Equilibrium, no doubt. The beginning point where the stylized cinematic gunplay was really noticed by the audience as something noteworthy of paying attention to. A lot of people may not remember what the movie was about all these years, but nobody forgets that gunkata.
I was gonna say Equilibrium was the epitome of Gun-Fu and it was used sooo well in that movie. Even the story with the family and kid not turning him in was good in its own right.
I think they nailed it by adding the explanation to it... being a martial art form based on efficiency for guns in close quarters and multiple targets, considering science, angles and shit. It's hard to forget that part. In most other films the hero just did gun-fu... because, no explanation, no training to get there.
The gunkata was fantastic, but I also really enjoyed the story of a world that is suppressing emotion through dictatorship and how a small rag tag bunch are trying to preserve their culture which is a source of emotion for them.
The 1st Underworld movie is a very underrated masterpiece. Layering European myths, Anglo-Atlantic perception of action lead, Chinese Wuxia-inspired action on what is a basic damsel-in-distress romance story (which also has elements of other genres of romance stories). Foundation for a franchise but a complete story on its own. That's something.
5:20 One thing I've noticed lately is how Japanese and Chinese martial arts fantasies usually link the sword + swordsman so that they're nearly a combined entity. Heroes don't just have a sword - that sword has a name and a history. It's practically a character. But western action-fantasies usually view weapons like guns and swords as mere tools. And that's the attitude movies like Equilibrium, Matrix, and John Wick have. The power is in the wielder; the weapon is disposable.
There are plenty enough iconic examples of the contrary for that generalization to be moot. We all know the likes of Excalbur and I doubt that Bruce Lee's nunchucks ever had names.
Jackie Chan fought using many objects and none of them had names but we remember that he used them because of how iconic his scenes are, and John Wick although his weapons do not have a name some become memorable for their scenes too, even a simple pencil, that it is different from how it happens in wuxia is not a bad thing in itself
When I was in theatre back in high school, I was cast in a play where we had to learn stage combat. I was the only cast member who had actual martial arts experience, but it didn't really matter to me: it opened my eyes to the actual artistic side of martial arts. As someone who was born and raised in the States, I was taught the cold-hearted and lethal side of violence, but as I continue to reconnect to my ethnic Filipino side of my immigrant parents, I am experimenting with a philosophy of my own view of martial arts: an amalgamation of something beautiful, lethal, and magical. And as someone who is trying to get back into martial arts and acting again, who knows where this will take me?
Small extra : The director of "John Wick" said that grabling in combination with assasination (with guns ) look better(and easier) because the actors dont have such long periods of time to train acurracy and speed in Martial Arts. It would be forced and they would have might use shaky came to hide. The director is a former stuntman with martial arts background btw. p.s.: Tiger chen is playing in Matrix 2,John Wick 2 and Matrix 4.His one hollywood esk movie "Man of Tai Chi" ,Keanu is the bad guy :D
Nobody on the Internet has not heard of John Wick, or would at least know who Keanu Reeves is because of those movies. And i'm glad Hong Kong cimema provided the blueprint for gun-fu.
i haven't seen a Wick film all the way through and the way they pre-choreograph and pre-vis a lot of gun actions scenes. the rythym is noticeably different to me anyway
John Wick 4's Dragon Breath shotgun scene in the abandoned building is the closest thing to the 3-minute Hard Boiled sequence. The American gun-fu equivalent. That, or part 3's Morocco sequence.
@@Stribog1337 My God, it's a guaranteed flop, lol, movies barely able to translate video games with basic story into cinema, now they're trying to make movies from Kojima games? Lol.
Lols. i suggest you watch The Yellow Sea (Korean movie) and see how gun control looks like. (That's a joke btw, but I recommend that movie. And I'm not saying people having "easy" access to guns is OK.)
I think US gun culture starts shaping it around John Wick. Prior to that, no one involved in US gun culture wanted anything to do with gun-fu. Before that they wanted nothing to do with gun-fu, preferring to work on more grounded stuff instead like Heat. I'm reminded of the story about how the one firearms advisor on the set of the Matrix begged the Wachowskis not to have Smith use the Desert Eagle because it would come off as extraordinarily stupid to anyone who'd actually ever fired a Desert Eagle (they're not very practical nor are they very good) however they insisted because "it's the cool big pistol from Commando and Metal Gear Solid"
Bradley Allan was the stunt Coordinator for Kick-Ass and the Kingsmen films, bringing that Hong Kong energy to Matthew Vaughn's films. I always considered the style of John Wick being Michael Mann meets John Woo. The technicality and realism of Michael Mann meeting the energy and impact of John Woo.
