Gisoku Budo - musings of an amputee martial artist » Movies

I watched Vision Quest, and it was awesome

Sean — Mon, 25 Oct 2010 02:00:03 +0000

I’m a sucker for martial arts flicks from the 80s, whether it be from Japan or Hong Kong, or from the US. Even if it’s rubbish, I’ll probably still enjoy it, because bad 80s movies are entertaining by default. Vision Quest is hardly earth-shattering, but it’s not a stinking pile of gloop either. In fact, it did a very good job of entertaining Wifey and I for a couple of hours. This is because Wifey is suitably tragic as well. That’s yet another sign of our collective awesomeness.

Moving along – Vision Quest’s a bit of an unusual pick as it revolves around wrestling competitions from the perspective of a US high school, rather than my usual martial arts pics featuring one-man armies with optional mullets. While the film began with a bit of a false start, it didn’t take long to win me over. First of all, it’s a teen movie with 80s grit. Love it. It also features Jake Ryan (well, Michael Schoeffling, but he’ll always by Jake Ryan to anyone whose a fan of 80s John Hughes gold), so there’s more thumbs up, particularly if you’re like Wifey and still harbour a secret passion for Jake Ryan… bugger knows why she married a ranga with one leg considering it’s a bit of an antithesis to 80s Schoeffling, though I’m certainly not complaining

Then there’s the Madonna factor. Not only do we get to see her do her quality 80′s dancing, but we get “Crazy For You” played throughout the movie during montages, in a club, as an instrumental during terrible romantic moments, et cetera.

In fact, let’s give this one another thumbs up for cramming in plenty of montages – if there’s anything Trey Parker has taught us using the power of animation or marionettes, it’s that everything works better as a montage.

But going back to Madonna, I think we need to take a moment to consider the soundtrack. As noted, not only is there some 80s Madonna in there (I’ll admit to enjoying 80s Madonna sugarpop), you get a menagerie of awesomeness in the form of Don Henley, Style Council, Foreigner and (wait for it), Journey. Epic.

But what about the actual movie? Wasn’t too bad actually – I don’t know a lot about wrestling, but it was interesting to see some of the groundwork in there. The Wikipedia entry tell me it’s a bit of a cult classic among middle and high school wrestlers, so I’m guessing there’s something in there.

But for me, it was the cast, the music and the setting that won me over. This of course is completely obvious in this blocky trailer on YouTube:

I know I’m tragic, but as GI Joe told me in the 80s, knowing is half the battle.

Wishlist: transforming leg

Sean — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 12:54:43 +0000

A friend of mine fired through a link for a story about a double amputee in New Zealand who had a mermaid tail prosthesis created by WETA, and it got me to thinking about stuff.

When I was 12, I was watching the very awesome third series of Robotech (which I later found out was called Genesis Climber Mospeada when ADV were kind enough to release the set on DVD, which I promptly snatched up several years ago ) on repeat on early morning TV, and in that series they have these awesome futuristic motor bike things that transform into these equally awesome power suit things (Wikipedia tells me they’re called Cyclone Veritech Ride Armors).

Anywho, I remember thinking at the time that it would be awesome having a leg that could transform into something cool from Macross, like a rocket or something, and when I was reading that story I linked up above, out of nowhere I remembered that crazy thought I had when I was younger.

But who knows, following Rodriguez’ awesome premise behind Planet Terror, maybe the dynamic duo of the former + Tarantino (or someone following in their stead!) can do something crazy and awesome. I mean, when Rodriguez comes up with this:

… I think anything’s possible

This reminds me, I really need to buy Planet Terror and Death Proof

…

I was about to finish this one off, but I realised I hadn’t posted a video of the super awesome opening animation from Mospeada

Gold!

