EQUILIBRIUM- (MARTIAL ARTS)
A broad science fiction thriller in a classic vein, Equilibrium takes a respectable stab at a Fahrenheit 451-like cautionary fable. The story finds Earth's post-World War III humankind in a state of severe emotional repression: If no one feels anything, no one will be inspired by dark passions to attack their neighbors. Writer-director Kurt Wimmer's monochromatic, Metropolis-influenced cityscape provides an excellent backdrop to the heavy-handed mission of John Preston (Christian Bale), a top cop who busts "sense offenders" and crushes sentimental, sensual, and artistic relics from a bygone era. Predictably, Preston becomes intrigued by his victims and that which they die to cherish; he stops taking his mandatory, mood-flattening drug and is even aroused by a doomed prisoner (Emily Watson). View the ficticious martial art of GUNKATA.
DANCE OF THE DRUNK MANTIS - (KUNG FU THEATER)
Chinese Drunken Boxing was eventually divided into two factions - Northern and Southern. Both styles were technically disimilar but their underlying theories remained the same in order to be effective in either one must be in a drunken stupor. The Southern forms major proponent was Sam the Seed an old man famous throughout Canton for his invincible techniques [Rubber Legs] champion of the northern drunken style had combined the motions of the deadly Mantis with the traditional North Drunken Boxing foms to develop the Dance of the Drunk Mantis. Armed with this formidable weapon he along with his most skillful disciple traveled south to find and engage Sam the Seed in mortal combat to decide once and for all the true master of Drunken Boxing Starring: Hwang Jang Lee - Sam the Seed
KUNG FU HUSTLE - (KUNG FU THEATER)
Kung Fu Hustle takes the gleeful mayhem of Hong Kong action movies, the deadpan physical humor of silent comedies, and the sheer elasticity of Wile E. Coyote cartoons and fuses them into a spectacle that is simple in its joys and mind-boggling in its orchestration. A run-down slum has been poor but peaceful until a bunch of black-suited gangsters called the Axe Gang show up to cause trouble--and discover that, hidden among the humble poor, are three kung fu masters trying to live an ordinary life. But after these martial artists repulse the gang with their flying fists and feet, the gang leader hires a pair of assassins, whose arrival leads to the unveiling of more secrets, until both the screen and the audience are dizzy with hyperbolic fight artistry (choreographed by Yuen Wo Ping, who also choreographed The Matrix). Weaving through this escalating fury is a loudmouthed loser (writer/director/actor Stephen Chow) who suddenly finds himself having to live up to his bragging. Kung Fu Hustle more than lives up to the promise of Chow's previous film, Shaolin Soccer
|
