No list of Great Assbeatings from Movie History would be respectable without at least one fight scene featuring Bruce Lee; arguably the greatest martial artist that ever lived.
From a purely mechanical point of view, most fights featuring the Dragon would tend to rank low on paper when it comes to cinematic perspective as they tend to be terribly one sided, but that is where the beauty lies.
Let's look at it from a realistic point of view. These fights are supposed to be lopsided in favor of Bruce Lee because these poor schmoes are trying to pit skill against skill against the best pure fighter to grace Planet Earth with the imprint of his foot upon the soil.
You don't have to be Stephen Hawking to solve that equation.
Bruce Lee's disdain for traditional martial arts film choreography is well documented. On the whole, most kung fu films from the sixties and seventies (especially the films from the respective golden ages of Shaw Brothers and Golden Harvest) were heavily choreographed affairs where actors would not fight as hard as they could because the camera simply could not keep up with their movement.
The scene in Enter The Dragon where Lee combats a seemingly endless wave of Han's minions best expresses Lee's view on fight choreography. The camera serves as the eye of the audience and a true master displaying his full prowess is going to act so fast that the naked eye will be unable to follow him and that was how it ought to be.
The tao of Jeet Kune Do stresses economy of motion and full usage of power, speed, and leverage.
Lee felt the rapid ferocity of the attack and the devastating results of the strike should define the ability and skill of the fighter, rather than the intricacy of movement and acrobatic display found in most Hong Kong martial arts films of the sixties and seventies.
Fights did not need to be long and draw out affairs because a martial arts master isn't going to fool around with his attackers. A martial arts master is going to perform to the best of his ability regardless of the skill level of his opposition and as a result, will go through lesser trained assailants like a spoonful of Liquid Plumber.
Being able to see the delivery of the blow did not matter. What mattered was being able to witness the destructive aftermath as yet another guard was knocked completely senseless and fell into a heap on the cold stone floor.
To that end, the genius-level sound editing and Foley work add the quality auditory enhancements necessary to fool your brain into thinking that the poor chuckleheads rushing in to fulfill a death wish in this masterwork of bodily harm are on the receiving end of an actual assbeating for the ages.
Scenes like this led to the rise of the urban legend that the fight scenes in Lee's films were always full contact. To my knowledge, the only Bruce Lee fight scene I aware of that may have been full contact was the climactic brawl between Lee and Chuck Norris in Way Of The Dragon (1972) but I have never been able to confirm or deny that.
And it should go without saying, but if you are not dumbstruck by the famous Nunchaku display every time you see it, you should probably not be allowed to watch any action films from here on out.
From a purely mechanical point of view, most fights featuring the Dragon would tend to rank low on paper when it comes to cinematic perspective as they tend to be terribly one sided, but that is where the beauty lies.
Let's look at it from a realistic point of view. These fights are supposed to be lopsided in favor of Bruce Lee because these poor schmoes are trying to pit skill against skill against the best pure fighter to grace Planet Earth with the imprint of his foot upon the soil.
You don't have to be Stephen Hawking to solve that equation.
Bruce Lee's disdain for traditional martial arts film choreography is well documented. On the whole, most kung fu films from the sixties and seventies (especially the films from the respective golden ages of Shaw Brothers and Golden Harvest) were heavily choreographed affairs where actors would not fight as hard as they could because the camera simply could not keep up with their movement.
The scene in Enter The Dragon where Lee combats a seemingly endless wave of Han's minions best expresses Lee's view on fight choreography. The camera serves as the eye of the audience and a true master displaying his full prowess is going to act so fast that the naked eye will be unable to follow him and that was how it ought to be.
The tao of Jeet Kune Do stresses economy of motion and full usage of power, speed, and leverage.
Lee felt the rapid ferocity of the attack and the devastating results of the strike should define the ability and skill of the fighter, rather than the intricacy of movement and acrobatic display found in most Hong Kong martial arts films of the sixties and seventies.
Fights did not need to be long and draw out affairs because a martial arts master isn't going to fool around with his attackers. A martial arts master is going to perform to the best of his ability regardless of the skill level of his opposition and as a result, will go through lesser trained assailants like a spoonful of Liquid Plumber.
Being able to see the delivery of the blow did not matter. What mattered was being able to witness the destructive aftermath as yet another guard was knocked completely senseless and fell into a heap on the cold stone floor.
To that end, the genius-level sound editing and Foley work add the quality auditory enhancements necessary to fool your brain into thinking that the poor chuckleheads rushing in to fulfill a death wish in this masterwork of bodily harm are on the receiving end of an actual assbeating for the ages.
Scenes like this led to the rise of the urban legend that the fight scenes in Lee's films were always full contact. To my knowledge, the only Bruce Lee fight scene I aware of that may have been full contact was the climactic brawl between Lee and Chuck Norris in Way Of The Dragon (1972) but I have never been able to confirm or deny that.
And it should go without saying, but if you are not dumbstruck by the famous Nunchaku display every time you see it, you should probably not be allowed to watch any action films from here on out.
1 comment:
The Tao of Jeet Kune Do is a great piece of history (Bruce lee’s story).
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