4:00 That's actually a flaw I have with early American gun-fu. In an effort to make the protagonists look cool, they make them emotionless and dull, which isn't cool. It seems like in Hong Kong gun-fu, the heroes have to work a bit harder, there's more emotion and pain in it, which is more visually satisfying.
John wick and Collateral? It's a preference thing. Some audience likes the calm and collective characters others prefer the passionate and emotional ones
Want to know why John Woo's shootouts felt more impactful? Because John Woo knew how to represent firearms. He didn't use CGI muzzle flashes, he used full load blanks, casings ejected, and he wasn't afraid to use squibs and explosions to show that stray bullets didn't just disappear, they went somewhere, and also sold the idea of the gunfighters being in real danger.
I really appreciate that you put that respect on Underworld. People who don't think about the art of movie making would dismiss it but it takes someone who really pays attention to see the attention and care that was put in its action scenes
Equalibrium is really underrated, everyone would probably remember the gun fu scenes, but this movie also is based on 1984 and Fahrenheit. Actually there is an explanation of Equalibrium gun fu. In the movie lore, their Gun Kata is practices from years of calculation where bullet will go and also the science of stances. Funny thing is, John Woo grew up watching alot of Wild West movies, his favorite was Sam Peckinpah and also his two gun akimbo was from his favorite movie "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" which he claim to be his all time favorite movie with the theme of "Brother" and Loyalty.
TBH I really hate Equilibrium. Always felt like it was cheap, sterile, noncreative and boring rip-off of better dystopian movies (or novels). Also - Gun Kata feels really dumb. It looks so unefficient... I believe the better you are at Gun Kata, the less succeful figher/shooter you should be. It looks like it shouldn't work. Sorry for this rant; I had to. Nothing against you liking this movie :)
@@skeezaworkan Well.. It IS a dumb idea, but so are most ways of portraying gunfights, up to and including gun-fu. Hell, gun kata at least pretends to follow the laws of physics (blatant lies, but they at least bother to come up with a lie) gun-fu just outright tosses logic out of the window. The funny thing is, there is this game called double action, that pretty much is a gun-fu simulator, however, it being a pvp shooter, it needs to keep track of just who the hell is winning, right? Well, lo and behold, the game more or less just ignores how many players you killed. Why? Well, if you try to play it, you will notice that it is pretty much impossible to hit jackshit while running around just pointing your guns in the general direction you are looking at, and since playing the game like a traditional shooter in order to have steady aim wouldn't be a very gun-fu thing to do, the game instead gives you a score based on how many "stylish" things you did. Like, trying to make gun-fu into something you can do in a videogame requires for the game to disregard not only logic, but even videogame-logic. Like gun-fu is just THAT nonsensical Its still fun and exciting, though. Thank you for reading my blog post LOL XD
@@skeezaworkan It's true that gun kata is too unrealistic and not practical, it might also looks dumb as well. But at least it looks COOL XD, and that's all about gun kata.
There's this neural network training exercise in which two humanoid figures controlled by two ai's are supposed to stop the other one from moving. After enough exercises, the system starts to exploit the opponent's ai by forcing it to break down just by observing the opponent. In my headcanon, Gun Kata was supposed to do something similar to the untrained human mind. Equilibrium is my favorite movie dystopia. I think it's a lot closer to Zamyatin's We than to 1984, which came out earlier and inspired most of the genre, including 1984. Equilibrium takes a very similar concept but adds to it by giving the characters agency, and a tool to enforce that change in form of the main character's deadly capabilities. It just fits the cinematic medium a lot better, since dystopian books are usually more about the character's perception of the outside pressure. Even in something like Hunger Games, the action or the choices matter a lot less than the character's thoughts. Christian Bale shows it brilliantly through his action, he is perfect in this role, but after processing those feelings his character gets to choose not to participate in the oppression, by turning himself on it with everything that it gave him. The state gets destroyed by its own greatest weapon. Recent Fahrenheit 451 adaptation tried to do something similar, and the way it failed is enough to show how much Equilibrium has succeeded.