Movie time: Enter the Dragon, in high-definition

Sean — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 13:32:44 +0000

So, Enter the Dragon is one of those quintessential martial arts flicks that anyone who is into biffo on celluloid has seen at least twice. I first watched the movie years and years ago on late-night TV, and absolutely loved the combination of crazy afros, flares, martial arts biffo, bad dubbing and crazy 70s porno music. I won’t go into the importance this movie played in the grand scheme of East / West martial arts movies in contemporary cinema (which, to be honest, hadn’t been equaled insofar as Eastern influence on Western martial arts film making until The Matrix hit the silver screen in 1999, but that’s a topic for a whole other blog… or two!), as I’m sure IMDB or Wikipedia will have plenty of accessible info on this movie (plus any half-decent Bruce Lee biography will give enough space to discussing it). So, this is about watching the movie, again, and why I still think it’s awesome

So, I bought the original R4 DVD release when it initially came out and watched it several times; when it got re-released later on with extra features and what-not, I then bought it again! I’m such a sucker for this stuff And when Wifey and I picked up a PS3 at the end of 2007, once again I fed the money-making machine that is Hollywood and bought it in HD on Blu-Ray a few months later. And I recently convinced Wifey that it would be an awesome idea to watch it, and she (quite surprisingly) agreed!

Watching it again, having studied martial arts for 4-5 years now and having had the opportunity to learn and read more on various styles and their respective histories, it’s still a pretty awesome movie. Surprisingly, there actually wasn’t a lot of fighting in it compared to some of the other Bruce Lee movies, much less than what I remembered. Sure, there are some amazing moments of truly brilliant choreography, and more than its fair share of crazy zooming close-ups of Bruce or one of the other cast striking a crazy pose, but at the end of it, of the time dedicated to the film, there’s plenty of other scenes dedicated to somehow trying to wrap some kind of James Bond-derived spy/thriller action or plot, laced with a bit of sex, watered-down philosophy on martial arts (watered down not because of the late Mr Lee, but to make it palatable to the masses Warner Brothers were marketing the film to; that being said, it was very ahead of its time…) and a bit of token character development. It’s hardly the most striking example of 70s film, but it’s still a damn good ride!

Hmmm, I’ve wandered off-topic… again Must be from being absent from the blogosphere for so long, will just have to write more posts on my blog and get back into it! Anywho, waxing lyrical aside, it was awesome to take a trip back in time, but this time it was in such high clarity! I know that the film stock would have hardly been of super-high quality, but it was great being able to watch the movie with so much detail compared to the previous DVD releases of the movie. Colour was also reproduced with greater accuracy and depth, and seeing it in 24p was awesome – no 3:2 pulldown or PAL speedup. The audio was certainly a bit clearer, but the production values weren’t exactly high in this regard even in the first instance, so let’s not pretend it’s any different this time

So, what new insights came out of the recent viewing that I can appreciate now better than before? John Saxon’s form actually wasn’t too bad when he was being choreographed correctly (he apparently got just shy of his brown belt in karate at one point in the late 50s/early 60s, stumbled across an interesting interview with him here), though he doesn’t get a lot of screen time delivering biffo. Jim Kelly is quite impressive on-set, there’s a certain grace and power to his techniques that’s pretty amazing when you consider Hollywood-produced martial arts films in the 70s and even 80s often lacked grace and flow when depicting martial arts on-screen, though that’s probably more to do with bad choreography than anything else…

And of course there’s Bruce, he really does look awesome delivering all his signature moves and silly close-ups. Still, as much as I love him in this movie, I think for pure biffo, Way of the Dragon wins out (though the fact that Chuck Norris is in that one certainly helps!), and there’s something about the enthusiastic, raw energy in The Big Boss that really appeals to me as well… wasn’t much of a fan of Fists of Fury, so I’ll leave that one out of discussion – it’s good mind, but I prefer the others.

There’s something timeless about Enter the Dragon, and while I’m sure the movie won’t exactly convert anyone to the joy that is martial arts movies, it still makes for an awesome ride and was definitely worth the purchase… again… on Blu-Ray.

On the topic of martial arts flicks, haven’t watched too many of late, but John Woo’s apparently back in awesome form with his new flick (even if it is two films chopped and joined into a single film to please the West [grumble, grumble]), so might have to add that one to the list of movies I should check out. Oh, and Wifey and I recently re-watched Kill Bill vol. 1, might have to suggest vol. 2 soon and post some impressions on them afterwards. I know it’s hardly cutting-edge discourse, but I like rambling on about the occasional movie on this blog, so hopefully it’s likewise appreciated by those reading my random thoughts printed on these pages!

