Silly Americans...

[shartley]

Originally posted by aaron_mag
"spagetti martial arts movie"....hadn't heard that term before. That is the perfect term!

[MantisMag]

i though spaghetti western was because of all the italian actors. or was it because they were very thin...? in any case since we're talking martial arts shouldn't it be lo mein? or better yet crispy fried noodles: chow mein. or since we're talking about a fat boy, wide noodles: chow fun.

i'm getting hungry now.

[RamboPreacher]

dang, Manike, you found one of my early attempts at being "kewl". I am gonna have to make a trip to see Guido now. He told me his boss wouldn' let that thing go public, since I made all those "payments".

[shartley]

Originally posted by MantisMag
i though spaghetti western was because of all the italian actors. or was it because they were very thin...? in any case since we're talking martial arts shouldn't it be lo mein? or better yet crispy fried noodles: chow mein. or since we're talking about a fat boy, wide noodles: chow fun.

i'm getting hungry now.

[Creative Mayhem]

OMG!!!! That "jed" is out of control!!!!


Lucas should hire him for the next film...

CM

[bofh]

Spaghetti Western

They were named after the westerns made by Italian film companies mostly for marketing within Europe. The Westerns replaced the "Sword and Sandal" movies.

Most notablely would be Serigo Leone's films with Clint Eastwood. But there were hundreds of them made.

And now you know.

[shartley]

Thank you.

[aaron_mag]

And the reason that Shartely's term is so good is that many of the martial arts movies he is talking about resemble the classic Spagetti Westerns. Everything leads up to the final fight between the ultimate bad guy and the hero. You get the posing, the stand off, then the final fight sequence.

Off subject but I am getting sick of how much Hong Kong action sequences are invading every hollywood movie. It can make no sense that the two characters are martial arts masters but suddenly they are flipping and kicking in a flurry of action that is can't be followed. You can't tell who is winning and who is losing until one loses.

The old Bruce Lee movies (the first ones) understood the importance of tempo. People just leaping at each other in a flurry of limbs was understood to be bad and good choreography that the audience could follow was understood to be good. The reason Jackie Chan movies are enjoyable is because he also understands that fight scenes have to have a sense of timing and drama (in his case comedic timing).

The Matrix also had a good sense of timing with cool action sequences. Star Wars on the other hand have had extremely badly choreographed action sequences (among other things) because there was no sense of drama or timing. Darth Maul and Obi Wan's teacher are just flailing away until he just happens to be stabbed. There was no lead up to it, no sense that Obi Wan's teacher had bitten off more than he could chew, no slow realization that this guy was better than he was and he was going to die. Same with the much heralded Yoda fight scene in the next movie. He is a bouncing super ball but there was much more drama in the less athletic Obi Wan-Vader fight scene in the original Star Wars and even more so in the Empire Strikes Back. Can you tell this is a pet peeve!

[JEDI]

That was pretty funny Manike. I'll take one for the team, and let you have that one. I like a good roasting!

[bofh]

After watching the movie, and spreading it around the office... it's offical. It's a whole new level of wrong.

The looks on his face are priceless.

[MantisMag]

aaron- maybe it's just cause i'm chinese and i grew up watching kung fu movies but i could follow all of them just fine. with your star wars example i definitely got the sense that darth maul was far superior to either obi wan or qui gon. obi wan only won the fight because of an unexpected move. darth maul was taking on both of them for pete's sake! and he was winning too. he kicked obi wan off the catwalk. i definitely got the feeling that he was having a good time and he was toying with them. never mind the fact that the quality of his movements was better. the actor has probably been studying kung fu for a long time. whereas the actors portraying obi wan and qui gon probably only had a few months. when obi wan gets cut off and he's taking on just qui gon he's just loafing off. he lets qui gon take the offensive and just casually parries everything. then he looks like he just stabs him while he knows obi wan is looking. obi wan is angry and has an advantage initially. but darth maul quickly regains control of the fight. finally throwing him into the hole. he only loses because he thinks obi wan is helpless and unarmed. obi wan surprises him with that jump and by grabbing qui gon's lightsaber. as for the yoda fight that was just showing off yoda's superiority. you definitely got the sense that dooku was barely holding him off and that's why he knocked over the pillar and ran away. it's a different aesthetic but the drama is still there. it just tends to get lost in all the "flailing".

i do agree with you on all the ridiculous insertions of martial arts into other films though. i'm sooooo tired of seeing people who have no idea what they're doing and think they can do kung fu. charlie's angels is HORRIBLE! i hate that movie. in large part because of the fighting. although the rest of the movie is equally ridiculous.

[aaron_mag]

Don't want to hijack thread. I'll PM you.

[MantisMag]

good call. i'll pm you my response later.

[logamus]

damn, my dad said he deleted that tape.