization of consciousness

"Ninja Movies"

I love “ninja movies.” There’s no doubt about it. If I happen to stumble into a movie rental place, without any real direction or objective, I immediately turn into a kid at the candy store as my eyes wander over the many movies in the “Martial Arts” section. Maybe its the fast action leg kicks and quick moving long-bows that suck me in, or maybe its the Asian historical content and traditional elaborate wardrobes which beg of my attention,… or maybe still, it could be the subtle delay of dubbed-english accents (usually British) over charismatic asian faces with fast moving lips — either way, there’s something to be said for renting a foreign film (of this caliber) and snuggling down under a fleece blanket with a bag of carrots (I happen to like carrots very much). These past two days I’ve made time to do just that.

So, Bruce Lee is the man, and everybody knows it. He’s great. He’s fast.. and certainly deserving of our respects. When I look to martial arts to be moved (in the spiritual sense of “moving”), I think of Bruce Lee. When i look to martial arts to be entertained, well … I have another preference - as great as Bruce Lee is and as much of legend as he will forever remain, my favorite martial art star, hands down, is Jet Li.

Jet Li is ultra-baddass. I’m not too down for his flashy hollywood stuff (which, I admit, is still pretty cool — Lethal Weapon 4 was phat, but in a different sort of way, you know?); I love his old school, comical-protagonistic asian films. All dubbed. All baddass. Of his films, I’ve seen:

*The Master (1 and 2)
*Shaolin Temple
*Swordsman (only the 1st)
*The Legend (aka “Fong Sai Yuk”) and the Legend II
*Tai Chi Master (extra Baddass, I must say)
*Fist of Legend
*Twin Brothers
*and some others, but I can’t remember the names.

I’ve watched other artists, but there’s just something extra-cool about Jet (can I call him jet?, I don’t know). so, I’m at Hollyvideo this past sunday with some great friends. Ike, Smith, Silly and I just got off the mountain after a great afternoon of snowshoein’ and snowfightin’, and my buddy Ike wants to rent “Kung Pow” - some slap stick comedy spoof about Kung Fu movies. And to be honest, i didn’t know what I thought about that sort of theme. but he assured me it was so stupid that it was funny (you know how there’s that boundary with some movies, and once it’s crossed, it’s somehow ok?) Anyways, we pull up to the place and I decide that I’ll let Ike and Silly run in and grab the vid. So, i chill in the car with smith, and we’re talking and its great, and then I’m like, “hey look, Leah (another housemate) is in the movie place with her boyfriend,” so I run out of the car and go jump on her back, or something. We talk, and then I realize I’m inside…

Movies are everywhere…. I immediately run over to the Martial Arts section, and start pruning through the shelves. Sure enough, one movie grabs my attention. (Aside: that’s the thing about martial arts movies, you never really know what you’re getting yourself into. There’s no trailer. There’s no advertisement. You’re just left to look at the cover, and maybe read the little blurb on the back, which is vaguely helpful, and if anything, part of the experience. You can get a 20 minute giggle out of the types of things they write on the backs of these movies. Every synopsis on the back reads something to the effect of: (INSERT: incredibly intense movie trailor voice) “Tsung Ya Chao (usually Jet Li) had wrongly lost his father’s eye patch in battle with the Soon Ming Clan’s one-armed soldiers of death and destruction, and now he must avenge is family’s honor and save his long-lost-unknown-can’t-be-trusted-backstabbing-but-will-come-around-in-the-end brother through 35 battles in super-fast motion using different weapons everytime … will he be able to handle such a chalnge??” And there’s usually spelling errors like that too —- cuz, this stuff is directly being translated by other countries, and often rhetoric gets looked over. It’s true.) So, I’m scanning, right?, and I see this movie entitled, “Swordmasters” with Jet Li. It seems baddass. It’s all this crazy cool ninja stuff with an empahsis on swords and the different sword clans. Now, i feel like a pretty crafty guy with a sword, but you should have seen the fight scenes they had displayed on the back. I knew I would need to get this one. But the real question was, “could I handle two movies this week?”

I had been slightly deprived. I probably hadn’t seen another ninja movie in over 3 months (last movie I saw was “The 18 Weapons of Kung Fu”; way cool). And then I saw it —- this movie called, “This is Kung Fu.” That back read something to the effect of, “CONFUSED with all the different types of Kung Fu on your TV? FRUSTRATED with not knowing which Kung Fu video is most Baddass? EAGER to find the best Kung Fu around —- well, look no further…” So, I listened, looked no further, and took both vids to the front desk. My guy Ike paid for them, and that was chill, and we went home and watched Kung Pow. Definitely a funny movie. Had a lot of laughs. We’ve incorporated some manuerisms into our social network, and I felt that I had an extra appreciation for the humor it was trying to provide, after having an astute background in the martial art movie business.

But the real joy came from waking up monday morning at 10am, making Costa Rican Pinto and Fish, and sitting down to watch “This is Kung Fu” with a plate of nostalgia and glass of Orange-Pineapple Juice. This movie was all that and then some. It was a documentary on Kung Fu, basically. It had great (if not famous) fight scenes from 15 of the best movies EVER, and provided an extensive history to martial arts, martial videos and martial artists. I learned so much. I feel like it was a great video for that virgin martial art enthusiast and the veteran alike. Here’s a little of what I gathered.

