Great job (on this series but also your other videos)! But a small correction: You've mixed up Yuen Woo-ping with his brother Yuen Cheung-yan, who was the action director of Charlie's Angels. No big deal, they constantly work together and their styles are quite hard to distinguish. But maybe worth a little errata in the description of the video. Keep up the good work!
My bad, you are 100% correct. A stupid mistake that I am face palming myself for as I of course know Cheung-Yan's work. Correction added, and I have pinned your comment so that others can see your explanation.
About a month ago, after 14 years I decided to clean up my subscription list. I hovered over this channel for a brief moment. Glad I didn't delete it. What a treat.
Our boy has been gone for 3 years and comes back with a weekly half-hour series of the highest possible quality in all aspects as if he stepped away for a quick bathroom break. Nothing can stop the Rossatron!
John Woo was the first director I noticed an auteur style from, which sent me down the rabbit hole of his cinematic influences that were mentioned here. I love the tribute you gave to King Hu and Chang Cheh, and the parallels and influences that Wuxia has to/from Samurai films and Westerns were spot-on. That line you gave at the end about Action Directors inspiring generation after generation on a global scale just makes me proud to be a fan of this genre across the centuries now! I can't wait for the next episode. My entry into early sound-era film was the 1930's quintessential Gangster Film Trio: Little Caesar, The Public Enemy, and Scarface. Which then led me to Noir like High Sierra, The Maltese Falcon, The Big Sleep, etc. which led me to Jean-Pierre Melville who stylized the genre in his own unique way to the Neo-Noirs and Thrillers like Point Blank to Dirty Harry. I absolutely applaud you for pointing out the symbiotic link between all these cinematic genres, you've done it probably better than any other video essayist I've seen. With all of this knowledge, you'll definitely be a great director yourself. Can't wait for next week's episode, this is one fantastic series! Well done, Rossatron.
I love Hong Kong action cinema from the late 70’s to early 90’s. So much so I did my dissertation in University on the subject. But even then, I only scratched the surface! Awesome video 👌
Rossatron you were such a peak action movie yt and I watched every single video from the start. Thank you for coming back hopefully you see this and try not to leave us again!!!!!!!
Superb. I would love to edit an action film, back in the 90s me and my brother put two vhs recorders together and made mashups. One of mine was an attempt to make Chow Yun Fat in Hard Boiled shoot stormtroopers (on the Death Star) .. Rose tinted glasses tell me it was awesome! Anyway great video, I got hold of Long Arm of the Law after reading about it in Bey Logan's book. Fully agree with the mention.
I love that you mentioned how the sound and foley work is a core part of the cinematic language of action film as that translates the information about the fight to the audience. The operatic roots of Chinese cinema vs. the different background of Western cinema feel like they have inherent biases towards those disparate implementations of sound especially for martial arts and close combat. The same principle is true for directors more often treating the camera as one of the partners of the choreography of the dance vs. as an external tool just watching the dance. Even if coverage is done with multiple cameras being intentionally thought of as dance partners it makes a noticeable difference, rather than as multiple passively variable perspective to get angles for making an edit to construct a dance from the pieces after the fact. I'll never forget Jackie Chan talking about Chinese films' production style allowing the hard long takes to nail the rhythm of the dance, rather than relying on the edit to create it artificially, as this also feeds into the additional issues with editing that he mentions at 21:27. It also makes me wonder how much some of the structure and protections of the industry of Hollywood vs. Hong Kong cinema are responsible for the editors & sound designers having those near-inherent habitual differences, which also serve to influence the expectations of their respective audiences. It's why cult films being able to stand the test of time is often a better gauge of what truly works than a box office success - as it shows if the techniques for that cinematic storytelling can outlive the preferences of the time to have a timeless cinematic language. On that note, I couldn't be more excited to see you dive into Noir & more next week! You've been flowing each of these episodes together brilliantly.
I truly love that, with Acere, you can essentially put yourself and your own action styles as part of your videos now. You yourself are part of action history now, in a way!
I knew I had made a mistake staring your video without my notebook already beside me. It is a treat to see so many familiar films, made all the richer for ones to place on my To-Do List. Thanks to You always!
