There are life lessons everywhere, even in the most unlikely of places. For the Evolving Martial Artist, fighting is a metaphor for life. Engaging a daunting adversary who hits and inflicts pain is like entering the every day battles of life. Hell, it hurts.

Tough lessons are often employed by Shaolin kung fu masters to teach the tough demands of combat. And life. In American history, the Gold Rush brought people to the Black Hills of South Dakota and as the camp grew, a town sprung up around the prospecting. David Milch’s ground breaking Western HBO series Deadwood, based on real characters and events in the Old West, was a study in human evolution and our struggle to bring chaos to order.

In this scene from Deadwood, Al Swearengen (Ian McShane) the complex protagonist, ruthless and brutal, yet with his own morals, loyalties, and even at times, kindness, imparts a life lesson to the Deadwood’s newspaper publisher, A.W. Merrick (Jeffrey Jones) who is demoralized by violent misfortune, after being threatened, finds his office and printing press vandalized and in ruin. In Swearengen we see a classic example of the Eastern zen slap or as we say in the West, a kick in the ass.

However crude, it is wisdom for martial artists and non-martial artists alike.

Lawrence Tan & Toni Josephson

Tweet

The fight scene in HBO’s Deadwood between Dan Dority (W. Earl Brown) and Hearst’s goon and body guard Captain Turner (Allan Graf) is one of the most realistic screen fight scenes filmed. Be forewarned it is brutal and ugly, like real fighting. Allan Graf was also the stunt coordinator for this fight (and several other Deadwood episodes). Let’s look at the components of what makes a fight scene a good fight scene.

In a fascinating documentary on Jackie Chan’s stunt training, the martial arts maestro is choreographing a deadly encounter with an authentic European tournament champion. It is enlightening. During rehearsal, everything is fine. Then full speed…“Camera…action!” Disaster. Take after take, mistake after mistake.The champ is off his game. Frustrated, (time is money) Jackie selects one of his stuntman to stand in for the champion. One take. Beautiful.

What happened to the champ?

Years ago, when I first participated in Hong Kong chop socky fight scenes, I encountered the same challenge as the champion (I also picked up choice Cantonese curses hurled at me). Why? We did not know how to cheat for the camera. Our kicks and punches were instinctively delivered as if for realistic self defense. We were hurting the stuntmen – tough guys already – trained to skillfully create the illusion of destruction without injury to their make believe adversaries.

Cheating for the camera.

So, for the gushing blood, broken bones, knockouts and carnage, it is make believe. Components of a fight scene are not just the obvious: punches, kicks, throws, joint locks and actual fighting techniques. There are also film techniques to consider. Fighters must be conscious of camera angling to conceal pulled punches, safe fighting distance to prevent injury and acting to create drama when hitting or being hit.

One of the biggest elements is the rhythm that orchestrates the action. All this underscores the false reality of Jason Bourne, James Bond, Rambo, Spartacus and even Bruce Lee’s celluloid mayhem. Martial art actors and stuntmen develop special fighting reflexes and skills that are not identical to true martial arts.

Evolving Martial Artists appreciate the special skills, enjoy the creativity behind the fight fantasy and are even inspired by the romantic hero ideal. But never mistake that these fights have anything to do with reality. Martial artists who focus on reality based fighting purge film fighting fantasy from their training.

See if you can find these components when you watch a film fight.
In our final post on the topic we’ll look at why a master of combat, Bruce Lee, doesn’t portray realistic fight scenes on film.

Keep practicing,
Lawrence Tan

Tweet