Anybody know directors that have equally beautiful and surprising styles (of editing a scene) as these 2? Showing a scene from many different angles with different speeds (of slomo), with great rhythm, employing acceleration and deceleration masterfully while keeping the flow of visual information clear and recognizable is something nobody really does so well. Speed ramps have become a cliche of modern action movies, so much so that they have become boring, slow motion in general is either overused, underused or wrongly used by directors. Anticipating the choice of edits of the majority of directors has become so much of a routine to me that nothing really surprises me anymore. Don't telegraph your next move in advance - surprise me you mofos! Of course this kind of fast editing of dynamic scenes is not the only thing one can do, it is not suited for every director or movie or scene, but I feel many directors are way to conventional and they completely ignore the artistic possibility of editing in a specific way. Editing is VERY important. Most treat this way of artistic expression as an necessity rather a possibility, sticking to known formulas and bore me to death with their lack of creativity. Pekinpah and Woo are expressive like Wagner and Beethoven, everybody else is like bad minimal Techno.
I'd categorize movies like Equilibrium and John Wick as based on a subgenre of gun-fu itself called "gun-grappling". Gunplay mixed with hand-to-hand combat, particularly grappling where the "striking" is executed with the firearms with the unarmed combat, specifically grappling, simply being a means to that executed strike.
One thing I'd like to add is that no small part of the success of the John Wick series is the skill of Mr. Reeves himself. He's very competent in using firearms and regularly competes in 3 gun matches.
That's exactly my thought - having actors who practice endlessly and get very, very good is just as important as having a director and choreographer with a strong vision. Accented Cinema mentioned previously just how skilled Beijing Opera actors were, and I think it still applies
Totally agree it's amazing how cop movies of the 80s and 90s had the John woo feel where bad guys had no aim but good guys always hit and never ran out of bullets until the story said so. Like Showdown in Little Tokyo or Tango and Cash great story and lots of bullets lots of the classic 3 shot explosions and most importantly great one liners. Something a lot of movies lost when they became to serious
It’s also worth noting the stunt boys on The Matrix films were the guys who moved on to make the John Wick films; the progression is there, not least of which because the W sisters really influenced the John Wick films in terms of them introducing Hong Kong cinematic techniques to the entire team of American film-makers who worked on the Matrix Trilogy. It’s significant that the John Wick guys refer to the 3 Matrix films as the ‘finishing school’ for them and many others who now have significant behind the scenes technical roles in Hollywood.
thank you for diving into action films like this. I appreciate that your a film channel that doesn't shy away from genres and blockbusters that most "film essayists" treat like shit. i love movies regardless the genre, there will always be gems in every genre... I just hate that people get caught up with IMDB scores and the intellectualization factor (and culture) prevalent in society today... that sadly doesn't like appraising certain genres and styles. There is so much to appreciate in film beyond those scores! More action (and horror)!!!
Great video, an interesting topic would be how videogames and cinema take inspiration from each other (cinematics and gameplay, movies of videogames...). This video made me think of Bayonetta.
I loved how Tom cruise gunned those thugs down in Collateral! It felt so realistic like it could happen on the street right next to you. Gave me the chills!
I mean, it sure as shit wouldn't ever happen in my country, not like that, at least. But yes, Collateral was excellent at contrasting two incredibly conflicting things; a realistic night environment, with a violent, almost surreal efficiency for actual murder.
It felt realistic, because it's called "Drawing and Shooting from Retention", and it's becoming more commonly taught this way. Granted Collateral was filmed nearly 20 years ago, and Tom Cruise had spent a ton of time being taught by 2 British ex-SAS Special Forces guys, so him nailing it in that scene was as legit as it comes. Also very useful IRL, not that anyone should seek or hope to encounter a situation like that. Bonus: Ex-Delta Force Operator Larry Vickers breaks the scene down in real world application in this video he made ua-cam.com/video/fEZeb5lKPkk/v-deo.html
I never seen Equilibrium but watching these scenes in this video I was like "It looks like he's duel wielding Katana's more than he is holding a literal gun" Great Video AC :D
Yes! It's a kinda silly but overwhelmingly stylish movie, and the action is stylized to the nth degree. It's a very fun romp, and a great performance from Christian Bale AND Sean Bean. If you like Gun-Fu, it's a must-watch. You'll see so many things that became blueprints for (admittedly often better) movies that have come out since.