Man, this was another fire video. You’ve been killing it lately. So much knowledge about the action genre and how you dissect the ways of blocking, movement, and pacing that these HK movies have that Hollywood lacks, it’s brilliant. You’re now up there as equivalent as Every Frame a Painting. Thanks a lot!
Dude this is peak content for me! I get to learn about how to make better fight/action scenes, an entertaining history lesson, and a ton of new movies to check out! Stoked to check out the Long Arm of the Law trilogy! Great work sir 🫡, many thanks and cheers 🍻
Got to see that in theaters last year. My first John Woo film. A coupleyears later I saw Hard Boiled. ABT and KIller and DAMN. Then I saw SIlent NIght last year and was very disappointed. :(
first of your videos ive watched and that was an awesome overview of hong kong cinema, i have been watching martial arts movies since the 70s, thats the best and most informative video i think ive seen on the genre, the editing and narration were spot on, also a big western fan so that will be my next stop, cheers
This episode could have been three times the length and still not covered so much! For me, it's all about Asso Asia's Bruceploitation Kung Fu, the 80's Ninja craze, IFD and Filmark's cut-and-paste rapid fire exploitation releases and Godfrey Ho, Joseph Lai and Tomas Tang.
Oh yeah I maybe covered like 4% of the output. I mean I didn't even mention Johnnie To! But hopefully it inspires viewers to check some more stuff out!
I love Shaw Bros films. A lot of them have very low view counts on Letterboxd. It will be interesting to see if they are rediscovered by the current and coming generations.
Good video dude... I grew wanting to be a fight choreographer but it was difficult to break into living in Cleethorpes in the days without cheap cameras and UA-cam 😁 so I became an Instructor
These videos are so good! I am trying to form a watchlist for myself from the movies mentioned, but it would be amazing if you could provide us with your personal "recommended watching" list for these videos 💜
Did you see the list that the BFI published on their website (and on Letterboxd) a couple of days ago? "A great action film for every year, 1924 to now." A nice little bit of synchrony, that both you and they should, at the same time, publish such long-ranging retrospectives of the genre!
Great retrospective. Pity you seem to have glossed over a highly influential director, who I think knows a thing or two about breaking the rules, Tsui Hark. I hope he gets a closer look in one of your future videos, as well as Johnny To.
Hong Kong action cinema is a master-class on action! I pity your struggle to condense its richness in half an hour. But if you (re) watched a lot of HK action movies for research, that's a win!
I think you could tie the bit on action editing and take length more thoroughly to the rest of the video by showing examples of how Hong Kong movies shot and edited action, busting the myth that they were obsessed with super long takes in the process.
I find that the modern trends of action - even with wide angles and long takes - are very much in aid of producing a "stunt reel" than cohesive action storytelling. The modern long-take / wide-angle shot (IMHO) gives rise to slower movements, sloppy performance, bad performance and humanizes the stunties and the actors in a bad way i.e. you're not being bowled over by their athleticism and choreography, you just become hyper aware of how inaccurate and slow and visually tired everyone is. And if that's part of the storytelling then that's wonderful, but in most action films (especially American ones) post 2010 or so its not meant to be part of the storytelling. The storytelling is often going for something else and it just gets undermined by that. Even in Hong Kong films I've noticed its become a bit of a problem these days. Likewise a lot of disciplines of the old-school action (especially of the 80s and 90s) is weirdly gone. A lot of martial arts films are now shot at shoulder-height or eye-height, meaning kicks and punches don't get the full extension of movement because they get compressed by perspective. Back in the old days, everything was shot from hip-height because the Hong Kong dudes knew that everything looked bigger at that height. Arms and legs seem to travel further and faster and the hits feel harder. Even some of the previz I've seen done these days don't match the storytelling of the choreography with the camera or the edits. Sections are inexplicably long or hyper-edited to a point where you can't see what's going on. In kung fu or wushu fights, many of the martial techniques of specific moves are chopped up so you can't see what's happening and it gives the fight a visual rhythm that seems out of joint with everything else. Of course, yes, we can't expect all actors and stunties to be on the Olympic level of Jet Li or have a half-human life span of high endurance upbringing and skills of Jackie Chan, but for me that's all the more reason why camerawork and editing needs to help the storytelling and not hinder it. The JOHN WICK-ization of action is one of the worst things to happen to cinema; watching a supposedly "exciting" stunt sequence that's hindered by everyone slowing down to Keanu's pace to make him look good and then just filming it all in unmotivated long-takes isn't fun, it's tiresome and genuinely unimpressive. The filmmakers don't even give Keanu acting beats to really how hard what he's doing is for him so there's no raising of the stakes. For this reason I'm a big fan of the old style of blocking from the 80's/90's that you see in Woo Ping's fights in CROUCHING TIGER HIDDEN DRAGON and THE MATRIX or even Lau Kar Leung's films. Where the fight is broken down to shots and edit points that tell the right story for the right reason and highlight the choreography in a way that you never miss what's going on. DRUNKEN MASTER II still drops jaws today and the whole thing's fight sequences are largely shot on tripods in nice square frames - favouring (as you so eloquently put) composition and clarity over chaos and flurry of movement. The whole JOHN WICK / MMA / wild swinging endless oners feels really driven by the stunt industry and that disconnect between good directing vs good stunt coordinating and choreography. And I'm honestly tired of it. I want to see creativity come back into this field, where THE RAID is a starting point and where its not about how many hits you can land in a single take or single fight, but how creatively you can make the most minimum amount of hits and beats dazzling to an audience.