Movie double part 2 – Kuro-Obi (Black Belt) (2007)

Sean — Tue, 05 May 2009 10:10:24 +0000

If there’s one thing I’ve continually come to love about Japanese cinema, it’s how they can create something utterly poetic of what many see as a static, mundane or spent medium. Whether it be animation (and let’s pick every Western film critic’s favourite buzz-names, Mamoru Oshii or Hayao Miyazaki [nothing against either director BTW, but there are plenty of other brilliant examples of Japanese animation out there that deserve some love and attention]), or live action martial arts (again, I’ll go mainstream with citing Kurosawa here, again, with no disrespect to him, as his movies are brilliant), outside the awesome fluff and pop-art execution, there are some amazing gems that just come out of nowhere. While the West was late to the party with Kuro-Obi /Black Belt (including yours truly), it is such a beautiful and almost poetic vision of traditional karate during Japan’s shift to totalitarianism that it deserves all the attention it keeps on receiving. For those interested, here’s a trailer:

I’ll leave the discourse to the IMDB entry on it (click here), and while I’d love to fire across a Wikipedia link, I can’t seem to find it in the English version (found it in the Japanese version though). Where I will wax lyrical is in the absolutely stunning form of the three main karate-ka.

My god, words can’t do justice how superb their form is, or of the beauty of the karate in action. There are no wire tricks, CG or other random silliness. The film’s is quiet, reflective and stoic, not unlike the process of learning and performing your favourite kata. The lead actors are actually martial artists first and foremost (and if the IMDB entry is to be taken as accurate, very high ranking ones at that), and thankfully the film is centered around this precept well – the characters don’t have a whole lot of dialogue, and they leave the acting to the supporting cast.

I highly, highly recommend you give this one a look. While I’m not sure about availability of this film in other countries, in Australia Madman Entertainment have it available via their website under their Eastern Eye label, and most good DVD retailers should be able to get it in for you. As far as I know, it hasn’t been murdered with a terrible English language dub at this stage, so you’ll have to do the right thing watch it in Japanese with English subtitles, as you should be anyway

Movie double part 1 – Best of the Best (1989)

Sean — Tue, 05 May 2009 09:49:55 +0000

Alright, in my last post I said I would be writing up on two films watched back-to-back over two nights that inspired some true awesomeness. For this post, I’ll be ranting about Best of the Best, a 1989 martial arts flick about a group of American martial artists who compete against an elite Korean martial arts team in a karate tournament. Even though it looks like it’s a taekwondo tournament. Methinks America-town wasn’t familiar with TKD, so it’s karate. Even though it’s mistakenly referred to as TKD in some points. It also features a poor-man’s Eye of the Tiger as the rousing montage theme, which they’ve been kind enough to include in the trailer:

See, doesn’t it just reek of pure awesomeness?????

Surprisingly, this one isn’t too bad for a martial arts flick caught in the late-80s, early-90s cross-over period. There was a real combination of awesome (The Perfect Weapon) and rubbish (too lazy to single one out ) during this period, often with really stark contrasts, but to be fair, most of the rubbish is hilarious. The fighting choreography isn’t too shabby, with Phillip Rhee’s skills given plenty of room to shine. Their competing cast from Korea weren’t too shabby either.

I guess where the movie comes into its own is in having just the right amount of cheese – despite some occasionally woeful acting, it’s a reasonably enjoyable and senseless romp, possibly enhanced by the presence of super-chief James Earl Jones and the often-typecast Chris Penn (who you may remember from the Bacon-fest that is Footloose, which also happens to be epic and full of win).

There are plenty of 80s and early-90s martial arts flicks that are great popcorn fodder, and Best of the Best ticks every box – unnecessary acting, plenty of biffo, familiar but enjoyable characters, James Earl Jones, montage anthems, demonised view of East Asia, and of course a good helping of Asian mysticism. Leave the sensibilities at the door, otherwise you won’t be able to savour the awesome cheese of it all

For more info, the IMDB listing is here, and the Wikipedia entry is here. Thanks to magic of Wikipedia, I found out there were apparently three sequels; might have to have a cursory look, though I imagine the cheese factor might be not quite as balanced as the original in the sequels.

