Knife Breakdown on the Big Fight at the End of The Man From Nowhere (2010)

By Steven Moody December 31, 2020 Leave a Comment

I don’t know if you’ve seen the excellent 2010 Korean action movie The Man from Nowhere (아저씨; RR: Ajeossi) starring Won Bin and written and directed by Lee Jeong-beom. For one thing, go check it out because its really fantastic. The plot line is this guy is a clerk at a convenience store on the ground floor of a low-rent apartment building who makes friends with a kid who lives upstairs. But whoops, her Mom has been trying to make ends meet and makes the mistake of getting involved with some drug dealers. When the bad guys cross the line with the kid, they learn the hard way that her friend the convenience clerk used to be a government assassin.

The whole movie is a class act. Well directed, acted, performed, and photographed. The Korean film industry has been turning out world class films for like 20 years now. It was great to see that acknowledged when Parasite won best picture last year.

The final fight is an off-the-hook knife fight between the hero and like 20 bad guys and it is pretty good depiction of quality knife work. Of course, training with a knife and thinking about using it in a fight is grim business (and who knows if you could really pull a lot of it off) but the principles are on display in this scene. I’ve trained a decent amount in Escrima/Kali and my take is much like my take with empty hand fighting. It’s all about the mental game. Can really keep it together while doing some pretty harsh things to other people? For me, much depends on the ethical justification. I think I could do it to protect my family. But I believe you’ll never know until the rubber meets the road, really. Hopefully, that will never happen (knock on wood).

The fight:

The fight gets a good breakdown from the the guys at Scenic Fights:

All the Bruce Lee Scenes in the 70s TV Show “Longstreet”

By Steven Moody July 27, 2020 2 Comments

In 1971, a quirky TV movie aired on the ABC Movie of the Week called Longstreet.

The movie was written by Sterling Silliphant, an Oscar winning writer (In the Heat of the Night) and a student of Bruce Lee. The show was picked up as a series whose debut episode was called “The Way of the Intercepting Fist.”

Silliphant was Bruce’s student in that 3 year “in-between” period (after The Green Hornet and before his first feature film, The Big Boss).

He also got Bruce some Hollywood work, writing him a memorable cameo in the James Garner movie Marlowe, where Bruce is a Mob enforcer who destroys Marlowe’s office. He also wrote Bruce a pivotal role for Longstreet.

Longstreet was a detective show about an insurance investigator who, while investigating some jewel thefts, is blinded and widowed by an explosion meant to silence him. A key character in the early shows was Li Tsung, who helps Longstreet regain his independence, basically by teaching him Wing Chun / Jeet Kune Do.

Duke Paige: What is this thing you do?
Li Tsing: In Catonese, Jeet Kune Do – the way of the intercepting fist.
Duke Paige: Intercepting fist, huh?

One of the things I find most interesting about this show is how much of Bruce’s subsequent media image seems to have been formed by this series. Whole swaths of the dialog show up in other media, such as Enter the Dragon (“boards don’t hit back”) and in Bruce’s famous interview with Pierre Berton (Be like water, my friend”).

I suspect this is because Silliphant was able to artfully take Bruce’s teachings and style of speaking and turn it into great dialog. Then Bruce naturally was able to use these well-written versions of his teachings which he had memorized for the show. Or, Silliphant just put Bruce’s words and metaphors in the screenplay (giving Bruce more credit!).

I saw this show when it aired (I was 9). I was of course interested in the discussions of how to fight (being a small kid and a wise ass, a bad combination resulting in the occasional beat down). I was intrigued by the combination of philosophy and violence explored on the show. Bruce often said very ambiguous things, which drew me in with more force, the mystery something to chew on, like the Japanese kōan. What does that mean? Fighting without fighting? No style? Even at 9, these words were intriguing and mysterious.

Some helpful Youtuber compiled all the scenes and uploaded them.

Movie Fights: Mads Mikkelsen vs Laurence Fishburne

By Steven Moody November 12, 2019 Leave a Comment

Movie fighting is usually (probably always) very different from real fighting. By real fighting, I don’t mean in sports or in “challenges.” I mean in the real world where one person attacks another and death and serious injury are possible. As far as I can tell, real fights are over very quickly. Real fights will often involve predatory behavior (see Rory Miller, Geoff Thompson, Mac MacYoung). In real fights, again as far as I can tell, based on what I hear and read and infer, the fear of death throws a lot of chivalry and fair play out the window. People will prefer to use tactics to improve their odds as much as possible.

Ambush. Weapons or numbers advantages. Distraction, subterfuge, dirty tricks.

For one famous historical example, look as Japanese swordsman Miyamoto Musashi. He used all sorts of sneaky ticks to get the advantage. Put the sun in their eyes. Show up late to piss them off. Not to compare them, but consider Billy the Kid. Apparently preferred to shoot people in the back. In war, armies are always trying to get the element of surprise on their side. They set traps (such as IEDs – improvised explosive devices) so they are not even present for the violence.

In this movie fight, we see a lot of this sort of thing. They both try to launch a surprise attack. They both pick up weapons to try and get a weapon advantage. And we see a big mistake – Fishburne’s character stops the attack and stays in range before his opponent is dead or immobilized. If the opponent is conscious, they can still attack. This mistake gets him a knife in the neck. You gotta be careful! In real life, the best strategy is to avoid the fight. The second best is to run when it kicks off. The worst strategy is what we see – a fight. And as the sages said, both are wounded.