PS - thank you for highlighting the importance of foley work in fight sequences. Hollywood fight foley has become so, so, so awful over the last decade I just can't even...
PPS - coverage-based fight sequences are a cop-out. There I said it. It just means you don't know what you're doing or you weren't given enough time in the schedule to do a meaningful fight sequence. Not a critique on the stunties or the coordinator, but rather the producers.
@@SPVFilmsLtd I agree on all points, obviously I could have gone harder in certain respects on showing some 'stunt reel-esque' fight sequences in a more critical light, but I'm also trying to illuminate without being overtly critical on anyone actually striving to make action. And though I do agree on coverage based fight sequences not really being optimal at all, it's sadly a fact in this industry especially at the bigger budget level that due to actor-scheduling, days not being afforded to gym training separate to pre-vizzing, often none of which is observed by a director, and a horrendously short amount of time on set to capture this stuff (what Eddie pulls together with the M:I films is a fucking miracle tbh), expecting it to be anything more than marginally better is a hope and a prayer. That said, that is also why I made this, to show what was achievable with the lesser experience and money of older cinema, and that we Can bring that back if we want to, or at least take lessons that help improve the poorer practices that have become settled-in commonplace. Thank you for watching and your astute insight!
@@Rossatron Much agreement back to you -- for context, my gripes are a bit on the insider baseball side of things. I've worked with a number of coordinators, teams and I've heard the on-set and off-set politics. I'm hugely excited about the amount of respect and power that the stunt industry is getting, especially in the US, but at the same time its clear that the gap between stunts and storytelling is not actually closing, but growing as producers just throw money at the 2nd unit and coordinators to "make the action work" while the storytellers are largely cut off from the process. For me - personally - guys like David Leitch and Stahelski haven't crossed that gap. They're still making action movies that are only exciting to other stunt coordinators and stunt men and how exciting it was to pull it off on-set rather than seeing whether it emotionally moves or excites the audience in the cold light of a darkened theater. Ironically, for me, the best thing Stahelski ever did was Donnie Yen's doorbell fight in one of the WICK sequels - it was the only time they had an action sequence that had any storytelling in it and it was wonderful to watch! But yes - having said all that crap - I might be a bit too dyed in the wool myself to really judge where martial arts action is going!
Before King Hu it was a lady doing action films who was actually Sammo Hung's grandmother who only passed away like 8 -10 years ago. You can Google her and find her films online she had her own film production company
Modern action cinema is using long wide shots to kill off the era of Bourne shaky cam and the gratuitous cutting of Taken. They have to prove to audience they're not cheating at the action scenes, unlike those films and their imitators. I expect we'll swing back to a middle ground soon. I think action being influenced by dance is fine, but fights that are too obviously choreographed take me out of the action. I want cinema to look and feel like cinema, not theater.
I totally agree, but I do think understanding how similar it is too dance, and the history that came before, can only benefit. Once you know the history, and the safest way to do it, you can iterate yourself.