Now when i say to people that Jhon Wick is not an original thing in his fight and gunfire styles that all came from hong kong and people look at me like im crazy im gonna just link this series of video to them! Thank you!
A friend and I watched Equilibrium for our first time only a few years ago. We actually ended up laughing through half the movie because the violence and action is so over the top. It's epic, don't get me wrong, and we had a brilliant time, but it plays a little differently now than it would have when it first came out, not just because of the era but also because we're older now.
I loooove your works! Every single one helped me to appreciate more about movies and movie-making. I wish you big success and prosperity. Thank you, sincerely.
Great essay, Hong Kong cinema and the golden age of the western paved the way for Gun-Fu. Tip my hat off to you for referencing "Equilibrium", that movie gets far too overlooked. Yes It wasn't a great movie overall, but it's execution of action concepts, techniques, and elements, opened another door of creative for Gun fighting in Hollywood movies.
About the: "Woo and Western directors took different readings from the Western gunfights" segment, couldn't it just be as easy as Woo being a big Sam Peckingpah fan, whose gunfights are very focused on chaos and visceralness rather than speed or precision?
If I remember correctly and it has been awhile since I learned information about Woo. He was a dance choreographer before directing films, and wanted his gun fights to be like dance choreography and that is how his style came about.
The answer is both and more. He wasn't a choreographer. He loved dancing, acting, and he was inspired by Peckinpah, Gene Kelly and Hollywood musicals, Truffaut, Scorsese, Fellini, Kung Fu, chivalry, his Christian values..
I love Equilibrium it’s just so open with its silliness Plus Gun Kata is the fighting style of my favourite character from my favourite fighting game series
Very detailed analysis! Always keep looking forward to your analysis of how HK cinema keeps evolving and the dynamic inter cross cultural impact of various genres and movies from different geographies
this is a brilliant examination into this topic. i really appreciate the eastern understanding exploring the western demonstration and comparing and contrasting the two.
It's really amazing to see the 'cross cultural' of gunfu lead to a more exciting gun fight in film. And thanks for covering a bit about Gun kata from Equilibrium. The gun fight scene in that film is one of my favourite. For me, the best gunfu scene is from PMMM: Rebellion movie, but that's a whole another story I guess :v
Too bad that the studio intervention made the film being 'not good'. The gun kata scene is still great but overall storytelling and CGI is downright disaster.
Snake, Remember the basics of CQC, I also, enjoy more an action movie, with this, dumb excessive blasts, fast paced action secuences, and bloody without any realistic sense. it is what made old action movies so great. and i like when new movies bring this simplicity.
never actually thought John Wick would categorize as "GunFu", but I guess in the sense of "It's Martial Arts with Firearm" CAR can fit that description...
Great analysis, esp. pointing out the differences. I've always thought what separates Kick-Ass from previous movies that uses the style, is that there's emotion/catharsis in its best fight scenes (Hit Girl rescuing Kick-Ass and BD while BD shouts instructions, Kick Ass firing the machine gun ) rather than just looking cool, which I thought references John Woo movies. And I was actually expecting that you'd include the scenes from Kick-Ass that I mentioned, because, as you said, violence is beautiful.
One of the interesting things I find is that in terms of Hollywood gunfighting in general, John Wick is one of the first American movies that had gunfights that were both interesting for an audience who doesn't shoot to watch, and not madenly stupid to an audience that does shoot. Before then, gunfights were either not very interesting to a general audience (typically action movies focused more on the conditions surrounding the gunfight to add tension rather than the shooting itself) or felt incredibly dumb to anyone who knew how guns work. John Wick meanwhile, through the blending of gun-fu with competitive IPSC shooting, created something that everyone finds fun and interesting to watch
Excellent video. I discovered this channel very recently and I'm still going through the backlog. It has a very good writing and editing - a pure joy to watch. Not to mention it's unique (for me at least) perspective - I learn a new things about Chinese culture with every video. I really appreciate the listing of the movie clips at the end of the videos - it will be useful to-watch checklist :)
Great video! I think you should discuss the Johnnie To movie if you have time. There are many static scenes in the gun battle scenes in Johnnie To's movie, which has a surreal feeling. Few movies on the market are similar to him
I think Christopher McQuarrie's The Way of the Gun (2000) deserves a mention. McQuarrie's Navy Seal brother was an advisor and lent an air of tactical realism to the action
In fact, modern media made this distinction between gun fu and gun kata, gun fu was a Chinese-style appropriation of Western style shootings in Chinese style, gun kata was an adaptation of equilibrium gun kata to the Japanese style of anime and games!
