On February 12 2015 01:49 Eppa! wrote: Its like 3 words a page it takes 1 minute to read a chapter (depends on internet speed.) Its not like you watch martial arts films for the story.
It's not like you watch martial art movies for the choreography, because it tends to be fucking trash the story is the ONLY thing martial art films have going for them
you know, usually it's like a story of struggle and adventure, with crazy adversity coming our hero's way and he has to keep dealing with all that bullshit through the might of his fists and spirit. If you wanna go really patriarchal you can say it's also about the power fantasy where the hero can defeat any opposition through his physical power and you as the viewer enjoy indulging in such fantasies (why not). But the fights aren't there for the sake of fighting, that's boring as hell. Fuck, even the commentators in UFC and all that shit try to INVENT storylines just to keep people interested because they know that although it's very close (if not the) highest fucking martial arts competition in the world that by itself is not enough to keep people interested. Fights need to tell STORIES, express EMOTIONS and FEELINGS, it's about the motivations and characters and pains of the belligerents.
Hey Jackie Chan actually does good choregraphy. I prefer that (although it does go over the top too) to stuff with bullet-time camera rotations and people flying through the air.
On February 12 2015 01:58 Alaric wrote: Hey Jackie Chan actually does good choregraphy. I prefer that (although it does go over the top too) to stuff with bullet-time camera rotations and people flying through the air.
If you haven't seen the video of why Jackie Chan's choreography is great, you should watch it.
On February 12 2015 01:49 Eppa! wrote: Its like 3 words a page it takes 1 minute to read a chapter (depends on internet speed.) Its not like you watch martial arts films for the story.
It's not like you watch martial art movies for the choreography, because it tends to be fucking trash the story is the ONLY thing martial art films have going for them
you know, usually it's like a story of struggle and adventure, with crazy adversity coming our hero's way and he has to keep dealing with all that bullshit through the might of his fists and spirit. If you wanna go really patriarchal you can say it's also about the power fantasy where the hero can defeat any opposition through his physical power and you as the viewer enjoy indulging in such fantasies (why not). But the fights aren't there for the sake of fighting, that's boring as hell. Fuck, even the commentators in UFC and all that shit try to INVENT storylines just to keep people interested because they know that although it's very close (if not the) highest fucking martial arts competition in the world that by itself is not enough to keep people interested. Fights need to tell STORIES, express EMOTIONS and FEELINGS, it's about the motivations and characters and pains of the belligerents.
3edgy5me
I am simple le redditor so I tip my fedora to toy M'gentlesir.
Ya I did. The part about why you should show the impacts, and both the hitter and the victim in the same shot made me go "oh crap this makes so much sense now" when thinking back about why a bunch of scenes felt dull. Too many close-ups, not visceral.
On February 12 2015 01:49 Eppa! wrote: Its like 3 words a page it takes 1 minute to read a chapter (depends on internet speed.) Its not like you watch martial arts films for the story.
It's not like you watch martial art movies for the choreography, because it tends to be fucking trash the story is the ONLY thing martial art films have going for them
you know, usually it's like a story of struggle and adventure, with crazy adversity coming our hero's way and he has to keep dealing with all that bullshit through the might of his fists and spirit. If you wanna go really patriarchal you can say it's also about the power fantasy where the hero can defeat any opposition through his physical power and you as the viewer enjoy indulging in such fantasies (why not). But the fights aren't there for the sake of fighting, that's boring as hell. Fuck, even the commentators in UFC and all that shit try to INVENT storylines just to keep people interested because they know that although it's very close (if not the) highest fucking martial arts competition in the world that by itself is not enough to keep people interested. Fights need to tell STORIES, express EMOTIONS and FEELINGS, it's about the motivations and characters and pains of the belligerents.
3edgy5me
I am simple le redditor so I tip my fedora to toy M'gentlesir.
On February 12 2015 01:58 Alaric wrote: Hey Jackie Chan actually does good choregraphy. I prefer that (although it does go over the top too) to stuff with bullet-time camera rotations and people flying through the air.
Jackie Chan is an incredibly talented individual. He has an amazing voice.
(not the best exhibition of his voice, but it's a great song always)
Don't get me wrong, I enjoy good choreography as much as the next guy, but it's not actually completely necessary for a fight. Lemme give you an example of a fight scene I kinda liked:
Alright, so what is going on here. If I remember the movie correctly, up until now he was led by his hand by Trinity and Morpheus and this is the first time he finds himself facing adversity completely alone (even when the agents invade his office, he has the voice of Morpheus to guide him to safety; I guess he was alone during the interrogation, but he kinda got completely raped there, as this is a fair face-off it's a different situation). Alright, I guess western audiences are dumb so we have to have Morpheus narrate us how exactly Neo is feeling (HES BEGINNING TO BELIEVE YO), but there's a little bit of being tired of being afraid, it's not necessarily that he starts to believe he's the one, but he doesn't want to run away anymore, he's had enough of that bullshit. Also if I remember correctly quite a few people died by this point in the movie and running away didn't help them jack so maybe there's an element of that too there. Now, I do fucking hate the choreography, I think it's fucking awful. I get it, Keanu Reeves isn't a martial artist, whatever, even Christian Bale had good fights in the batman series and I dont think he does martial arts either. The initial shootout looks really awkward, I don't like a lot of the punches and the side kicks of Keanu Reeves give me cancer, they LOOK RETARDED and I doubt they have any power behind them. This isn't what a proper sidekick looks like at all. But there are story telling elements in the choreography too, although I guess that should be part of most fighting sequences, we get to see that Neo is aggressive, when he's not stunned, he's just trying to hit the guy constantly, that goes with the theme of him wanting to fight rather than run away. We get to see his perseverance, he keeps getting hit, bleeds from his mouth (how exactly Im uncertain of) but he keep on going. at like 2:50 he gets more composed and changes his style a tiny bit, but then gets rekt anyway. The important thing is, after facing imminent death, the instinct to survive allows him to fight back even after being battered really hard and Neo eventually prevails. So we have all these storytelling elements inside a really poorly choreographed/acted fight. We got to learn a lot about Neo from that fight and that fight also changed Neo as a person.
I'm not saying I don't enjoy power fantasy main hero raping everyone despite all common sense fight scenes (I did enjoy like all the Ong Baks and Protector), but I really like if I can get emotionally invested in the fight scenes. like this fight scene
was just fucking hilarious, he gets stabbed like 15cm deep into his side, fantasizes about elephants for a few seconds and then goes on to cripple like 60 people without bleeding all over the floor and it's hysterical. And it imo kinda works because Protector is just a hilarious fucking movie in it's own way, but I find that in some movies fight scenes just lack purpose and are there just to kinda be there. Actually, even if they make sense from the story perspective, I sometimes wish I could get more emotionally invested into the outcome of the fight.
There was one fight scene I saw from a movie I can't remember that was absolutely incredible - the camera work and choreography were great, and it really made me want to see the rest of the movie (something I haven't done).
It was like, a 6 minute 1v1 knife fight in a restaurant kitchen, if anyone knows the one I'm talking about.
EPT![[image loading]](http://i2.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/543/296/b42.jpg)
