»Martial Arts Movies«

well i thought about that.. but really.. if u understood what was being said and what was on the screen.. it's not something i would say added any humour/irony to it.. there are more typical ways he could have fooled around with that, which would have been funny.. but these were just oddly translated in places

there is another possibility.. i once read an explanation from Jet Li as to why his english subtitles were way off in Romeo Must Die and he said that the director altered the dialogue after they shot the scene, but instead of reshooting it, they just changed the subtitles.

thats pretty lame changing it after the filming of the movie....what a great director

actually, i guess i shouldn't have said director.. its more to do with the production team as a whole.. they hire translators and sometimes its because during the time they've been working on the translation, the script has gone thru rewrites, but they stick to the same translation on the finished movie.

Brave Heart is sooo fucking awesome. Not a martial art flick, but it still has some pretty awesome fights. It's battle scenes kick the crap out of LotR's ones.

i bought the HKL's "The Magnificent Butcher" DVD last week.. fucking awesome showcase of hung gar style (lots of complicated hand work).. but anyhoo i came across something that i thought was really interesting on the DVDs special features.

since the movie was directed by the great Yuen Wo Ping, they had included an interview with him, taken about 10 years ago in the early 90s. during the interview, they talk about how he has been responsible for setting a lot of trends in martial arts movies, (for example, the whole wire-work & flying that u see a lot in the wuxia pien genre). then the girl asks him what new trends he would like to set in the near future and if he had unlimited budget and resources, what kind of movie would he make? this is his answer:

Yuen Wo Ping wrote:

I really want to make modern martial arts movies with a leaning towards science fiction.. taking the flying martial arts action and transposing it to the modern setting. Combining science fiction with traditional Chinese action.. I want to try that, but it requires a lot of organisation and it depends on how the audience will accept that idea.. it will be difficult, but i'd like to try.

looking back with hindsight, it almost sounds like he could be talking about the matrix! its uncanny how just a few years after he said this in an interview, he would receive the offer from the brothers to work on the trilogy. i guess the Wachowskis must have really lucked out when they wanted Master Wo Ping because it turns out he has such a passion for science fiction which he had never been able to explore.. something i don't think many people would have expected. the matrix trilogy gave him the perfect platform for everything which he described in that interview.. the flying martial arts style in a modern setting, with a science fiction element.

anyway, i just thought that was kinda interesting so i just wanted to share that..

(PS. Hungarian Kid - stop wasting your time posting and go sit your arse down to watch Volcano High so you can tell me if its any good!)

I've got 2 day's off fairly soon, so I'll see it then.


Yuen Wo Ping is most definitely the greatest Fighting choreographer for film.

Ok its been a while since anybody responded to this thred but here goes.

Crouching tiger is awesome, so beautiful, same with Hero.
The Matrix of course has the best martial arts ever. Bruce lee movies are classic, he really changed martial arts films.
The Tai chi master with Jet Li is fantastic, and Fong sai yuk 1 and 2 also with Jet. I have trained a lot of martial arts since I was like in 3rd grade starting with Jiu jitsu, and some Taekwondo and Karate, Escrima and Boxing but now I only train Ving Tchun since it is one of the best street fighting systems out there. Any one else train some martial art?.

I don't know Kung-Fu or any other martial arts. I like alot of Jackie Chan movies he does his own stunts. Other than that I never watched kung fu movies or karate except Karate Kid 1-3. But the Matrix just got me. Along with the special effects and the different views they show with the story and Keanu Reeves and Laurence Fishbourne two good actors it just great. I had just saw the Devil's Advocate with Keanu and Charlize Theron before the Matrix came out so it intrigued me.

I study a bit of Tae Kwon Do, although I've been taking a few month haitis from it because it just started to bore me. I plan to do Ju Jitsu when I get to black in Tae Kwon Do, or maybe Kung Fu. Ju Jitsu looks more appealing though, maybe Judo after Ju Jitsu, it'd be good to do a style full of throws and techniques revolved around massbodyweight movement.

Ju jutsu is kind of fun but and it is good exercise but it is not a good self defense system. If you want a self defense system that works I recommend Ving Tchun kung fu(wing tsun, ving tsun, wing chun, ving chun) if you are interested or have any questions about it I will be more than happy to share what I know because it is a great street fighting system.

Aside from Jackie Chan's The B ig Brawl, this is the only other chop-socky movie that I thought was outstanding but not mentioned in the thread. That is, unless you want to include the Star Wars Triolgy (parts 4 to 6...the latest editions don't fit the martial arts mode).