While Gun-Fu is purely a cinema thing, it's funny, because when we did stress shooting drills with the police, I've heard them called gun-fu. These are those drills you see on TV a lot where the officer is going through something like a maze, and has several targets pop up, and he has to quickly decide to shoot or not shoot based on the picture, though in real life, you are often just walking down a line, and the targets are angled so that you don't see them until you step in front of them. I guess bigger departments have the pop up targets, or that is just Hollywood.
Hello, I think "Léon", a french movie with Nathalie Portman (her first movie) and Gary Oldman was a precurssor in the west. It aired in 1994 and had pretty action gunfight with a cold, precise, professionnal killer. Very good movie by the way, same realisator than The Fifth Element (Luc Besson).
What a great video! Can't wait for more on this awesome sub-genre. Also I literally just realised that John Wick's name is perhaps inspired by John Woo's. The biggest brain expand moment I've had in a while
Violence can be ugly or beautiful and sometimes both. I learned that at a tender age watching the wild bunch with a friend. Shootings in movies were never the same after that.
I know it is an animated movie, but Killer Bean is another example of Gun Fu and even martial arts. You should check it. Is really good. Especially considering it was made by one man.
Equilibrium, no doubt. The beginning point where the stylized cinematic gunplay was really noticed by the audience as something noteworthy of paying attention to. A lot of people may not remember what the movie was about all these years, but nobody forgets that gunkata.
I was gonna say Equilibrium was the epitome of Gun-Fu and it was used sooo well in that movie. Even the story with the family and kid not turning him in was good in its own right.
I think they nailed it by adding the explanation to it... being a martial art form based on efficiency for guns in close quarters and multiple targets, considering science, angles and shit. It's hard to forget that part. In most other films the hero just did gun-fu... because, no explanation, no training to get there.
The gunkata was fantastic, but I also really enjoyed the story of a world that is suppressing emotion through dictatorship and how a small rag tag bunch are trying to preserve their culture which is a source of emotion for them.
Gun kata, like in karate. loved that film.
Nothing else like it
Like Chow Yun-Fat drawing his pistol and fire without hesitation, I upvoted this vid within seconds.
I hit like, then I watch it.
@@IamDeathIncarnate1337 Exactly, every Accented Cinema video is more killer than John Wick, so you gotta make sure they all gain proper support.
Chow Yun-Fat is the king of gun fu.
@@RazorEdge2006 and John Wick polish it to perfection haha
The 1st Underworld movie is a very underrated masterpiece. Layering European myths, Anglo-Atlantic perception of action lead, Chinese Wuxia-inspired action on what is a basic damsel-in-distress romance story (which also has elements of other genres of romance stories). Foundation for a franchise but a complete story on its own. That's something.
I LOVE Underworld! But I always thought that was because of my love of werewolves and vampires. I can’t tell if it was objectively good.
@@Haannibal777 first movie is OK. 2nd (or was it the 3rd?) movie tho was better. it has sex! XD
A himbo in distress saved by a goth badass
My dream honestly
Fuck i love underworld
Underworld 2 is a great movie imo. The first, not so much. Even the prequel is better. Anything beyond that is garbage.
lol ok
5:20 One thing I've noticed lately is how Japanese and Chinese martial arts fantasies usually link the sword + swordsman so that they're nearly a combined entity. Heroes don't just have a sword - that sword has a name and a history. It's practically a character. But western action-fantasies usually view weapons like guns and swords as mere tools. And that's the attitude movies like Equilibrium, Matrix, and John Wick have. The power is in the wielder; the weapon is disposable.
There are plenty enough iconic examples of the contrary for that generalization to be moot. We all know the likes of Excalbur and I doubt that Bruce Lee's nunchucks ever had names.
Jackie Chan fought using many objects and none of them had names but we remember that he used them because of how iconic his scenes are, and John Wick although his weapons do not have a name some become memorable for their scenes too, even a simple pencil, that it is different from how it happens in wuxia is not a bad thing in itself
When I was in theatre back in high school, I was cast in a play where we had to learn stage combat. I was the only cast member who had actual martial arts experience, but it didn't really matter to me: it opened my eyes to the actual artistic side of martial arts. As someone who was born and raised in the States, I was taught the cold-hearted and lethal side of violence, but as I continue to reconnect to my ethnic Filipino side of my immigrant parents, I am experimenting with a philosophy of my own view of martial arts: an amalgamation of something beautiful, lethal, and magical. And as someone who is trying to get back into martial arts and acting again, who knows where this will take me?