It started out with some great introspection into the culture of martial arts. It explained that, “Kung Fu skill is the optimum use of the human body.” And when you watch this stuff - the grace and the skill - you really see what a comment like this is getting at. It gave a bit o’ history on our guy Bruce, and touched on the 4 major films he did before he died of a brain aneurysm. They explained how “Jimmy Wang Wu” was sort of like the John Wayne of eastern films. He did this one movie where he had one arm cut off (for dignity) and then proceeded to whoop-up on fools. But, in the end I didn’t think he was that baddass. He did however team up a few times with this guy named, “David Chang” who played sort of a con-man in his films. He was a rising star that kept getting better and better and the chemistry between them — can I say enough? They had a bunch of tandem fights in this movie, “Shanghai 13” — extra cool pic. There was this scene where everyone was chillin’ in this restaurant and then all of these masked ninja assasins roll in through the paper walls and start wreaking havoc, but then Chang and Wu got the job done. Nice.

Another sweet actor was this guy, “Ti Lung.” He was hella traditional and extremely accurate. Come to think of it, I think it was Lung who was in Shanghai 13 with Chang (yeah, scratch Wu out of there, anyways …). Then there was the next american superstar who was supposed to be the next Bruce Lee, his name was Lo Lei (I think). He was in this movie called, “Devil and Angel” and that seemed neat. Then, I learned about this ultra cool asian super-star and I would love to see more of his work. He’s one of three brothers, but his brothers went into more of the producing aspect of martial arts cinema, and he became the star. Phonetically, I think it’s spelled, “Loi Chia Hui” and his brothers “Lui Chia Chang” and “Lui Chia Yung”. Hui was the actor and in movies like “warrior from Shaolin” he was awesome! See, most martial art movies tell the history of some aspect of ancient asia. If we think about it, China, in particular, has the longest history of any other civilization in the world. Martial arts is only a small way of re-enacting and reminding us of our worldly heritage. This movie taught me that when we see fighters with really short hair, its a movie that dates back to the era of the republic (1912-ish), and when the hair is long and down the center of the back, it’s the Ming Dynasty. There’s all this culture embedded delicately in each movie. It was really cool to watch myself become aware of these types of things. In fact, it made watching the movie that much more enjoyable for me, if that’s possible.

For example, in “Warrior from Shanghai”, Loi Chai Hui plays this Shaolin monk vs a Lama —- a very intense, sort of, religious dichotomy that is juxtaposed right here on the screen immersed in a very graceful battle of proaction and reaction. It was a sweet fight between sword and metal whip (btw, can I say enough about how many cool and different weapons are used? I think not.). This type of interplay between Shaolin and Lama is sort of like our western version of the Catholics vs the Protestants. Pretty cool, I thought.

Another cool movie, “Fists and Guts.” There’s this scene where the house is surrounded by this army with guns, so these two dudes inside have to fight silently so as to not make a sound which would ruin the chance to fight as it would alert the guys with guns (who would proceed to shoot them, of course). This by far, was probably the coolest scene I have ever witnessed. Hands down!

“Leg Fighters” was another ultra rad movie. It had all these famous leg fighting stars like “Tan tao Yang” but would team them up with big hitters like “Wang Tao” who is like the Chuck Norris of china. He was also in “the hot, the cool and the Vicious” and “Death Dual of Kung Fu,” teamed up with another leg fighter, “Jon Lui.” This stuff was incredible. There were all these long fight scenes, and the narrator even explained that martial art movies have long fight scenes so that their chinese audience and some americans (it actually said it like that) could appreciate the subtleties and development of the different fighting styles (because there are so many: ie, “white crane master” or “leg fighters” or whatever). And, it was cool to learn that in martial arts it is fair for fights of 2 against 1, especially if the 1 is an experienced white haired master, and in this particular movie, of the White Crane technique.

I feel like this movie helped refine my passion for Kung Fu. It introduced great movies, like “Art of War” with “Zsung Tsu” (an individual fighting man that fights with the military strategy of many) or “Fist Full of Talons” with “Billy Chong” (where he fights off the whole Ching Dynasty). For some reason the dignity and honor, the discipline and grace, the composure and excellence of self that these men and women fight with is most impressive. I can’t get enough. (Sidenote: the other movie i got, “Swordsman” was funny and interesting. I liked it a lot. There was a lot of flying, and I don’t really like that much. I definitely prefer movies that don’t exaggerate learned abilities. But there were some cool fight scenes and the plot was definitely cool… I surely don’t have time here to get into it… I didn’t even realize I rambled on so long about the first movie). So, yeah… ninja movies. It’s a whole new world. get there… and if you do, I’d suggest starting with “This is Kung Fu.”

I’m out. My flight to New Orleans leaves in 2 hours! Ultimate and Mardi Gras, HERE I COME!

Posted by bell at February 20, 2004 02:28 AM | TrackBack