BUT FOR ME, IT WAS TUESDAY!: A Night Of Indie Kung Fu Fanfare At The Angelika
I think at least one other important lesson I must always remember is that I don’t get out enough.
I think at least one other important lesson I must always remember is that I don’t get out enough.
I’m having a bit of a slow day here, so there isn’t a whole lot coming through in my inbox. All that aside, I thought I’d share this little tidbit from a rare night out I had on Wednesday evening here in New York City when filmmakers Takashi Hara and production partner Maria Tran of Australia-based Phoenix Eye Film Productions came to visit.
Just a quick Google search online about actress Michelle Yeoh’s new movie, Everything Everywhere All At Once, and you needn’t wait too long before stumbling upon the names of Andy Le, Brian Le and Daniel Mah, the pointmen of stunt, film and fight choreography troupe, Martial Club.
It’s worth noting that director Sheng Ding’s 2012 production of Police Story: Lockdown – which I first caught at Screen Anarchy when readers first knew of it as Twitchfilm – that inspired me to get a leg in the blogging business with the launch of Film Combat Syndicate, roughly eight years after I first experimented with the hobby on a free hosting site that existed at the time.
It’s been a while since I’ve written a proper article about The Raid films. I’ve posted, yeah, but it’s interesting that the film is gaining traction again, and not for nothing either.
I gotta say… this year-end piece has been pretty hard to ponder what with all the overthinking I’ve done. Keeping it simple was just as difficult for an approach to this thing, further elongating the lack of inspiration that I’ve increasingly felt in the last four months or so. That’s writers’ bloc for you. It’s a real bitch, and indeed, many things have factored into it, and it’s all still a challenge to take in.
Years ago, I became obsessed with listing my “top-tens” or “fives” in final fight scenes. There was a UK website that produced such lists and for their final fight scene list, it bothered me for the longest time that it never had the one featured in Drive between Mark Dacascos and Masaya Kato, so you can imagine how fulfilled I felt when the page loaded and I finally saw it listed.
The premise behind Coach vs Client is predicated on one key element of the training sessions that I myself have with Coach Justin Perillo (aka Coach JP) as the topic of film are a mainstay of the conversations in between sets and for the heavier ones we’d often evoke a film that resonates in that very moment.
For years we’ve grown accustomed to the rank silliness and sheer bluster and spectacle of the Fast And Furious movies. All twenty years of them. The latest installment of the saga, F9 is no different, though with several exceptions that pertain to any reverence, sympathy or engagement into the drama and the characters, story and twists that occur.
The title isn’t bluster and instead evokes WWE star Kurt Angle’s line: ‘It’s true, it’s true’ Yes, John Cena, the famed WWE sports entertainer and Hollywood actor, and co-star of Justin Lin’s newest theatrical release out of Universal Pictures, F9, has openly admitted his fandom for the exciting Japanese manga series written by Buronson and illustrated by Tetsuo Hara. And yet it is merely one of several reasons, that will prompt you to consider watching (or even reading) the legendary FIST OF THE NORTH STAR (FOTNS) The reasons are summarized below:8. FORMUALIC BUT FAVOURABLE‘FIST OF THE NORTH STAR’ (‘FOTNS’) doesn’t possess a complex story or narrative, in fact one could argue that the premise is very simplistic in that it is simply the story of a stoic martial artist seeking to locate his beloved fiancée, Yuria. Yet forgoing any complexity, enables the viewer to invest in the emotional content highly evident in the characters; in many ways this provides us the opportunity to simply enjoy the action and the set pieces – ultimately to be engaged in a mature story. The heroes like Kenshiro or Rei are determined and noble, and they go up against some incredibly powerful adversaries that often have morally ambiguous characteristics. Given its formulaic narrative, it is one of those creative works that is incredibly easy to get into at any juncture.
The rise of Arnold Schwarzenegger in the 1980s is a thing of legend. After a highly successful bodybuilding career (and a not so successful film career) in the 70s, “Aunold” would break out onto the scene in a big way with 1982’s Conan the Barbarian. His ascension through the ranks of Hollywood was driven by the equally meteoric rise of action cinema in general. More than any other action star, Arnold was a brand unto himself; and with the 90’s fast approaching, he and the genre he now dominated were poised to take over the cinema landscape.
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