Escape to the Movies: Man of Tai Chi
- Thread starter MovieBob
- Start date
Recommended Videos
I also like Keanu. That monologue in Mnemonic is one of the funniest and best I've ever heard.SnakeoilSage said:
Really looking forward to watching and sharing this with friends, and I can't wait for 47 Ronin!
As for Megan Ellison and Spike Jonze...
I'm sorry, I couldn't really care any less. I don't need another "gritty modern day shooter," however good the story, in the vein of 24.
And whatever Sofia Coppolla's husband can produce, I will hold judgment until I see proof of concept.
Both talented directors, I'm sure, but their movies never much struck any chord with me.
Not much was going to be said on this film if the Noah trailer took up the first third. I am interested though given the caliber of the director's work, plus I wonder if it was successful would it open the door to other parts of the Bible? Revelation is the obvious first choice usually.
Yep, I have to agree with this. It's not even the lacking quality these games seems to have but as pointed pointed out, the arrogance that one can automatically do well, that it'll be somehow easier. Even if that is never said, it comes across that way. I'm not saying these two will also fall into that trap but I'm not going to get excited on film credits alone.hermes200 said:
This looks good. Will add to my watch list. Keanu I've always liked while some dislike him and I applaud him trying something new under his own banner.
As for the film to game creators, I say don't discount them. Boom Blox was a cool game that came from Spielberg and the recent Brothers: AToTS was also from the mind of a film industry guy and that's also a good game. I think this is happening more as creators seek to create their own stuff free of big studios fiddling and meddling. If tried via an indie effort, they can achieve that.
The huge irony is that David Cage has been trying to meld film and games, and its kind of luke warm in success. He's been in games for ages and I still don't own a game of his that I openly enjoy. I kinda wish he'd just make a game without too much of the cinema stuff, while I can appreciate where some of his work has taken games a few steps forward.
As for the film to game creators, I say don't discount them. Boom Blox was a cool game that came from Spielberg and the recent Brothers: AToTS was also from the mind of a film industry guy and that's also a good game. I think this is happening more as creators seek to create their own stuff free of big studios fiddling and meddling. If tried via an indie effort, they can achieve that.
The huge irony is that David Cage has been trying to meld film and games, and its kind of luke warm in success. He's been in games for ages and I still don't own a game of his that I openly enjoy. I kinda wish he'd just make a game without too much of the cinema stuff, while I can appreciate where some of his work has taken games a few steps forward.
OK, generally "producer" doesn't equate to "publisher". Producers are more like the mediators between the production team and the distributor (the big company investing the money, the closer equivalent of a publisher). Their job is to pitch the film to the distributor and, once it's been greenlit, essentially be everybody's boss.Mr.Tea said:
I looked over Ellison's bio, and it seems she's one of the rare exceptions, having gone on to found her own indie distribution company. Which is great and all, but remember that "indie" in the games industry means the exact opposite of "AAA". And the indie game scene seems to be doing just fine on its own so far. If she can somehow scrape together the cash to give the EAs and Ubisofts of the world some serious competition in the mainstream market, then more power to her. At the very least she won't be just another creator trying to break into an unfamiliar medium, because she's not a creator to begin with.
Ha! Would have never expected a Noah's Arc movie... but I'm game. Looks entertaining and the effects look decent at very least.
I bet some people who aren't religious etc. will have issues with Noah's Arc because they don't believe in the bible, yet will be happy enough watching the LOTR and Matrix films out there ^_^
As Bob said, the internet 'bla bla' over this film will be entertaining.
Also, I had the chance to watch Man of Tai Chi, but didn't... not sure why, but it looked meh. But this made it look pretty entertaining and I could do with a decent action flick again.
I bet some people who aren't religious etc. will have issues with Noah's Arc because they don't believe in the bible, yet will be happy enough watching the LOTR and Matrix films out there ^_^
As Bob said, the internet 'bla bla' over this film will be entertaining.
Also, I had the chance to watch Man of Tai Chi, but didn't... not sure why, but it looked meh. But this made it look pretty entertaining and I could do with a decent action flick again.
I skipped the digression with Noah on first watch because I just wanted to see the movie review of the week but I went back and watched the Noah bit just now and from what little is shown in the trailer it does look like it will be worth watching and I hope that it is every bit as weird and wonderful as Bob suggests it will be.
