.: ShaolinTiger - Kung-Fu Geekery :.

A while back I asked for open questions on this blog and got some interesting ones, I'll start out with the most frequently asked questions.

The most common of course is "Why ShaolinTiger? - Where did the name come from" and other similar questions of how did I choose it, do I like martial arts and so on.

I chose this name when I first joined the monkeys and tubes that make up the Interwebnets back in 1996 when I went to University in Liverpool.

Before that I didn't own a computer, didn't need a nickname and knew virtually nothing about the net. When I first got to uni they were still using Windows 3.11 and Yahoo! was king of search (makes me feel kinda old)..

And I'd heard about this thing called Internet Chat, so I chucked it into Yahoo! and out came mIRC, so I downloaded it and connected to DALnet #chatzone...that's the start of a whole other story.

Anyway, the point is to chat you need a nick, preferably a cool one...so I knocked my head trying to think up something.

At the time I was studying Kung Fu at the local univeristy club, Hung Gar Kuen to be exact - yes the same style from the family of Wong Fei Hung.

It's known as a style based on Tiger and Crane forms - Character Taming the Tiger Fist and Tiger Crane Paired Form Fist.

It also has some stuff on 5 elements and iron wire fist, it's a style very much based on stance. My sifu was second generation Shaolin and spent 2 years just doing horse stance before he even did any basic moves. Sadly in the Western World such slow learning wouldn't stick so things were rapidly accelerated.

I used to really enjoy sparring hard and the blood rushing to your head as the adrenaline kicks in.

Hung Gar was good, and was my second favourite training experience after Wing Chun.

I've always meant to talk more about martial arts..but I never have, is anyone even interested?

So back to my nick..... ShaolinCrane didn't sound very cool, so I went for ShaolinTiger seen as though I was studying Shaolin Kung-Fu and it was Tiger and Crane style.

And that was that...let's not talk about the Yahoo! e-mail address I ended up with as shaolintiger was taken even back then in 1996.

Dragon Tiger Gate is a martial arts academy established by three youngsters, Tiger Huang , Little Dragon Huang and Black Dragon Shi. Adopted as children by kung fu master Huang Jianglong, they aspire to impart the spirit of Chinese martial arts to the world. The final showdown between good and evil is a spectacular battle that makes the walls of Dragon Tiger Gate quake.

Yeah I've managed to catch up with quite a lot of movies lately!

This is a typical hong-kong style action kung-fu movie starring Donnie Yen, Nicholas Tse and Shawn Yu.

The action was also directed by Donnie Yen himself, which shows as he is now experienced and mature in his style, the action elements and choreography was very good through-out the film with some pretty unique and exciting displays of fighting and interesting use of weapons.

Honestly speaking though, he still has a long way to go to catch Yuen Wo Ping.

Apart from that, I love any movie that has nunchukas in it!

The movie itself was adapted from some very famous Hong Kong manga (comic books) so the story and plot is already laid out, even though you don't really need a phd to understand it, it's the same old basic good vs evil thing with very little deviation.

As you can probably guess, the story itself is nothing special...the romantic elements are actually quite pukeworthy and the rest you can guess as it goes along.

Basically I only suggest you watch this movie if you really enjoy good well crafted fight scenes, as I do, so I did enjoy this movie.

Donnie Yen once again manages to appear eternally youthful and carries out his role very well, not that any of the three leads have tough jobs as apart from Shawn Yue they both play fairly silent reflective types.

I found Nicholas Tse was a little soft and girly for the role he was supposed to be playing, I would have preferred someone else.

Shawn Yue was adequate as the more bubbly and confident Turbo.

You don't really feel for the characters and the flashbacks are a bit annoying with upright 'moral' overtones.

The final villain is a bit of a joke too, the fight scene is quite good though.

Overall the movie is a nice piece of comic book escapism which could really use a good producer/director.

I'd say watch it for the fight scenes (especially the first big one) and give it a fairly mediocre head kick of 4.5/10.

Master Huo Yuan Jia was a supreme Martial Arts champion, founder and spiritual guru of the Jin Wu Sports Federation. "Fearless" tells his tale.

Yeah I know it's kind of old, just got around to watching it though, I missed it on the cinema unfortunately.

Touted to be Jet Li's last movie, must say I've been a fan of the boy since he was in Shaolin Temple back in 1982.

As a Ronny Yu film (Bride with White Hair, 51st State), with Yuen Wo-Ping choregraphy, you have to expect it to be action packed butt kicking classic!

And well it pretty much was, I heard some people mention it wasn't a very good film, but I don't know why?

I found it very good indeed, Jet Li acted well for once (reminded me of his excellent character representation of Wong Fei Hung).

The fight scenes were beautiful and pretty original.

The movie was well paced with good character developement and a nice non-sequential narration of the story, the scenery was beautiful and although a little cheesy (preaching) at times it is a very morally sound tale.

It did indeed score a very strong 7.5 over at IMDB.

Plus it's based (very loosely) on a true story, the story of Huo the spiritual founder of the Jing Wu martial arts school.

Sadly it was heavily edited to a more mainstream length, I would love to see the uncut version some day.

However, Fearless is badly edited from the original 150 min version. To fit in the market demand, Fearless has been mercilessly chopped into a 103 min theatrical version. Michelle Yeoh, who makes a special appearance in Fearless, has been unfortunately removed. The duel between Jet Li and Thai boxer has also been removed, sad to say. Somehow, the movie has make the audience wants to go for something more than 103 min version.

I thoroughly recommend it anyway, Jet Li's best movie for years.

I give it a worthy 8/10.