These days, traditional karate doesn’t often make it into the movies. I suppose our simplistic style of fighting doesn’t compare that favourably to our more 'impressive looking' Kung Fu cousins. Add to that the whole principal of ‘ending a fight immediately’ and I guess you haven’t got much material for long action-packed fight scenes.
A little while ago I did see a flick however that managed to make realistic traditional karate work on screen. The film’s called Kuro Obi (Black Belt).
Like all good martial arts movies, the plot’s a little melodramatic in parts but the fight scenes are pretty great. Simple. Realistic. And, I think pretty true of traditional karate. It really comes as no surprise that two of the main characters Akihito Yagi (who plays Giryu) and Tatsuya Naka (who plays Taikan) and are 5th and 6th dan karate instructors. As an interesting side note, Sensei Yagi (pictured above) is President of the International Meibukan Gojyu Ryu Karate Association and actually teaches at a dojo in Naha’s Kume district (barely 10 minutes away by bike). The martial arts world really is a small place.
In any case, I've included a few clips from one of the earlier fight scenes below and short video with some behind-the-scenes footage. If you haven’t seen it, it’s worth a peak – especially for anyone interested in traditional karate, what it looks like, and how it differs from other more cinematic styles of fighting. After all, there’s nothing like a good martial arts movie to get you fired up for some training.
Fight Scene Part 1
Fight Scene Part 2
And some behind the scenes...
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Hey, nice videos!
And bonus sanchin at the end. Nice!
It's not very spectacular, mind you, but very interesting nonetheless
I like that short throat punch. That is realistic and effective. Taekwondo has an arc hand strike which is similar. Kung Fu has a thrusting horizontal knife strike that is also similar.
My only beef is the same one I had with Taekwondo: Those boys need to keep their hands up!
@Mathieu: Thanks. I agree about the sanchin sequence. But then, real sanchin isn't exactly the 'prettiest' of katas for screen :)
@BSM: Love the short throat punch too. It's only a shame that it was cut from the first video. Couldn't find a clip with the whole sequence.
To be honest, I found the movie a little difficult to watch at first - I guess I'd been watching too many of our 'kung fu cousins'! But I really enjoy some of the sequences on second watch - my favourite is Yagi doing Shisochin (my favourite kata no matter how many times I mess up the pronunciation!) as well as the scene with Yagi fending off a bunch of attackers in a bar/gambling house (sorry, it's been a while!).
I was discussing this the other day, but I reckon Yagi would be a great choice to play Ryu in a new Street Fighter movie.
And LASTLY, thanks for passing by my blog. I've added you to my blogroll. You were initially Memoirs of a Grasshooper but I noticed my mistake a restored balance to the universe a short while later :)
@Riz: I agree the fight scenes aren't quite as exciting as what we're used to these days in martial arts flicks. But, I do like that some realistic traditional karate is finally making an appearance on screen.
Shisochin kata is also one of my favorites, but then my favourite kata always seems to be changing. Probably just reflecting the stages involved in being able to identify my mistakes - I think I've got it, then I start to see all the areas that need work, and so the cycle repeats...
P.S - Memoirs of a Grasshooper does have a certain ring about it ;)
I thought the movie was OK, but they didn't even attempt to make any sense out of the ending.
It was sensible. Maybe not the ending we're used to but still sensible. Sensible not flashy.