Small extra : The director of "John Wick" said that grabling in combination with assasination (with guns ) look better(and easier) because the actors dont have such long periods of time to train acurracy and speed in Martial Arts. It would be forced and they would have might use shaky came to hide. The director is a former stuntman with martial arts background btw.
p.s.: Tiger chen is playing in Matrix 2,John Wick 2 and Matrix 4.His one hollywood esk movie "Man of Tai Chi" ,Keanu is the bad guy :D
Nobody on the Internet has not heard of John Wick, or would at least know who Keanu Reeves is because of those movies. And i'm glad Hong Kong cimema provided the blueprint for gun-fu.
Surely you used the word 'nobody' as an exaggeration .😶
i haven't seen a Wick film all the way through and the way they pre-choreograph and pre-vis a lot of gun actions scenes. the rythym is noticeably different to me anyway
Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure
@@BlandBloke Yes.
He was known _way_ before John Wick. Ever heard of the cult classic, indie movie, "The Matrix" before? /s /s
John Wick 4's Dragon Breath shotgun scene in the abandoned building is the closest thing to the 3-minute Hard Boiled sequence. The American gun-fu equivalent. That, or part 3's Morocco sequence.
I Grew up watching Gunslingers in westerns but started admiring "Gun Fu" in the game series Metal Gear Solid with Snakes use of CQC.
"Snake, try to remember the basics of CQC"
Also, engravings give no tactical advantage whatsoever
Metal Gear Solid alone should make a movie franchise
@@davidchiho there's one movie in the works with Oscar Isaac
@@Stribog1337
My God, it's a guaranteed flop, lol, movies barely able to translate video games with basic story into cinema, now they're trying to make movies from Kojima games? Lol.
Why bother shooting from a distance when you can shoot at glorious hand to hand, face to face melee range
lmao
Frankly, I like the middle ground some games propose of guns being fired from a distance and used as clubs when things get up close and personal.
When characters can move at super human speed, shooting at a distance is not as much of an advantage as you think it is.
No bullets wasted.
@@rickrollerdude pew pew bonk
I think the fact that the US actually has a gun culture shaped Hollywood's Gun Fu.
isn't Hollywood full of liberals though, i kid btw
Dude look at taran who trained keanu he shows lots of actors how to shoot
Helped, yes
Lols. i suggest you watch The Yellow Sea (Korean movie) and see how gun control looks like. (That's a joke btw, but I recommend that movie. And I'm not saying people having "easy" access to guns is OK.)
I think US gun culture starts shaping it around John Wick. Prior to that, no one involved in US gun culture wanted anything to do with gun-fu. Before that they wanted nothing to do with gun-fu, preferring to work on more grounded stuff instead like Heat. I'm reminded of the story about how the one firearms advisor on the set of the Matrix begged the Wachowskis not to have Smith use the Desert Eagle because it would come off as extraordinarily stupid to anyone who'd actually ever fired a Desert Eagle (they're not very practical nor are they very good) however they insisted because "it's the cool big pistol from Commando and Metal Gear Solid"
Bradley Allan was the stunt Coordinator for Kick-Ass and the Kingsmen films, bringing that Hong Kong energy to Matthew Vaughn's films.
I always considered the style of John Wick being Michael Mann meets John Woo. The technicality and realism of Michael Mann meeting the energy and impact of John Woo.
Thats actually the perfect description!
rip Bradley Allan ;(
Yeah mang. Gone 2 soon after successful Shang Chi.
4:00 That's actually a flaw I have with early American gun-fu. In an effort to make the protagonists look cool, they make them emotionless and dull, which isn't cool. It seems like in Hong Kong gun-fu, the heroes have to work a bit harder, there's more emotion and pain in it, which is more visually satisfying.
John wick and Collateral? It's a preference thing. Some audience likes the calm and collective characters others prefer the passionate and emotional ones
I think there's much irony in which Christian Bale's character in Equilibrium (the movie depicted) is a criminal guilty of feeling emotions.
