Lee Kwan Shan
10-09-2004, 07:15 AM
Ok, so back in '99 about when I started taking Kung Fu, I saw The Matrix. I watched that first fight scene between Neo and Morpheus in awe. They were so good in my eyes. After awhile as my skills progressed I'd watch that fight scene and they no longer looked that great. Now I watch that fight and they don't even look good.
Which makes me wonder how people think that you can train a person to do something that in history has taken decades to acheive true mastery in, and try to make them believable in the timeframe of half a year. You can't fake martial arts with only 6 months of training, no matter how hard it is, yet they continue to attempt doing it in every American action flick. My Sifu is always telling me about the American movies he's watched and how the main characters totally sucked at martial arts, haha.
And it's not just in martial arts, you can't train somebody to paint in that amount of time, either(me being a painter and knowing the frustration). But I guess the producers are just counting on that nobody watching knows martial arts. I dunno, I'm not saying I can't enjoy it, but it's certainly less enjoyable when you notice all the sloppy movements and footwork, and unstable stances.
Especially in Kill Bill. Tarentino was saying that Uma picked up swordplay really really fast and that she was really good at it. No offense, Uma, but you sucked at it. Not to sound harsh, but I wouldn't expect anything more from her in that amount of time. In fact she's actually pretty good for the time she spent on it. But anyway for all the more complicated swordplay they had to bring in a double named Satya who is actually a member of the Ninjai Gang if you've heard of Ninjai. You just can't fake good Martial Arts.
Seems like in America they look for a good face first and then train them in whatever they need to learn. But as Jackie Chan was talking about in a doc about Drunken Master, when they make action films in China, action is key. Acting and dialogue isn't a huge part of their movies, so when they're doing an action flick they'll actually bring in stunt people and martial artists to star in the movie, because it's an ACTION film. I like that philosophy. I mean not that I want bad acting in a movie, but if it's an action film it should have good action not good acting.
Which makes me wonder how people think that you can train a person to do something that in history has taken decades to acheive true mastery in, and try to make them believable in the timeframe of half a year. You can't fake martial arts with only 6 months of training, no matter how hard it is, yet they continue to attempt doing it in every American action flick. My Sifu is always telling me about the American movies he's watched and how the main characters totally sucked at martial arts, haha.
And it's not just in martial arts, you can't train somebody to paint in that amount of time, either(me being a painter and knowing the frustration). But I guess the producers are just counting on that nobody watching knows martial arts. I dunno, I'm not saying I can't enjoy it, but it's certainly less enjoyable when you notice all the sloppy movements and footwork, and unstable stances.
Especially in Kill Bill. Tarentino was saying that Uma picked up swordplay really really fast and that she was really good at it. No offense, Uma, but you sucked at it. Not to sound harsh, but I wouldn't expect anything more from her in that amount of time. In fact she's actually pretty good for the time she spent on it. But anyway for all the more complicated swordplay they had to bring in a double named Satya who is actually a member of the Ninjai Gang if you've heard of Ninjai. You just can't fake good Martial Arts.
Seems like in America they look for a good face first and then train them in whatever they need to learn. But as Jackie Chan was talking about in a doc about Drunken Master, when they make action films in China, action is key. Acting and dialogue isn't a huge part of their movies, so when they're doing an action flick they'll actually bring in stunt people and martial artists to star in the movie, because it's an ACTION film. I like that philosophy. I mean not that I want bad acting in a movie, but if it's an action film it should have good action not good acting.