My foot’s fixed :)

Sean — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 22:57:26 +0000

In awesome news, I managed to get my prosthetic foot enclosure fixed yesterday! Is very awesome, I’m extremely chuffed! While the fusion they did to hold the busted one together has actually proved to be extremely good in light of things (especially seeing it yesterday off the foot – I’ve got it as a just-in-case [better to have a busted enclosure than none at all]), that inherent weakness in the toes has now been eliminated.

This was all very good in the grand scheme of things, as last night I ended up doing an impromptu karate training session. Normally between classes I’ll do weights and some light bag work, but last night after doing my usual warm-up and strengthening exercises, I was really getting into the bag work and had a good look at my surroundings where I train at home, shuffled some things around, and started doing my basic drills as I had enough room to go up and down 5 paces as per the usual class stuff. After doing that, I shuffled a couple of other things around, and ended up making just enough space to accommodate a slightly cramped kata. I know that I need work on focus, breathing and technique (I’ve got the pattern down reasonably well at this point), so I deliberately took it slow and methodical in approach. Turned out to be a really good session – after one or two run-throughs I started hitting that quasi-meditative state you can find when doing kata, constantly practicing slowly but with an emphasis on correct, deliberate and focused technique (and breathing – the neighbours probably weirded out if they were able to hear me ). I’m not sure how often I repeated my kata, but on the last two I sped up the sequence in order to move into a more dynamic form. At the end of it I came inside exhausted, sweaty but definitely stoked

The cool thing is that hopefully my little re-arrangement of some of my equipment will mean I can do this more often, which will be a huge help.

In other news, the weekend saw some back-to-back movie awesomeness – Saturday night saw Wifey and I sitting down to the schlocky awesomeness that is Best of the Best, and on Sunday I indulged in the utterly sublime Kuro Obi (Black Belt). Will dedicate some posts to both of these films during the week, as they offer extremely polarised takes on martial arts in films

I heart Rapid Fire

Sean — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 23:12:33 +0000

Last night I watched the supremely awesome Rapid Fire, starring the late Brandon Lee. Now, let’s get this straight – Rapid Fire isn’t an example of some kind of crazy, mold-breaking martial arts flick that re-set the stage for Hollywood live-action martial arts movies (you can probably attribute that to The Matrix, which introduced Hollywood to the concept of *shock* kung fu, choreographed by HK talent no less [it also liberally "borrowed" from more movies than you can poke a stick at, but that's another story]). Nope, this is a piece of 1992 wrapped up in cliche after cliche, but it still wins at life.

The movie sees our hero (and Art major) Brandon Lee running around a college campus with super-champ Dustin Nguyen following Brandon surviving some tanks at Tienanmen Square. Brandon then attends a party at a trendy warehouse where a Taiwanese drug trafficker gets shot by an American mafia hitman; Brandon sees it, everyone brings out uzis and shoots out all the glass they can see, Brandon does some biffo, drives his motorbike through the warehouse (also through lots of glass), and gets picked up by the cops. Given the mafia connection, he’s taken as a witness with the “feds”, corruption and more awesome biffo ensue as Art student Brandon beats the snot out of more whiteshirts, whereupon he gets taken in by a tough-talking police detective guy who says “damnit!” and in extreme situations, “God damnit!”, an awful lot. He also meets a female detective, and as per the rules of all Hollywood martial arts flicks of this era, they shag. There’s also a shootout at a mafia headquarters/restaurant in there, and more biffo in a Chinatown laundry where the chief drug trafficker gets taken down in yet another shodown. Cue the credits, rpelete with wiggly-wiggly guitar, and possibly some saxophone.

In short, utter win

What stands out in this one is that Lee is actually not too bad on screen (as opposed to Showdown in Little Tokyo, which is a hilarious mess), the fighting choreography by Jeff Imada and Brandon Lee is actually very tight and snappy, and the whole production isn’t too overblown with silly acting and stupid inconsistencies. Wifey also reckons Brandon Lee is a bit of alright, and since he spends reasonable portions of the movie without his shirt on, it meant that we could watch it together without her falling asleep

Rapid Fire won’t win any crazy awards for anything in particular, but it does make for an enjoyable 90 minutes of awesome crazy era between 1988 and 1993 where cheap martial arts flicks ruled the video shelves at your local, and every now again you stumbled upon a winner.