As for the first part of the video, I am a Christian and have put a good deal of time into studying the Bible and, without a doubt, the first books of the Bible, especially Genesis where the story of Noah appears, is genuinely weird from a modern perspective.
As for the rest, Tai Chi has in fact been used in action movies as a straight up fighting style before. If you know what you're looking at you'll realize that Morpheus favored Tai Chi as his style of choice in The Matrix and the sword style used in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon was Tai Chi. The temple that the characters in Crouching Tiger came from, Wu Dan Shan more commonly known in the west as the Wu Tang mountain, is a real place, one of the five temples of Shaolin, and the place where Tai Chi Chuan was created.
As for the rest, Tai Chi has in fact been used in action movies as a straight up fighting style before. If you know what you're looking at you'll realize that Morpheus favored Tai Chi as his style of choice in The Matrix and the sword style used in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon was Tai Chi. The temple that the characters in Crouching Tiger came from, Wu Dan Shan more commonly known in the west as the Wu Tang mountain, is a real place, one of the five temples of Shaolin, and the place where Tai Chi Chuan was created.
Gordon_4 said:
Personally, the Noah movie is something I didn't expect. Just completely out of left field.
Well, I can answer the question about the paid "street fighting" to an extent.
There are three points to consider:
One, a lot of desperate people will do just about anything for money. The old video series "Bum Fights" made sort of a point about this, and it involved more than just bums being paid to fight each other for peanuts, some of which is pretty de-humanizing, which is why it wound up being banned. At one time however you could find those videos with a quick trip to Blockbuster. Sometimes you do wind up with people out on the streets who can actually fight, ghetto trash who are failed boxers (or trained and never went anywhere), Ex-military, and various other backrounds that can put someone who is more or less unemployable or fallen on hard times into such positions. Typically though "Bum Fights" was just pathetic, and that was kind of the point, however you can see where the inspiration for some of this came from.
Two, an appreciation of real fighting, the thing about UFC, Boxing, and other organized contests is that there are tons of rules to make them safe and about what kinds of techniques can be used. It's more of a sport than a real fight, the guy who wins a UFC match under those rules (where tons of things are banned nowadays) is not necessarily the guy who is going to win an actual fight if it was for real.
Even today there are a lot of people who got somewhat irritated with the way UFC developed, given that early on it was more of a true "no holds barred" fighting competition where they didn't worry much about what techniques were used, and about "petty" things like weight classes. You could have some 150 pound dude going up against a 300 point monster, and try and take him out by grounding him with a hold and smashing his brain stem. For obvious reasons the authorities said "no" and pressured UFC to change into what it is now, however it was at one time a real fighting competition as opposed to a sport... and honestly a lot of people like to see that, as opposed to necessarily just wanting to see someone hurt or killed.
Three, gambling, simply put there isn't going to be a lot of money made off of doing illegal, no holds barred fighting and selling the rights given that the illegal nature of it presents a barrier to getting the sales. On the other hand if you get a bunch of enthusiasts together with money to spend who are willing to bet on the outcome of the fights, the house can make a pretty decent chunk of change. At the end of the day it comes down to getting good fighters who are willing to risk getting seriously hurt or killed for whatever can be afforded, see point one, and it would largely come down to fighting the right people, under the right circumstances.
Now, of course TV and movies in general want to make things more dramatic, so they of course play everything up, and of course try and create some kind of great battle between good and evil, as opposed to people who know what they are doing (as opposed to being victims) working with people who set up a venue for it and themselves have a vested interest in keeping things as relatively clean and quiet as possible. When it comes to death matches, when and if such things were going to take place nobody involved would likely want to tape or televise it. As a result they mostly remain the stuff of "urban legend". For example not too long ago there were some stories about Mexican gang members hijacking buses on the border, forcing the people in the bus to fight each other to the death:
http://www.theatlanticwire.com/global/2011/06/gladiator-death-fights-mexico-drug-war/38812/
So there you go, your underground death matches (maybe, hard to say, but fairly likely) IRL. Albiet without a lot of skill involved in the actual fighting.
-
As far as the question about why someone with millions of dollars to blow wouldn't just pay to snuff people, IRL it could just be about the fighting itself. In a movie having some sadistic psychopath at the helm adds tension, but IRL the appeal is more likely to be akin to watching boxing or the UFC without the rules.
