Martial Artist or Actor?

[Buka]

Donnie Yen

tai chi, Boxing, Kickboxing, Jeet Kune Do, Hapkido, Mixed martial arts, Taekwondo, Karate, Muay Thai, Wrestling, Brazilian jiu-jitsu, Hung Ga, Sanda, Judo, Shaolin kung fu (from his mother Bow-sim Mark), wudangquan (from his mother Bow-sim Mark), Wing Chun, and Wushu.

purple belt in Brazilian jiu-jitsu (BJJ)
black belt in judo
6th degree black belt in taekwondo

Oh, a slacker, ey?

 

[Xue Sheng]

Oh, a slacker, ey?

yup, laziest man in Chinese cinema

 

[opr1945]

I started studying Martial Arts ("Karate") about a year ago. Started from a place of a high level of ignorance. Thought there was Karate, Judo (Ju-jitsu) Tae kwon Do and Aikido and that was it.

Boy, was I ever wrong. As I understand it now there are over 100 "styles" of Karate alone. Then Korean, Chinese, Thai, eastern European, Middle Eastern and others. Probably a finite number that is not capable of being counted and is increasing daily.

 

[Haruhiko]

I started studying Martial Arts ("Karate") about a year ago. Started from a place of a high level of ignorance. Thought there was Karate, Judo (Ju-jitsu) Tae kwon Do and Aikido and that was it.

Boy, was I ever wrong. As I understand it now there are over 100 "styles" of Karate alone. Then Korean, Chinese, Thai, eastern European, Middle Eastern and others. Probably a finite number that is not capable of being counted and is increasing daily.

He doesn't know about the koryū rabbit hole yet...

 

[Stuarto]

Fight scenes are fun to coordinate. Alphonso Ribeiro hosted a late night talk show back in the day. I coordinated a fight scene for him to open his show one night. Lots of fun. He’s a really nice man, too.

Buka, this is awesome my friend. It seems you have had some great adventures and experiences in life.

 

[Stuarto]

I think Jet li is the goat as far as post Bruce Lee mainstream

The movie The One was my first introduction to Jet Li. I like him but could never really get into him as much as Bruce Lee. The first time my dad had me watch Enter the Dragon I was completely blown away. I still watch it about once a year. The man was and continues to be an inspiration for martial artists.

 

[Buka]

The movie The One was my first introduction to Jet Li. I like him but could never really get into him as much as Bruce Lee. The first time my dad had me watch Enter the Dragon I was completely blown away. I still watch it about once a year. The man was and continues to be an inspiration for martial artists.

I’m a Bruce fan as well. I didn’t care for most of his films but always enjoyed Enter the Dragon. I liked some of Return of the Dragon, too, but Lee’s voice replaced with someone else’s irritates me.

I thought Unleashed was Jet Li’s best film. It even has Morgan Freeman in it as a main character. If you haven’t seen it it’s worth a watch IMO.

 

[Buka]

I’m also a huge fan of Mark Dacascos. I’ll watch him in anything. Even the TV series Iron Chef.

 

[isshinryuronin]

Yeah, I like him too. Loved the Iron Chef! I remember seeing his father, Al at a couple of tournaments back in the old days. He was very well known in the late 60's and a pretty good martial artist.

 

[Cri70]

I have come across some videos of Tony Jaa involving fight scenes. Is he an actual Martial Artist or an actor? Thanks.

​

He's definitely both. Most good "martial movie" actors are excellent martial artists - they must be as the flashy moves required by a movie for show are often very hard to pull off, and if you look at Hong Kong movies lore, they need to be good athletes to work under crushing daily loads.

That says nothing about them being good combat sport fighters (they may, they may not - Michael J White has been competing even if it's hard to find any result record, Van Damme and Dolph Lundgren did certainly compete and have visible records, and of course Chuck Norris :-D) and even less about their self defense skills.

 

[Cri70]

I started studying Martial Arts ("Karate") about a year ago. Started from a place of a high level of ignorance. Thought there was Karate, Judo (Ju-jitsu) Tae kwon Do and Aikido and that was it.

Boy, was I ever wrong. As I understand it now there are over 100 "styles" of Karate alone. Then Korean, Chinese, Thai, eastern European, Middle Eastern and others. Probably a finite number that is not capable of being counted and is increasing daily.

For karate, my feeling (without absolutely being an authority, as my interest lies in a different perspective) the "styles" seem to be relatively minor "variations of emphasis" on specific aspects, which are not that significant for actual combat; or focus on a selection of the myriad combinations of concrete movements the karate principles (both the working and the bogus ones) can generate.

The reason, of course, is the fact that people make a living teaching them, so they need product differentiators and "my product is better than yours" claims.

In my mind, Karate "is" these principles, so I'm with Funakoshi in that "there is one karate".