Bemusing Wifey

Sean — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 23:05:03 +0000

I’m not sure if I’m the only who gets into this habit, but I thought I’d share. Between classes, I’m prone to wandering around the house doing karate. A punch here, a kick there, that kind of thing. Unfortunately (and often exacerbated when I miss a week’s training), I often get a little too enthusiastic. Case in point – say I’ve just washed up in the bathroom, and instead of being sensible and going to bed, I start doing standing punches or shuto. Or I’m walking through the kitchen to get something to drink. 5 minutes later and I’ve done a handful of punches, shuto and blocks.

We have a long corridor in our house, which I often walk up and down doing maegeri’s and yokogeri’s Then there’s the dining room area in our lounge that’s generally empty – perfect for practicing crescent kicks, as demonstrated last night when I was closing the house up to go to bed, and spent 5 minutes kicking the air. I suspect that some of the hairline fractures I’ve seen in some of the old floor tiles in our house probably haven’t been helped by me randomly doing stuff around the house either.

What often makes this worse is after I’ve watched an awesome piece of martial artistry on TV or at the movies. Take Sunday night just gone for example – watched a really good Bruce Lee doco on cable (one I hadn’t seen before either, which was ace because I think I’m beginning to exhaust them!), and so I got inspired by its awesomeness. Wifey was in the bedroom in an attempt to go to sleep when she heard the dulcet tones of her husband’s spontoneity in the corridor –

[starts a run-up] dom-dom-domdomdomdomdom [brief silence due to jumping] … [landing] DOM-domdomdomdom-dom-dom

Wifey: What are you doing?
Me: Just getting ready for bed…

[starts a run-up] dom-dom-domdomdomdomdom [brief silence due to jumping] … [landing] DOM-domdomdomdom-dom-dom

I’m hoping that I’m not the only one out there to spontaneous bursts of karate in the house (my instructor says he’s a bit guilty of it, though I’m not sure if he’s as bad as me and runs up and down the corridor doing jumping side kicks ), but thought I’d share it anyhows. I think Wifey’s caught between bemusement and frustration, depending on what time of day/night I get inspired to do stupid things like this

Archive: You suck Scott Wolf – Red is better

Sean — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 05:28:21 +0000

Source: Gisoku no Jutsu
Original post date: 26 June, 2007

Okay, Wifey and I watched the incredible wrongness that is Double Dragon the Movie last week. I hadn’t seen it before, and my other half had seen it as part of one of her friend’s obsessions with Scott Wolf. Now, for the people out there who aren’t aware, Double Dragon was a videogame released to the masses in 1987 by the now defunct developer Technos. Double Dragon pretty much pioneered the side-scrolling fighting genre in video game land, and the games are classics – XBox 360 owners recently have had a remake thrust on them, but thankfully there’s also the option to enjoy it in all its original blocky glory.

Oops, got carried away again. Anywho, Double Dragon is a video game. Video games generally don’t translate well to movies, due to (a) the Hollywood studio execs are idiots, (b) the director and producers are idiots, (c) a story is contructed out of a property with no real story, and (d) there was no money to begin with, so it was a lost cause. Double Dragon pretty much falls into all of these categories – the studios behind it were idiots, the final package doesn’t speak all that well of the director/producers, there was obviouly very little money, and there is little premise for a story. That is because the storyline for Double Dragon is as follows – Billy Lee has a girlfriend. A dude in a mohawk punches her in the belly and then walks off. Billy and his brother Jimmy rescue the girl. Billy and Jimmy then fight each other as as to win her.

No, seriously, that’s about it. Wikipedia reckons there’s some post-apocalyptic futre thing going on. I think Technos (and by extension, Taito (who translated it into English) were smoking crack when they determined this, as the blocky scenery suggests 80s tragedy, not post-apocalyptic future.

