.: 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.

Hong Kong Police Detective Chan has devoted his career to putting the notorious triad boss Wong Po behind bars. While escorting a witness with damning evidence of Wong Po's wrong doing to court, the police van is rammed at high speed by a car driven by the ruthless assassin Jack. The wreck kills the witness and his wife, but spares the witness' young daughter. Detective Chan is left with a piece of glass in the back of his head. When the glass is removed, doctors notice a tumor in Detective Chan's brain. He doesn't have long to live making Detective Chan all the more determined to bring down Wong Po.

Plenty have people have mentioned this movie, especially after I watched Dragon Tiger Gate (Loong Fu Moon) and found it fairly crap..now I see what they were talking about.

Donnie Yen can create amazing fight sequences and this movie is one hell of a testament to that.

It's a fairly typical gangster vs cops HK movie, it's dark and quickly paced and it's not only about action, it's also about consequences of your actions..

Sammo Hung plays an evil, sinister, crazed but cool mafia boss and he plays it amazingly well, no hint of humour or lovable Sammo there.

The fighting is spectacular, and some is not even choreographed, they were just told to go for it and it really shows!

Especially the fight in the alley between Donnie and Jacky Wu Jing, wow, amazing! During the making of the movie, Donnie actually broke 3 batons on Wu-jings head filming that sequence.

There's a good mix of traditional martial arts and some UFC style grappling/ju-jitsu.

The finale between Donnie and Sammo is nothing short of spectacular.

If you haven't watched this movie, I highly recommend it.

It's fast paced, gripping and the action is fantastic.

SPL feels one of the olden time HK movies, when they used to be good, you know like A Better Tomorrow and that era, when HK movies were still explosive, gripping and exciting. The way this movie is put together is raw, the fight scenes aren't slick, they are Ong Bak/Tom Yum Goong style bone-cruching, face cracking, blood splattering, like the guys on screen are really actually trying to kill each other.

I give it a face busting 8/10.

A young fighter named Kham must go to Australia to retrieve his stolen elephant. With the help of a Thai-born Australian detective, Kham must take on all comers, including a gang led by an evil woman and her two deadly bodyguards.

Ah yes, much like the one before it, the legendary Ong Bak! Ong Bak was a low budget martial arts flick that everyone fell in love with, why? It's super brutal realistic fighting and stunt sequences, like a blend of Jackie Chan in his early days for the crazy stunts, Bruce Lee for his rawness and energy and Jet Li for his finess and fighting accuracy.

Ong Bak remains one of my favourite martial arts movies of all time, I can watch it over and over and over.

Tom Yum Goong is similar but has the feel of a much higher budget, some CG some expensive toys and explosions, Bondesque boat chase sequence and some helicopter action.

Much like Ong Bak the script and plot is something you wouldn't even wipe your ass with, but that doesn't stop it from being an awesome film!

The acting is so-so, but once again the fight sequences will blow you away.

This was my favourite, with a wu-shu style swordsman, a huge scary white guy as seen above (Nathan Jones, he's been in some Jackie Chan flicks, Fearless, Troy etc) and some guy that could do Capoeira with such style, really really amazing.

The scene was filled with water and had a perfectly lit flaming backdrop with a buddha watching over it all, really really good.

Another good one is the fight all the way up the stairs, taken in 1 shot, unbelievable filmwork really.

The first 10-15 minutes of the movie are quite slow, very arty, nicely filmed, nice shots of Thailand etc..but really you are like OMFG KICK SOME ASS PLEASE.

The subtitles are non-existent, they only show up when people say something really obvious, or they speak in Chinese or English, at which point if they are speaking English, I really don't need the bad English subtitles ok?

Not that you need them, the movie is about some dude trying to find his elephant and kicking 72 kinds of ass along the way, that's it, end of plot summary.

Petchtai Wongkamlao was funny as expected, him being one of Thailands most prolific comedians. Bongkoj Khongmalai was very very sexy *pant* as the lost girl in the wrong place.

This is a really great martial arts movie, I loved it and will watch it again shortly (the ass kicking parts anyway, perhaps not the soft focus shots of Elephants).

If you are pretentious about movies, are looking for a plot, don't enjoy action..don't watch this movie.

However if you love to see some dude demonstrate 101 ways to break someones arm, do watch this movie!

I give it a well worth it 8/10

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.