Want to know why John Woo's shootouts felt more impactful? Because John Woo knew how to represent firearms. He didn't use CGI muzzle flashes, he used full load blanks, casings ejected, and he wasn't afraid to use squibs and explosions to show that stray bullets didn't just disappear, they went somewhere, and also sold the idea of the gunfighters being in real danger.
I really appreciate that you put that respect on Underworld. People who don't think about the art of movie making would dismiss it but it takes someone who really pays attention to see the attention and care that was put in its action scenes
This video essay is so explosive, it really packs a bang of info.
Booooo
I need a Fireteam asap
This comment needs to shot down
; )
The video shots its points directly at our heads.
Equalibrium is really underrated, everyone would probably remember the gun fu scenes, but this movie also is based on 1984 and Fahrenheit.
Actually there is an explanation of Equalibrium gun fu. In the movie lore, their Gun Kata is practices from years of calculation where bullet will go and also the science of stances.
Funny thing is, John Woo grew up watching alot of Wild West movies, his favorite was Sam Peckinpah and also his two gun akimbo was from his favorite movie "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" which he claim to be his all time favorite movie with the theme of "Brother" and Loyalty.
TBH I really hate Equilibrium. Always felt like it was cheap, sterile, noncreative and boring rip-off of better dystopian movies (or novels). Also - Gun Kata feels really dumb. It looks so unefficient... I believe the better you are at Gun Kata, the less succeful figher/shooter you should be. It looks like it shouldn't work.
Sorry for this rant; I had to.
Nothing against you liking this movie :)
@@skeezaworkan Well.. It IS a dumb idea, but so are most ways of portraying gunfights, up to and including gun-fu. Hell, gun kata at least pretends to follow the laws of physics (blatant lies, but they at least bother to come up with a lie) gun-fu just outright tosses logic out of the window.
The funny thing is, there is this game called double action, that pretty much is a gun-fu simulator, however, it being a pvp shooter, it needs to keep track of just who the hell is winning, right? Well, lo and behold, the game more or less just ignores how many players you killed. Why? Well, if you try to play it, you will notice that it is pretty much impossible to hit jackshit while running around just pointing your guns in the general direction you are looking at, and since playing the game like a traditional shooter in order to have steady aim wouldn't be a very gun-fu thing to do, the game instead gives you a score based on how many "stylish" things you did. Like, trying to make gun-fu into something you can do in a videogame requires for the game to disregard not only logic, but even videogame-logic.
Like gun-fu is just THAT nonsensical
Its still fun and exciting, though.
Thank you for reading my blog post LOL XD
@@skeezaworkan haha it okey. The story might be cliche but the action is satisfaying.
@@skeezaworkan It's true that gun kata is too unrealistic and not practical, it might also looks dumb as well.
But at least it looks COOL XD, and that's all about gun kata.
There's this neural network training exercise in which two humanoid figures controlled by two ai's are supposed to stop the other one from moving. After enough exercises, the system starts to exploit the opponent's ai by forcing it to break down just by observing the opponent. In my headcanon, Gun Kata was supposed to do something similar to the untrained human mind.
Equilibrium is my favorite movie dystopia. I think it's a lot closer to Zamyatin's We than to 1984, which came out earlier and inspired most of the genre, including 1984. Equilibrium takes a very similar concept but adds to it by giving the characters agency, and a tool to enforce that change in form of the main character's deadly capabilities. It just fits the cinematic medium a lot better, since dystopian books are usually more about the character's perception of the outside pressure. Even in something like Hunger Games, the action or the choices matter a lot less than the character's thoughts. Christian Bale shows it brilliantly through his action, he is perfect in this role, but after processing those feelings his character gets to choose not to participate in the oppression, by turning himself on it with everything that it gave him. The state gets destroyed by its own greatest weapon.
Recent Fahrenheit 451 adaptation tried to do something similar, and the way it failed is enough to show how much Equilibrium has succeeded.
I'm surprised there's no mention of Sam Peckinpah. Woo is definitely inspired by Western, but more specifically Peckinpah's Westerns.
FPJ unsung hero
Same, slow-motion shoot outs are Peckinpah's trademark
Good point, The Wild Bunch went on to influence so many other films.
Anybody know directors that have equally beautiful and surprising styles (of editing a scene) as these 2?