So, in the movie Double Dragon, we start off with a winning opening – ninjas raid a Chinese village. We don’t know where, as a handy subtitle suggests that we are “Somewhere in China”. The shonky factor increases when we go a post-apocalyptic future – 2007 – to LA, whre a big earthquake blew everything up. We then witness Billy and Jimmy Lee in an underground fighting tournament that demonstrates that Wolf needed more body double shots, as he is officially shit. Jimmy Lee, unknown but talented, doesn’t suck. The dude that played T-1000 from Terminator 2 is the villain and has a goatee, and there’s lots of biff, bad effects and cheap explosions. There’s also Alissa Milano in short blonde hair, who, like Wolf, can’t fight to save her life either. Then at the end of the movie, they join two dragon-shaped pendants (the ‘Double Dragons’) and suddenly they have campy uniforms in blue and red colours. The end.

This movie fails on so many levels and should only be watched with a healthy sense of humour handy, possibly enhanced by (responsible, over 18 and legal [don't close my blog MySpace ]) consumption of alcohol. I won’t get those two hours of my life back, but at least I could laugh at it and didn’t waste any money on watching it.

Scott Wolf, go home to your Party of Five. Or better yet, Go Home and Be a Family Man. Man, I’m such a tragic geek

Archive: Lift some steaks, eat some weights

Sean — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 04:59:15 +0000

Source: Gisoku no Jutsu
Original post date: 18 May, 2007

You know, I don’t even know the name of the song that aforementioned quip is from. All I know is that I keep on seeing it on VH1. Oh, and the correct line is ‘lift some weights, eat some steaks’ hahahaha, it’s sooooo bad! Except the random board kicking in the clip was cool. And the slapper girls in it are amusing as well.

Anyway, the reason for the title is because I did weight training last night. Nothing terribly intense, as I didn’t want to push myself, just wake the muscles up as my father in law said. Speaking of my father in law, I was telling him about the blog and that I’m using pseudonyms for peoples’ names – he’s informed me he will now be known as Fat Dave, as that was his moniker when he used to be on a radio show.

So anywho, did some weight training last night, which was ace. My arms are a little sore this morning, so I figure I must have done them some good. In my plan to shave off the extra couple of kilos I’ve put on over the past two months, I’ve also decided to bring back the size of my meals to the same portion as Wifey’s – it was acually her suggestion, and so far it’s all been good. I remember last time I made the conscious effort to bring back the size of the meals I was eating, and I actually started feeling better because I wasn’t eating to the point of feeling bloated; the same thing’s happening this time as well, so it’s all good.

I ended up skipping on karate this week – I had some torn skin on the back of my stump that I was hoping would heal up; it hadn’t by Wednesday, so I’ve thrown a couple of bandaids over it since Wednesday night, and it’s been feeling much better, and I’m not making it worse when wearing my leg, which is why I think it was taking too long to heal up before. Looking forward, therefore, for training next week

In non-training stuff, I want to mention two things briefly. First, I’ve added a handful of photos and stuff to the pics section – go and have a look. Hamez has been kind enough to add some comments, so feel free to add some additional ones

Secondly, McAdam, Tank, Wifey and myself went to see Spider-man 3 on Tuesday. Y’know, ’cause it’s cheap to go on Tuesday nights. Tight-arse Tuesday and all that. Anywho, I won’t wax lyrical on it, but I did enjoy it, there was heaps going on which I thought was really good. Some comments though, and be warned there might be some spoilers in there:

The strut scene was complete awesome
The news reporter bit was dicky and unnecessary – please cut it out for the DVD release
Venom looks uber
The scene towards the end where Spidey swings past the flag should have featured “America~~, f*ck yeah!” from Parker/Stone’s sublimely golden Team America instead of the film’s score. In fact, as soon as I can get some footage of that clip, I’ll rip out the audio and throw that in there instead, then YouTube. Though I might be drop-kicked by The Man if someone gets cranky about it
Speaking of flag waving, Spidey 3 was much improved over the unnecessary plastering of it over the course of the previous film. I mean, the fact it’s set in New York and they all have American accents kinda gives it away that the movie’s set in the US. Just say no to unnecessary cultural/political propaganda in Hollywood films

So yes, those are my thoughts of Spidey 3

I’ll fire up another update next week, and I’ve decided I’ll try to make the time over the coming weeks to cover two things – firstly, recount my first lesson at karate, and secondly, talk about how I used to do Taekwondo with my older brother Miguel and my Dad when I was much younger, probably around 8 or 9 years old. Oh, and hopefully I’ll update my profile stuff on what I’m watching/reading – it’s really out of date now