Fighting Black Kings on Encore tonight

[planetwc]

It just started in my area. Man, the production qualities are excellent. It looks just great on my big screen tv.

i imagine I'm just gonna hate the anti-WC/kung fu portion. :(
There is the infamous chubby Wing Chun guy who is going to get his lunch eaten by his Kyo Kushinkai opponent. Talk about a mismatch of training/conditioning skill levels.
The Karate guys are all tough, hard SOB's whereas they seemed to go out of their way to find the pillsbury doughboys for Kung fu. Rumor had it that Oyama made sure that a Japanese guy would win the overall tourney. I guess I'll see when this movie is done.

The Oyama guys look like the modern day MMA guys of their time--other than the odd grunting these guys make(the Oyama approach to kiai really does take ALL the air out of the chest till they end up with these just gutteral raspy noises--which just can't be healthy from a breathing standpoint.

What a great propaganda piece for Karate--well at least Mas Oyama's group anyway.
Wonder where some of these folks are now?

[planetwc]

So...they spent some time setting up the Wing Chun/Kung Fu fighters.

As they are now backgrounding Muay Thai (interestingly enough, the Thai fighter wins his match (they don't show this part) and instead say that "learning he was to face a heavier Karate opponent he withdrew from his next match).

So the Kung Fu guys weren't rippling with muscles like the Oyama guys. But they weren't porky either. The film makers spent time with them watching them train in Hong Kong both overlooking the famous bay of Hong Kong as well as on a rooftop.

The Wing Chun guy is shown doing a version of Chum Kiu, rather poorly and without any intent or structure (the film focuses on this set and labels it as "Kung Fu" and additionally comments on how Kung Fu is more about "beauty" than fighting as the Japanese systems are). He does some lackluster 5point arm strike drills and jogging with the rest of the Kung Fu guys and jumping up in the air doing jumps (I could not call them kicks). They show them doing some group training on a rooftop, which the most important point seemed to be making Bruce Lee like Wa-tah!!! noises.

The WC guy then fought the karate guy basically patty caking him with totally useless ruffle punches against a guy built like a brick wall compared to him. He gets dropped with a gut punch and it's all over. The other Kung Fu guy also gets his behind handed to him as well.

Bottom line, if the "Kung Fu" guys trained as they were filmed it was no wonder they were hammered by the Oyama guys. They show the American Oyama Brown Belts testing for their Black belts by fighting 10 guys in a row--getting the living sh*t beaten out of them for the effort. Conditioning is king.

[Ultimatewingchun]

When was this film/event?

And if it was many years ago (ie.- at least 18-20)...

What's the point of this thread now?


Just curious.........

[mickey]

Greetings,

This event took place around 1975-76.

I viewed it as propaganda piece for the Kyokushinkai. I felt that the kung fu guys were set up--Hong Kong had highly conditioned full contact fighters at that time; "amazingly," those guys were not addressed at all.

Otherwise, it was a fun view.


mickey

[Ronin22]

Kyokushin is the first style I started in and it was around that time. Even being form the Kyokushin school I felt that the CMA's got a bad rap and were not well represented. It would have been great to see some seasoned CMA's in there. I actually met some of the guys in that film such as Frank Clark, great guy, tough as hell. Some pretty good footage of one shot TKO's in that flick. Bare fisted is pretty brutal and this is actually how we sparred some of the time during class. However, during Kyu tests it was always no protection. I remeber going to my friends black belt test in NYC at the US headquarters and as the first poster mentioned he had to take on 10 black belts. One would start and about 2 or 3 minutes later the next would come in with no rest for the one testing. This was pretty much all out from the neck down but I have seen people get popped in the face from wild punches and kicks. If the one testing stopped punching and kicking for a while or covering too much Shihan would push him to produce more attacks. My friend ended up with some bruised ribs and a fat lip but passed. I remember at one point he started to tire out so his brother, father, and myself started pounding out the beginning to the Queen song " we are the champions" Shihan was pretty entertained with that. Needless to say it's very intense and at the end you get a big round of appluse, black belt put and tied around your waist plus a big bear hug from Shihan.

[Ultimatewingchun]

Ronin:

One of my best and oldest friends here in NYC is also a KK black belt with his own school - and your description of the black belt test is right on the money. Those guys are tough!

[Ronin22]

Ultimate:


Yeah it was pretty brutal back then. I don't know if it's still that way in the US I know Shigeru Shihan split off from Kyokushinkai - Kan quite a while ago and started his own style called "US Oyama Karate" God we use to do hundreds of front kicks in 90 degree non air conditioned dojos. Sensei would walk around with a Shinai and if you were caught with you hands on your knees gasping for air he would whack you on the ass and yell "GO!" " keep going!" During Sanzhin kata on the exhale he would whack you in the stomach or back/butt three times to make sure you were tightening all your muscles. I'd go home with three big welt marks on my abs and my mom would be like "what the hell happened to you?"

Where did your friend train US headquarters? Is still involved with Kyokushin or did he convert?

[Ou Ji]

My first Karate school back in the 70's was like that. Part of one test included everyone in the class standing around me and attacking one after the other, non stop.

Then I got my nose busted by the big guy who was more advanced. Sensei just said "Street situation, keep fighting". I continued until I started bleeding all over his floor then he hollered at me to go clean up.

I passed the test.

And we got whacked in class regularly. No AC and when we got a water fountain break we weren't allowed to swallow the water. Just rinse and spit.

Ahh those were the days.

[planetwc]

Hey Victor, Happy new year...

I mentioned it as I was surprised to see this classic on mainstream cable.
As I mentioned the production qualities of what is essentially a propaganda piece for Kyokushinkai are of major motion picture quality.

AND sense there was some Wing Chun beatdowns on it, it seemed topical.

The guy who whooped on the one WC guy was one of the TOP Japanese Kyokushin
fighters of the tournament, very "interesting" how he ended up being the one to end up with the Wing Chun guy.

They also staged it so that the flyweight looking Muay Thai fighters had to face increasingly larger fighters as their fights went on.

In any case the Oyama guys were very tough mofos for their time.

If you've got cable I'm sure it will be on Encore yet again for your viewing pleasure.
A nice blast from the past.

[Phil Redmond]

I was friends with William Oliver and I've seen him fight in point and other tournaments.
When his Sensei (Nakamura), left and started Seido. William left with him. I
also lived a few blocks from the Kyosushinkat school on Flatbush in Bklyn. They
used to do demos at Albi Square breaking baseball bats with their shins. I used
to spar with those guys using WC so I know WC can work. If not I would have
gotten broken up many times.
Phil