I don't think we've suffered too much from the over-choreographed fights in Western films, bar ones that are supposed to be over-choreographed as a comedy gag (one of the SCOOBY DOO films did this). The BOURNE films have no choreography as far as I'm concerned because the films try to hide most of it from the audience. But for me the middle ground are like the works of Corey Yuen (THE TRANSPORTER series or his American Jet Li films) or Jackie Chan from the 80s to his RUSH HOUR films. Or even Zhang Yimou's martial arts epics like HERO and WUXIA. But I guess it comes from your world of experience - mine is that I can spot most different Chinese and Korean styles, so there's fun in seeing them included in choreography. And for me personally watching MMA is no different to watching pro Boxing, its just a mess where a lot of technique goes out the window because opponents are too equally matched to fall for most of it. So MMA style fighting in films feel both over-choreographed, overlong and boring to me and pointless for the purpose of a film. For me, I guess, all martial arts in cinema is a dance. It's the movie's job to convince me that the level of choreography is justified. Watching Jet Li perform Bagua vs Xing-Yi in THE ONE works for me because I know why the martial styles are being used in that Peking Opera way. But I can fully empathize that the two styles and their dance-like movements can go over the heads of most audiences because the film doesn't explain them fully (though it tries). Just like whether the wire-fu of CROUCHING TIGER feels silly or amazing comes down to one's cultural context and perspective. And by the same regard I roll my eyes at 90% of the JOHN WICK movies because I just don't care about watching Keanu Reeves do his 74th MMA takedown in a row as the films don't justify the length and repetitiveness of those action scenes.
Way much better than the so called American martial arts Garbage and terrible Hollywood imitations courtesy of invincible action clowns Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone, Chuck Norris, Steven Frederick Seagull, Mel Gibson, Jean Claude Van Damme, Wesley Snipes, Will Smith and Bruce Willis who rely on autoaim when they fire a weapon that cannot hit a target practice and deliver ridiculous punch lines and parody catchphrases and together ridiculous movie titles
Great job (on this series but also your other videos)!
But a small correction: You've mixed up Yuen Woo-ping with his brother Yuen Cheung-yan, who was the action director of Charlie's Angels. No big deal, they constantly work together and their styles are quite hard to distinguish. But maybe worth a little errata in the description of the video.
Keep up the good work!
My bad, you are 100% correct. A stupid mistake that I am face palming myself for as I of course know Cheung-Yan's work. Correction added, and I have pinned your comment so that others can see your explanation.
About a month ago, after 14 years I decided to clean up my subscription list. I hovered over this channel for a brief moment. Glad I didn't delete it. What a treat.
That compilation of movies at the start to the theme of Police Story was elite
Our boy has been gone for 3 years and comes back with a weekly half-hour series of the highest possible quality in all aspects as if he stepped away for a quick bathroom break. Nothing can stop the Rossatron!
Something may put a slight delay on the next episodes due to illness but I’m gonna do my best! Glad people are enjoying it
@@Rossatron, take your time, comrade! Your health is more important. And as you've seen, we'll be here when you get back.
@@Rossatron Bravo dear sir. Excellent work on this video and wish u a safe quick recovery.
I wish you great health and take your time with videos could you please do your top 10 kung fu movies
Two weeks without a new episode, I hope you're doing well.
I love your love for action movies.
So do I but so often it feels they don’t love me back these days
The intro alone got me hyped. Addicted to these types of films!
John Woo was the first director I noticed an auteur style from, which sent me down the rabbit hole of his cinematic influences that were mentioned here. I love the tribute you gave to King Hu and Chang Cheh, and the parallels and influences that Wuxia has to/from Samurai films and Westerns were spot-on. That line you gave at the end about Action Directors inspiring generation after generation on a global scale just makes me proud to be a fan of this genre across the centuries now!
I can't wait for the next episode. My entry into early sound-era film was the 1930's quintessential Gangster Film Trio: Little Caesar, The Public Enemy, and Scarface. Which then led me to Noir like High Sierra, The Maltese Falcon, The Big Sleep, etc. which led me to Jean-Pierre Melville who stylized the genre in his own unique way to the Neo-Noirs and Thrillers like Point Blank to Dirty Harry. I absolutely applaud you for pointing out the symbiotic link between all these cinematic genres, you've done it probably better than any other video essayist I've seen. With all of this knowledge, you'll definitely be a great director yourself.
