“He doesn’t look like a killing machine. He looks like he should be in a boy band.”

Ninja Assassin is what all the Ninja movies of the 70s and 80s wished they could have been when they grew up.

The subject matter lends itself to a treatment which should somehow capture the mystery of magical powers such as invisibility combined with the ruthlessness of a culture of assassination, but most of the Ninja movies made in the West were usually low budget cheesy films full of people running around in broad daylight dressed all in black or even white (totally defeating the camouflage idea!).

While there have been impressive Japanese productions which displayed the potential for the subject (Shogun Assassin for example), the Ninja movies made in the States usually sucked.

Ninja Assassin  was finally the Ninja movie we were all waiting for — it deserves attention from a wider fan base as it is a fun, violent, and beautifully made little action flick.

James McTeigue, who cut his teeth as the first assistant director for the Wachowskis on all the Matrix movies, and who stepped into his own on the pretty good V for Vendetta and the not so good (I hear) The Raven, really made his best movie so far with this under appreciated martial arts bloodbath.

Written by unknown Matthew Sand (story and screenplay) and substantially punched up by J. Michael Straczynski  (Thor, Babylon 5, World War Z), Ninja Assassin is a great Saturday afternoon matinee movie, delivering a tragic love story, a substantial revenge motif, and solid toxic-family father and son confrontation.

Plus, of course, many hyper-violent fight scenes, and a decent amount of wit.

Rain, a Korean pop star, put in the hours in the gym to develop a Bruce Lee body and a creditable imitation of martial mastery, delivers star power and a certain dry wit.

Ben Miles, a solid British actor best know (by me) for the excellent British comedy series Coupling, pairs with co-star Naomie Harris (Moneypenny in Daniel Craig’s version of James Bond).

Shô Kosugi also stars, who achieved some fame in various ultra-low-budget Golan Globus exploitation films in the 80s (which us older people remember as being in rotation on the early HBO) such as Ninja III: The Domination (in which he plays a dead Ninja who possesses a hot 80s aerobics instructor to become a Ninja with big hair and leg warmers).

The CGI effects really help here, to enable the actors to interact with flying knives, blades, and one particularly nasty mini-scythe on a chain that is the favorite weapon of the protagonist, as well as enabling the Ninjas to melt into and out of the shadows.

“Iron Fist is no stranger to controversy, and the latest aspect of the show fans have taken issue with are the fight scenes…one scene in particular. In this one 35-second scene, there are more than 50 cuts. The scene has been ripped apart by fans and critics for the lackluster fight choreography between two characters, but it’s not just this scene where Danny Rand’s martial arts aren’t up to par.”
Polygon

 The Defenders premieres today on Netflix and its got me thinking about fight choreography in movies and TV.  They can make the difference between a great show (like the first Daredevil) and a crappy show (Iron Fist).  Of course, 90% of it is the surrounding story.  We’ve all seen martial arts movies in which they fight at the drop of a hat or where people are always randomly getting mugged by five guys for no discernible reason (other than creating a chance to demo the hero’s fighting skill – that’s right, I’m talking about you, 1991’s The Perfect Weapon).

But if you have a good story and you have a reasonable excuse for your hero to fight and you have a good stunt choreographer, a good stunt team, and a game actor, you can make a good story great.  Consider one of my favorite martial arts movies, Fist of Legend.   Yuen Woo Ping (one of the great fight choreographers, who did Iron Monkey and The Matrix among others) was able to create a series of fights of increasing intensity which perfectly matched the development of the story.

In Daredevil, there was something about the character’s scrappy street fighting that really got you rooting for the character.  In fact, I think Daredevil’s true superpower is his ability to take a beating.  And this is closer to real life than most people think.  As long as you are on your feet, you have what they call a “puncher’s chance,” even if you are out-classed at every other level.  This is something that used to be trained in martial arts schools by having students participate in tough training with their senior classmates.  If they had the heart to keep coming to class after taking a little bit of a beat down, they would have a better chance at surviving on the street, where a large percentage of fighters only want to fight if they are winning and will take off at the fist sign of the tide turning.

I’ve created entries on this site for my favorite fight scenes in movies in the “Martial Arts Movies” category.  Let me know what you think are the best and I will check them out!

Bruce taught me to dissect time into infinite degrees.  It’s what he called ‘playing between the keys of the piano.’  It’s the understanding that you actually have worlds of time within seconds to do something unanticipated when your opponent is already committed to his announced [telegraphed] action.”
Sterling Silliphant, Bruce Lee: FIghting Words

In 1971, a quirky TV movie aired on the ABC Movie of the Week called Longstreet.

The movie was written by Sterling Silliphant, an Oscar winning writer (In the Heat of the Night) and a student of Bruce Lee.  The show was picked up as a series whose debut episode was called “The Way of the Intercepting Fist.”

Silliphant was Bruce’s student in that 3 year “in-between” period (after The Green Hornet and before his first feature film, The Big Boss).

He also got Bruce some Hollywood work, writing him a memorable cameo in the James Garner movie Marlowe,  where Bruce is a Mob enforcer who destroys Marlowe’s office.  He also wrote Bruce a pivotal role for Longstreet.

Longstreet was a detective show about an insurance investigator who, while investigating some jewel thefts, is blinded and widowed by an explosion meant to silence him.   A key character in the early shows was Li Tsung, who helps Longstreet regain his independence, basically by teaching him Wing Chun / Jeet Kune Do.

Duke Paige: What is this thing you do?
Li Tsing: In Catonese, Jeet Kune Do – the way of the intercepting fist.
Duke Paige: Intercepting fist, huh?

One of the things I find most interesting about this show is how much of Bruce’s subsequent media image seems to have been formed by this series.  Whole swaths of the dialog show up in other media, such as Enter the Dragon (“boards don’t hit back”) and in Bruce’s famous interview with Pierre Berton (Be like water, my friend”).

I suspect this is because Silliphant was able to artfully take Bruce’s teachings and style of speaking and turn it into great dialog.  Then Bruce naturally was able to use these well-written versions of his teachings which he had memorized for the show.  Or, Silliphant just put Bruce’s words and metaphors in the screenplay (giving Bruce more credit!).

I saw this show when it aired (I was 9).  I was of course interested in the discussions of how to fight (being a small kid and a wise ass, a bad combination resulting in the occasional beat down).  I was intrigued by the combination of philosophy and violence explored on the show.  Bruce often said very ambiguous things, which drew me in with more force, the mystery something to chew on, like the Japanese kōan.  What does that mean?  Fighting without fighting?  No style?  Even at 9, these words were intriguing and mysterious.

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