Commentary
A few days ago I rented a movie called “Foot Fist Way,” that starred Danny R. McBride, the actor from “Pineapple Express” and “Tropic Thunder.” It was a low budget movie where he plays a Tae Kwon Do instructor who’s life goes to shambles, when he finds out that his wife is having an affair with her boss. It was a silly movie, but the people who were portraying the students actually knew Tae Kwon Do.
This struck a chord with me because I’ve always been a fan of anything involving any form of Martial Arts. This got me thinking about some of my favorite movies and TV shows that added to the mystique of Martial Arts and made me wish I had stayed in Tae Kwon Do for more than three weeks.
Anime
Japanese animation, more commonly known as Anime, has been apart of my life since 3rd grade. I remember when my bus driver, Mr. Oglevee, told me about this cartoon called, Dragonball Z (DBZ). He was a huge fan of the show and Mr. Olgevee was cool, so I decided to check it out. I will forever be in his debt because he really opened my eyes up to a whole new world. This introduced me to Dragonball (which came before DBZ), Ronin Warriors, and my current favorite Naruto – If DBZ is Dr. J, than Naruto is Jordan.
I loved “Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie,” mainly because it was so much better than the god-awful live action movie. It truly demonstrated how great Ken and Ryu were and the ending is just “gangsta.”
Kung Fu Movies aka any movie with Martial Arts in it
For a person with very little knowledge about Martial Arts, with all the movies I’ve seen I feel like I could be the second coming of Bruce Leroy. One of my favorites is “Five Deadly Venoms,” which was produced by the legendary Shaw Brothers. I saw it when I was 13 and it’s one of my beloved classics. Another one is “Master of the Flying Guillotine.” It contained everything a kung fu movie needs to be considered classic: bad voiceovers, hokey effects, and wacky noises every time a hit is landed.
Jet Li
Tony Jaa is the future, Jackie Chan is a great showman, and Bruce Lee is the Master, but Jet Li is my all-time favorite. He took martial arts to the next level, he starred in movies with both Aaliyah (R.I.P) and DMX (R.I.P. to his career), and he had a movie where he fights himself – “The One” will always get play in my DVD player.
Plus, it helps that we share the same birthday.