Can't wait for next week's episode, this is one fantastic series! Well done, Rossatron.
What?? This channel is still alive??? Holy SHIT! Welcome back, been a fan since 2017. Then noticed you disappeared during the Pandemic!
Part 2, 3 and 4 of Hong Kong, Mainland China, and Korean action films when?
I absolutely enjoy this channel and can't wait for your next short film.
I have just learned that you have been uploading again. Today is a good day.
I love Hong Kong action cinema from the late 70’s to early 90’s. So much so I did my dissertation in University on the subject. But even then, I only scratched the surface! Awesome video 👌
Absolutely love the choice of scenes for the transition to guns.
I'm so glad you're back dude, these series have been 👌
Rossatron you were such a peak action movie yt and I watched every single video from the start. Thank you for coming back hopefully you see this and try not to leave us again!!!!!!!
Superb. I would love to edit an action film, back in the 90s me and my brother put two vhs recorders together and made mashups. One of mine was an attempt to make Chow Yun Fat in Hard Boiled shoot stormtroopers (on the Death Star) ..
Rose tinted glasses tell me it was awesome!
Anyway great video, I got hold of Long Arm of the Law after reading about it in Bey Logan's book. Fully agree with the mention.
I love that you mentioned how the sound and foley work is a core part of the cinematic language of action film as that translates the information about the fight to the audience. The operatic roots of Chinese cinema vs. the different background of Western cinema feel like they have inherent biases towards those disparate implementations of sound especially for martial arts and close combat.
The same principle is true for directors more often treating the camera as one of the partners of the choreography of the dance vs. as an external tool just watching the dance. Even if coverage is done with multiple cameras being intentionally thought of as dance partners it makes a noticeable difference, rather than as multiple passively variable perspective to get angles for making an edit to construct a dance from the pieces after the fact.
I'll never forget Jackie Chan talking about Chinese films' production style allowing the hard long takes to nail the rhythm of the dance, rather than relying on the edit to create it artificially, as this also feeds into the additional issues with editing that he mentions at 21:27. It also makes me wonder how much some of the structure and protections of the industry of Hollywood vs. Hong Kong cinema are responsible for the editors & sound designers having those near-inherent habitual differences, which also serve to influence the expectations of their respective audiences.
It's why cult films being able to stand the test of time is often a better gauge of what truly works than a box office success - as it shows if the techniques for that cinematic storytelling can outlive the preferences of the time to have a timeless cinematic language.
On that note, I couldn't be more excited to see you dive into Noir & more next week! You've been flowing each of these episodes together brilliantly.
Welcome back! I’ve missed the videos.
I truly love that, with Acere, you can essentially put yourself and your own action styles as part of your videos now. You yourself are part of action history now, in a way!
This is your best video in this series so far. I love how you jump between past and present examples, and lesson learned in modern action films.
I knew I had made a mistake staring your video without my notebook already beside me. It is a treat to see so many familiar films, made all the richer for ones to place on my To-Do List. Thanks to You always!
Bruce Lee's Game of Death was also a damn good movie.
I'm so glad you're back man. This was fantastic!!!!
Excellent video Ross. As John Wick 4 mentions a Wuxia Radio in the final bit of the movie, you could say it's also part of the Wuxia lineage.
I’m so glad you’re back making videos. I started my own channel focusing on action in movies/ television in your absence. Thanks for the inspiration.
Man, this was another fire video. You’ve been killing it lately. So much knowledge about the action genre and how you dissect the ways of blocking, movement, and pacing that these HK movies have that Hollywood lacks, it’s brilliant. You’re now up there as equivalent as Every Frame a Painting. Thanks a lot!
This series is so great.
You’re one of the best to do it truly. So glad you’re back. Can’t wait for more
I love your documentaries and video essays Rossatron.
Dude this is peak content for me! I get to learn about how to make better fight/action scenes, an entertaining history lesson, and a ton of new movies to check out! Stoked to check out the Long Arm of the Law trilogy! Great work sir 🫡, many thanks and cheers 🍻
Beautiful. Loved the montage at the end but it was all beautiful.
How is this video hasn't reached 20K views yet ?
0:20 So smooth! I love it.
Hard Target is a must own 4k Disc, looks so good.