To put things into perspective with all the rules in UFC, it seems 90% of the matches nowadays come down to people rolling around on the ground and trying to finish each other with wrestling or Juijitsu. Strikes (ground and pound) some into play, but there are so many rules about where and how you can hit someone that typically stand up comes down to a kickboxing match, and while some fights ARE resolved by strikes, it seems to be something of a minority. Even with the grappling there are certain things you can't do....
There are three points to consider:
One, a lot of desperate people will do just about anything for money. The old video series "Bum Fights" made sort of a point about this, and it involved more than just bums being paid to fight each other for peanuts, some of which is pretty de-humanizing, which is why it wound up being banned. At one time however you could find those videos with a quick trip to Blockbuster. Sometimes you do wind up with people out on the streets who can actually fight, ghetto trash who are failed boxers (or trained and never went anywhere), Ex-military, and various other backrounds that can put someone who is more or less unemployable or fallen on hard times into such positions. Typically though "Bum Fights" was just pathetic, and that was kind of the point, however you can see where the inspiration for some of this came from.
Two, an appreciation of real fighting, the thing about UFC, Boxing, and other organized contests is that there are tons of rules to make them safe and about what kinds of techniques can be used. It's more of a sport than a real fight, the guy who wins a UFC match under those rules (where tons of things are banned nowadays) is not necessarily the guy who is going to win an actual fight if it was for real.
Even today there are a lot of people who got somewhat irritated with the way UFC developed, given that early on it was more of a true "no holds barred" fighting competition where they didn't worry much about what techniques were used, and about "petty" things like weight classes. You could have some 150 pound dude going up against a 300 point monster, and try and take him out by grounding him with a hold and smashing his brain stem. For obvious reasons the authorities said "no" and pressured UFC to change into what it is now, however it was at one time a real fighting competition as opposed to a sport... and honestly a lot of people like to see that, as opposed to necessarily just wanting to see someone hurt or killed.
Three, gambling, simply put there isn't going to be a lot of money made off of doing illegal, no holds barred fighting and selling the rights given that the illegal nature of it presents a barrier to getting the sales. On the other hand if you get a bunch of enthusiasts together with money to spend who are willing to bet on the outcome of the fights, the house can make a pretty decent chunk of change. At the end of the day it comes down to getting good fighters who are willing to risk getting seriously hurt or killed for whatever can be afforded, see point one, and it would largely come down to fighting the right people, under the right circumstances.
Now, of course TV and movies in general want to make things more dramatic, so they of course play everything up, and of course try and create some kind of great battle between good and evil, as opposed to people who know what they are doing (as opposed to being victims) working with people who set up a venue for it and themselves have a vested interest in keeping things as relatively clean and quiet as possible. When it comes to death matches, when and if such things were going to take place nobody involved would likely want to tape or televise it. As a result they mostly remain the stuff of "urban legend". For example not too long ago there were some stories about Mexican gang members hijacking buses on the border, forcing the people in the bus to fight each other to the death:
http://www.theatlanticwire.com/global/2011/06/gladiator-death-fights-mexico-drug-war/38812/
So there you go, your underground death matches (maybe, hard to say, but fairly likely) IRL. Albiet without a lot of skill involved in the actual fighting.
-
As far as the question about why someone with millions of dollars to blow wouldn't just pay to snuff people, IRL it could just be about the fighting itself. In a movie having some sadistic psychopath at the helm adds tension, but IRL the appeal is more likely to be akin to watching boxing or the UFC without the rules.
To put things into perspective with all the rules in UFC, it seems 90% of the matches nowadays come down to people rolling around on the ground and trying to finish each other with wrestling or Juijitsu. Strikes (ground and pound) some into play, but there are so many rules about where and how you can hit someone that typically stand up comes down to a kickboxing match, and while some fights ARE resolved by strikes, it seems to be something of a minority. Even with the grappling there are certain things you can't do....
I was going to bring this up! He's also (for lack of a better term) the host of the documentary. After watching it, I had a newfound respect for him, as it was obvious that he A) loved moviemaking and it's related jobs and B) really knew what he was talking about. Seriously great stuff.NinjaDC said:
Plus, the guy invented (with some help) a new kind of camera crane so he could better film the action in 'Man Of Tai Chi'. That's dedication.