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Reading Responses

Drawn C.Harbour 2013

The three rules of warriorship are basically about remaining mindful as an actor during stage combat and remaining mindful as a storyteller when choreographing a fight. This is easier to forget or overlook thn one might think, because some redundant actions can be really cool (such as Keanu's run up the wall in the clip Professor Jenn posted earlier) but even stunning moves can be detrimental to the fight's validity as a whole.

Ne'er The Twain goes over the nuances of stage combat and martial arts. While the latter may inspire the former, the former does not reenact accurately, nor does it have to. I hope somebody set the unwitting girl who said her stage combat class made her feel "safe" straight, it would be unfortunate if her impudence was discovered in practice. I find myself falling into "the technician's perspective" constantly, particularly whenever anyone in a TV show/movie has a gun and no sense of trigger discipline (see: that clip from Firefly). With minute details such as that, it's up to the audience to have some suspension of disbelief .

Observations On Film Art inspects two fields of conflict direction, complete clarity of movement or purposeful obfuscation of movement. I think both are legitimate approaches. Obviously, for swashbuckling and humor scenes you need complete clarity because it sets the lighthearted mood of the casual observer. Muddled shots are serious, they draw an audience in to the action, and if executed well convey the danger and confusion a character undergoes, you'll observe this in sound editing as well, when a character gets clocked in the head and suddenly the movie is completely silent but for a "ringing ear" sound effect. It's part of a modern notion of film wherein a character's state is applied  to the viewer.

Fight Clip Club

Start at 00:40:00 for my specific fight scene, then go to 0:00:00 and watch the whole thing

This is an expressionistic fight scene that wavers from swashbuckling to comedic, it's not the most realistic scene in cinematic history. There are several moments where two characters are grappling and holding nearly still as punching sound effects play.

Big Lee's objective is to defeat all three siblings in order to marry Ming and collect a reward, as a tactician he attempts to meet these ends by absorbing all chest blows unflinchingly and using his considerable size to toss other characters about. His first meaningful obstacle is his shirt, 

.GIFs made by C. Harbour 2013

Once he rights himself, he comes across his shirt again, and loses the fight.

.GIFs made by C. Harbour 2013

You can see why he chose to fight without it in the first place, it is his one greatest weakness.

In the story, it's one of the few showcases of strange suitors come to win Ming. He was winning the fight due to a superhuman ability to feel nothing and not absorb the kinetic effects of punches. The shirt was a bit of a dirty trick, but the good guys of Two Wondrous Tigers relish in the use of strange props (bird cages, chestnuts, water troughs, anything in reach). Fights between Big Lee and other irrelevant goons are meant to illustrate the martial skill of Ming's family.

Being a low budget no-name old school kung-fu flick, there were no stunt doubles used, all actors did their own work.

Sharon Yeung Pan-Pan- Ming (in the violet)

Kitty Meng Chui- Ming's sister (in the red&white)

Charlie Chan Yiu-Lam-Ming's brother (in the navy)

Tiger Yang Cheng-Wu- Big Lee (shirtless, mustache)

Lastly, this isn't a good example, it's a terrible example from an awful movie that I love. The only well-acted blows on the part of the "victim" are from the shirt bits, which suggests to me that Yiu-Lam actually did kick Cheng-Wu while he was trapped in his jacket.