Got to see that in theaters last year. My first John Woo film. A coupleyears later I saw Hard Boiled. ABT and KIller and DAMN. Then I saw SIlent NIght last year and was very disappointed. :(
Loving this series so far
This is utterly brilliant, immensely insightful and enjoyable. You have earned yourself a new subscriber.
We don't deserve Rossatron but we'll take it :D
first of your videos ive watched and that was an awesome overview of hong kong cinema, i have been watching martial arts movies since the 70s, thats the best and most informative video i think ive seen on the genre, the editing and narration were spot on, also a big western fan so that will be my next stop, cheers
Rest in peace Alain Delon
I read that suggestion as “how to portray a crack addict”.
I need to take a lunch brake here at work.
So glad you're back!
Amazing video man 🙌
I have a video idea that other people I’ve suggested to refuse to take: how to portray cracks in the plot armor
Beautifully edited video!
I wish this was a module when I studied film at University 🔥
Awesome!!!!
Excellent work!
Great video, the lack of views and likes even two weeks later makes me sad.
Nice to have you back (even if It's most likely for a very short time)
Seriously, if I ever get to see Hard Boiled, Killer or Better Tomorrow in a theater I will FLIP.
This episode could have been three times the length and still not covered so much!
For me, it's all about Asso Asia's Bruceploitation Kung Fu, the 80's Ninja craze, IFD and Filmark's cut-and-paste rapid fire exploitation releases and Godfrey Ho, Joseph Lai and Tomas Tang.
Oh yeah I maybe covered like 4% of the output. I mean I didn't even mention Johnnie To! But hopefully it inspires viewers to check some more stuff out!
Welcome back brother 😂
I was sure this will be my favorite episode and it didn't disappoint :)
small mistake at 24:39, it's ABT2 and not The Killer.
@@jackiestunt oh yeah, tbh there are often mistakes in the labels…I copy and paste them then rewrite, and sometimes they just pass me by!
i love u Rossatron.
I love Shaw Bros films. A lot of them have very low view counts on Letterboxd. It will be interesting to see if they are rediscovered by the current and coming generations.
The Arrow box sets (here in the UK at least) have been enlightening for that!
Good video dude... I grew wanting to be a fight choreographer but it was difficult to break into living in Cleethorpes in the days without cheap cameras and UA-cam 😁 so I became an Instructor
I love John Woo
These videos are so good! I am trying to form a watchlist for myself from the movies mentioned, but it would be amazing if you could provide us with your personal "recommended watching" list for these videos 💜
Did you see the list that the BFI published on their website (and on Letterboxd) a couple of days ago? "A great action film for every year, 1924 to now."
A nice little bit of synchrony, that both you and they should, at the same time, publish such long-ranging retrospectives of the genre!
I didn’t love their list but there is some similarities to mine on Letterboxd
Great retrospective. Pity you seem to have glossed over a highly influential director, who I think knows a thing or two about breaking the rules, Tsui Hark. I hope he gets a closer look in one of your future videos, as well as Johnny To.
Where's this week's video Rossatron? Was really looking forward to it.
@@DBWildfoot sadly I have been quite ill and unable to work so it will be late for a week or two, apologies!
@Rossatron sorry to hear that. Get well soon.
The anime kids just don't know. HK used to be the leader of martial arts/action movies in Asia.
I assume that 80s fight choreo of hong kong movies are so impressive than Hollywood
can you do a video on tony jaa?
Epic
Hong Kong action cinema is a master-class on action!
I pity your struggle to condense its richness in half an hour.
But if you (re) watched a lot of HK action movies for research, that's a win!
I think you could tie the bit on action editing and take length more thoroughly to the rest of the video by showing examples of how Hong Kong movies shot and edited action, busting the myth that they were obsessed with super long takes in the process.
As it is now this crucial segment of the video feels disconnected from the rest of it, almost divorced from context.
WHERES THE NEW EPISODE MR ROSS. ITS BEEN TWO WEEKS.
@@colinazilla I’m afraid I’ve been very ill, and so it has been majorly delayed. I’m working on the new episodes now.
@@Rossatron darn get well soon friend
Awesome 💣💣💣💣💣
I find that the modern trends of action - even with wide angles and long takes - are very much in aid of producing a "stunt reel" than cohesive action storytelling.
