Ah! The joy of martial art movies! Incredible fights, crazy stories with flying warriors, naive shaolin monks or angry cops, and very useless but gorgeous women crying for help. I can’t get enough of those movies.
I started my whole martial art passion with the chinese and HK movies. The usual, you might say: “The 36th chamber of Shaolin” and other Shaw brothers wonders with a bit of Bruce Lee in the mix…
But who really caught my full attention was Jet Li (left) with movies like “Shaolin temple” and of course “Once upon a time in China”, which I consider his best role in this serie of movies directed and produced by Tsui Hark. (One of the world best director who gave us “the Blade” that is, to my mind, the most amazing martial art movie ever made, but without Jet Li!)
Well, what can be said about Jet Li that haven’t been said already? One minute of a fight scene with him and his talent and skills can’t be ignored. His speed, the perfection of his moves gave a new beginning to traditionnal Kung Fu fights. And he has a kind of baby face and gentle smile (which never made him very credible when he had to act as the “bad guy” in some movies by the way) that brings down a little the whole “I am a taugh guy who could kill you in one second with my bare hands” act.
But let’s cross the chinese border and see what the wonderful kingdom of Choson has to offer.
Well, they brought us testosterone.
Pure testosterone with the great martial art actor and director Jung Doo Hong (right). He is THE MAN. The one you want to call when in trouble with dangerous and possibly drunken gangsters.
His most notable appearances are in the movies he made with the director Ryu Seung Wan-류승완 but actually participated as the action director in some famous movies like “Shiri-쉬리” or “A Bittersweet life-달콤한 인생” .
Jung Doo Hong is efficient. No flying. No useless moves. He goes for the kill and aim straight at your weak points. Coming from Taekwondo and Hapkido, his kicks are, of course, very impressive and very clean.
What I like about his way of making action is that, as soon as I see one second, I know it is Korean action. It’s not Chinese, not Japanese but pure Korean action (except in the movie “Arahan- 아라한 장풍 대작전” where director Ryu wanted to pay his respect to the HK style fights but no matter what,it still tasted a bit like Korea though!).
Those two actors, by mastering their art so beautifully made me share their passion and decided me to ridicule myself in different dojos over the years (without much results!) and made me appreciate an other part of the great Asian culture! I still can’t fly over trees but it definitly decided me to fly over half of the world and settle in the cradle of martial arts that is Asia.
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I am full of admiration and positive feelings. Very nice, clean and pleasant. All the best for the author.