This just premiered here a few days ago. I intend to see it tomorrow. No CGI, no wire-fighting, but I think the fights and stunts will kick because I have seen previews (in low res). So it will likely make my favourites list.

wAkE_uP_nEo wrote:

well yes and no.. its true that i've never seen subtitles that i felt were 100% but i would say subtitle inaccuracies normally fall into 3 categories.. 1) inaccurate to the extent that it makes it difficult to understand what's being said or becomes unintentionally funny possibly because of grammer/spelling errors. 2) inaccurate in that the words don't translate very well from their original language into english, so they have to find an equivalent, possibly altering the meaning slightly in the process. 3) inaccurate in that they've inexplicably changed the meaning from something that was easily translatable into something else, but it doesn't affect the understanding of the dialogue/scene. In Kill Bill Vol.2 there was still a lot of accurate translations but there were also a lot of category 3 inaccuracies, particularly in the beginning when Uma 1st climbs the steps to meet Pai Mei

Does Pai Mei speak in Mandarin (PuTongHua), Cantonese or some other dialect? Or am I on drugs and he is Japanese?

yipman wrote:

Ju jutsu is kind of fun but and it is good exercise but it is not a good self defense system. If you want a self defense system that works I recommend Ving Tchun kung fu(wing tsun, ving tsun, wing chun, ving chun) if you are interested or have any questions about it I will be more than happy to share what I know because it is a great street fighting system.

Brazilian Jujutsu is the single most effective martial art in one-on-one hand to hand combat. I think that UFC 1,2 and 3 proved that. The basic problems are this: 1) if you grapple and your opponent has buddies then you are in for a good face-stomping and 2) if your opponent has a blade then you are in trouble; a short punch to the ribs is annoying, but a knife in the ribs can be fatal. But in one-on-one an equally trained grappler (jujutsu, wrestling or whatever) will take down a striker and then pulverise them.

If I had to rate martial arts (and I have studied several first hand and many more through literature) Vin Tsun (Wing Chung) would be among my list of favourites as would Muay Thai, Chin Na, Ju Jutsu, Free Style Wrestling, and Kyokushinkai.

This is all hand-to-hand. I spent two years studying European fencing and I am convinced it is superior to Asian sword-fighting (the exception being Iaido which has no Western equivalent).

66Scorpio wrote:

Does Pai Mei speak in Mandarin (PuTongHua), Cantonese or some other dialect? Or am I on drugs and he is Japanese?

well only you know if you're on drugs! but i do know that he speaks Cantonese

Fatpie42 wrote:

It's got the girl who plays Gogo in Kill Bill in it! (Gogo was Oren Ishii's schoolgirl bodyguard) She is so cool in both movies! *drools*

...between giving her free rein to castrate you, and driving a nailed board into her head. Somewhere in there she might be fun to be with.

66Scorpio wrote:

This just premiered here a few days ago. I intend to see it tomorrow. No CGI, no wire-fighting, but I think the fights and stunts will kick because I have seen previews (in low res). So it will likely make my favourites list.

Yes it is a great martial arts movie. It sucks as a movie, however: bad acting and holes in the plot. There may be a few production flubs but I think it may have been the projectionist in the theatre that I was at.

Who cares. I am just waiting for a Hollywood producer or director to come up with something good. They should probably take the European approach on the whole language thing: get a famous actor to dub the voice of our protagonist.

Tony Jaa's English is weak and he has a very-unheroicly scweeky voice. Hey Keaneu: Do voice work for this guy!

Keaneu is well trained at this point but he is just not in Tony Jaa's league.

PS: I would like to see Ting (Tony Jaa) and Seraph (Collin Chou Siu Lung/Ngai Sing) duke it out.

66Scorpio I have also trained a lot of styles like jiu jitsu taekwondo karate escrima and some boxing and the difference between those and Ving Tchun is that Ving Tchun is not a competition sport, it's for the street where there are no rules and anything goes and despite popular belief we have a ground system. I attended a BJJ seminar with a really good guy a while back and it was very fun and interesting.

The thing with Ving Tchun is that we like to end the fight(street fight) standing as quick as possible and that means doing whatever it takes but if we end up on the ground same thing goes you do whatever it takes. I do fairly well on the ground because I trained jiu jitsu many years and I even sparr with the jiu jitsu folks at my old club and I can most of the time keep it standing. And BJJ is much better than traditional jiu jitsu.

I love fighting in fact me and some of my friends are gonna start filming soon and putting our fights on the web, but then again martial arts should not be just about fighting, it's also about people coming together training and having fun practising our stuff. And I also like thai boxing have not trained it but I love watching thai fights. Martial arts rule, what style do you train now?.

I saw HEro and i have to say...it was boring. i was pissed the way it ended too. could of told me that and iwouldnt of seen it. maybe i just dont get the whole kung fu movie thing

yipman wrote:

Martial arts rule, what style do you train now?.

I've done jujitsu, karate, TKD, european fencing, judo and a smattering of other styles. I am not training now but I was looking into muay thai or pankration or some MMA training.