The modern long-take / wide-angle shot (IMHO) gives rise to slower movements, sloppy performance, bad performance and humanizes the stunties and the actors in a bad way i.e. you're not being bowled over by their athleticism and choreography, you just become hyper aware of how inaccurate and slow and visually tired everyone is. And if that's part of the storytelling then that's wonderful, but in most action films (especially American ones) post 2010 or so its not meant to be part of the storytelling. The storytelling is often going for something else and it just gets undermined by that. Even in Hong Kong films I've noticed its become a bit of a problem these days.
Likewise a lot of disciplines of the old-school action (especially of the 80s and 90s) is weirdly gone. A lot of martial arts films are now shot at shoulder-height or eye-height, meaning kicks and punches don't get the full extension of movement because they get compressed by perspective. Back in the old days, everything was shot from hip-height because the Hong Kong dudes knew that everything looked bigger at that height. Arms and legs seem to travel further and faster and the hits feel harder.
Even some of the previz I've seen done these days don't match the storytelling of the choreography with the camera or the edits. Sections are inexplicably long or hyper-edited to a point where you can't see what's going on. In kung fu or wushu fights, many of the martial techniques of specific moves are chopped up so you can't see what's happening and it gives the fight a visual rhythm that seems out of joint with everything else.
Of course, yes, we can't expect all actors and stunties to be on the Olympic level of Jet Li or have a half-human life span of high endurance upbringing and skills of Jackie Chan, but for me that's all the more reason why camerawork and editing needs to help the storytelling and not hinder it. The JOHN WICK-ization of action is one of the worst things to happen to cinema; watching a supposedly "exciting" stunt sequence that's hindered by everyone slowing down to Keanu's pace to make him look good and then just filming it all in unmotivated long-takes isn't fun, it's tiresome and genuinely unimpressive. The filmmakers don't even give Keanu acting beats to really how hard what he's doing is for him so there's no raising of the stakes.
For this reason I'm a big fan of the old style of blocking from the 80's/90's that you see in Woo Ping's fights in CROUCHING TIGER HIDDEN DRAGON and THE MATRIX or even Lau Kar Leung's films. Where the fight is broken down to shots and edit points that tell the right story for the right reason and highlight the choreography in a way that you never miss what's going on. DRUNKEN MASTER II still drops jaws today and the whole thing's fight sequences are largely shot on tripods in nice square frames - favouring (as you so eloquently put) composition and clarity over chaos and flurry of movement.
The whole JOHN WICK / MMA / wild swinging endless oners feels really driven by the stunt industry and that disconnect between good directing vs good stunt coordinating and choreography. And I'm honestly tired of it. I want to see creativity come back into this field, where THE RAID is a starting point and where its not about how many hits you can land in a single take or single fight, but how creatively you can make the most minimum amount of hits and beats dazzling to an audience.
PS - thank you for highlighting the importance of foley work in fight sequences. Hollywood fight foley has become so, so, so awful over the last decade I just can't even...
PPS - coverage-based fight sequences are a cop-out. There I said it. It just means you don't know what you're doing or you weren't given enough time in the schedule to do a meaningful fight sequence. Not a critique on the stunties or the coordinator, but rather the producers.
@@SPVFilmsLtd I agree on all points, obviously I could have gone harder in certain respects on showing some 'stunt reel-esque' fight sequences in a more critical light, but I'm also trying to illuminate without being overtly critical on anyone actually striving to make action.
And though I do agree on coverage based fight sequences not really being optimal at all, it's sadly a fact in this industry especially at the bigger budget level that due to actor-scheduling, days not being afforded to gym training separate to pre-vizzing, often none of which is observed by a director, and a horrendously short amount of time on set to capture this stuff (what Eddie pulls together with the M:I films is a fucking miracle tbh), expecting it to be anything more than marginally better is a hope and a prayer.
That said, that is also why I made this, to show what was achievable with the lesser experience and money of older cinema, and that we Can bring that back if we want to, or at least take lessons that help improve the poorer practices that have become settled-in commonplace.
Thank you for watching and your astute insight!
@@Rossatron Much agreement back to you -- for context, my gripes are a bit on the insider baseball side of things. I've worked with a number of coordinators, teams and I've heard the on-set and off-set politics. I'm hugely excited about the amount of respect and power that the stunt industry is getting, especially in the US, but at the same time its clear that the gap between stunts and storytelling is not actually closing, but growing as producers just throw money at the 2nd unit and coordinators to "make the action work" while the storytellers are largely cut off from the process.
For me - personally - guys like David Leitch and Stahelski haven't crossed that gap. They're still making action movies that are only exciting to other stunt coordinators and stunt men and how exciting it was to pull it off on-set rather than seeing whether it emotionally moves or excites the audience in the cold light of a darkened theater. Ironically, for me, the best thing Stahelski ever did was Donnie Yen's doorbell fight in one of the WICK sequels - it was the only time they had an action sequence that had any storytelling in it and it was wonderful to watch!
But yes - having said all that crap - I might be a bit too dyed in the wool myself to really judge where martial arts action is going!
@@Rossatron BTW your video is awesome. I'm watching your previous entries now.
Ross, where have you moved from (and to)? I don't have a very 'fixed' accent or dialect myself.
@@EggBastion I’m a born and bred Yorkshireman who used to hide his accent on here a bit but thought why am I doing that, so just do my actual sound!
Sigh... I spend much of these videos pausing them and checking movie names... Only had to add six to the list today.
Before King Hu it was a lady doing action films who was actually Sammo Hung's grandmother who only passed away like 8 -10 years ago. You can Google her and find her films online she had her own film production company
And to think at one point, I was going to unsubscribe from this channel. I'm very happy I didn't go through with that, though.
Pointless comment for your algorithm. More people should be watching your work.
Modern action cinema is using long wide shots to kill off the era of Bourne shaky cam and the gratuitous cutting of Taken. They have to prove to audience they're not cheating at the action scenes, unlike those films and their imitators. I expect we'll swing back to a middle ground soon.
I think action being influenced by dance is fine, but fights that are too obviously choreographed take me out of the action. I want cinema to look and feel like cinema, not theater.
I totally agree, but I do think understanding how similar it is too dance, and the history that came before, can only benefit. Once you know the history, and the safest way to do it, you can iterate yourself.
I don't think we've suffered too much from the over-choreographed fights in Western films, bar ones that are supposed to be over-choreographed as a comedy gag (one of the SCOOBY DOO films did this). The BOURNE films have no choreography as far as I'm concerned because the films try to hide most of it from the audience.
But for me the middle ground are like the works of Corey Yuen (THE TRANSPORTER series or his American Jet Li films) or Jackie Chan from the 80s to his RUSH HOUR films. Or even Zhang Yimou's martial arts epics like HERO and WUXIA. But I guess it comes from your world of experience - mine is that I can spot most different Chinese and Korean styles, so there's fun in seeing them included in choreography. And for me personally watching MMA is no different to watching pro Boxing, its just a mess where a lot of technique goes out the window because opponents are too equally matched to fall for most of it. So MMA style fighting in films feel both over-choreographed, overlong and boring to me and pointless for the purpose of a film.
For me, I guess, all martial arts in cinema is a dance. It's the movie's job to convince me that the level of choreography is justified. Watching Jet Li perform Bagua vs Xing-Yi in THE ONE works for me because I know why the martial styles are being used in that Peking Opera way. But I can fully empathize that the two styles and their dance-like movements can go over the heads of most audiences because the film doesn't explain them fully (though it tries). Just like whether the wire-fu of CROUCHING TIGER feels silly or amazing comes down to one's cultural context and perspective. And by the same regard I roll my eyes at 90% of the JOHN WICK movies because I just don't care about watching Keanu Reeves do his 74th MMA takedown in a row as the films don't justify the length and repetitiveness of those action scenes.
Do bourne films are dull only part 1 was good
@@adamsosickmo2895 Completely agree. The plots and the shaky cam got steadily worse with each sequel.
Way much better than the so called American martial arts Garbage and terrible Hollywood imitations courtesy of invincible action clowns Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone, Chuck Norris, Steven Frederick Seagull, Mel Gibson, Jean Claude Van Damme, Wesley Snipes, Will Smith and Bruce Willis who rely on autoaim when they fire a weapon that cannot hit a target practice and deliver ridiculous punch lines and parody catchphrases and together ridiculous movie titles