Showing a scene from many different angles with different speeds (of slomo), with great rhythm, employing acceleration and deceleration masterfully while keeping the flow of visual information clear and recognizable is something nobody really does so well.
Speed ramps have become a cliche of modern action movies, so much so that they have become boring, slow motion in general is either overused, underused or wrongly used by directors.
Anticipating the choice of edits of the majority of directors has become so much of a routine to me that nothing really surprises me anymore.
Don't telegraph your next move in advance - surprise me you mofos!
Of course this kind of fast editing of dynamic scenes is not the only thing one can do, it is not suited for every director or movie or scene, but I feel many directors are way to conventional and they completely ignore the artistic possibility of editing in a specific way. Editing is VERY important. Most treat this way of artistic expression as an necessity rather a possibility, sticking to known formulas and bore me to death with their lack of creativity.
Pekinpah and Woo are expressive like Wagner and Beethoven, everybody else is like bad minimal Techno.
I'd categorize movies like Equilibrium and John Wick as based on a subgenre of gun-fu itself called "gun-grappling". Gunplay mixed with hand-to-hand combat, particularly grappling where the "striking" is executed with the firearms with the unarmed combat, specifically grappling, simply being a means to that executed strike.
Equilibrium will always be a guilty pleasure of mine
Hell ya, son. Your videos are some of the best. Tons of fun to watch and you've been absolutely nailing it.
Everybody loves Gun Fu fighting!
Kungfu Panda 4 : Gun-Po.
Something I love about your video essays is your genuine sense of appreciation for the art regardless of genre or origin.
One thing I'd like to add is that no small part of the success of the John Wick series is the skill of Mr. Reeves himself. He's very competent in using firearms and regularly competes in 3 gun matches.
That's exactly my thought - having actors who practice endlessly and get very, very good is just as important as having a director and choreographer with a strong vision. Accented Cinema mentioned previously just how skilled Beijing Opera actors were, and I think it still applies
Totally agree it's amazing how cop movies of the 80s and 90s had the John woo feel where bad guys had no aim but good guys always hit and never ran out of bullets until the story said so. Like Showdown in Little Tokyo or Tango and Cash great story and lots of bullets lots of the classic 3 shot explosions and most importantly great one liners. Something a lot of movies lost when they became to serious
It’s also worth noting the stunt boys on The Matrix films were the guys who moved on to make the John Wick films; the progression is there, not least of which because the W sisters really influenced the John Wick films in terms of them introducing Hong Kong cinematic techniques to the entire team of American film-makers who worked on the Matrix Trilogy.
It’s significant that the John Wick guys refer to the 3 Matrix films as the ‘finishing school’ for them and many others who now have significant behind the scenes technical roles in Hollywood.
Your videos are spectacular. Keep up the good work.
thank you for diving into action films like this. I appreciate that your a film channel that doesn't shy away from genres and blockbusters that most "film essayists" treat like shit. i love movies regardless the genre, there will always be gems in every genre... I just hate that people get caught up with IMDB scores and the intellectualization factor (and culture) prevalent in society today... that sadly doesn't like appraising certain genres and styles. There is so much to appreciate in film beyond those scores! More action (and horror)!!!
AMEN!
You're becoming one of my favorite UA-camrs. Hopefully you continue to grow.
Thank you for continuing the Gun-Fu topic!
Great video, an interesting topic would be how videogames and cinema take inspiration from each other (cinematics and gameplay, movies of videogames...). This video made me think of Bayonetta.
Metal Gear is a better example of gun fu imo
Max payne series
you forgot to insert at least a movie peak from this one: *Shoot 'Em Up*
"[...] but the technique is freaking dumb and stupid and spectacular and I love it!" 🤣
The break down in differences was amazing! great video sir
I loved how Tom cruise gunned those thugs down in Collateral!
It felt so realistic like it could happen on the street right next to you. Gave me the chills!
I mean, it sure as shit wouldn't ever happen in my country, not like that, at least.
But yes, Collateral was excellent at contrasting two incredibly conflicting things; a realistic night environment, with a violent, almost surreal efficiency for actual murder.
It felt realistic, because it's called "Drawing and Shooting from Retention", and it's becoming more commonly taught this way. Granted Collateral was filmed nearly 20 years ago, and Tom Cruise had spent a ton of time being taught by 2 British ex-SAS Special Forces guys, so him nailing it in that scene was as legit as it comes. Also very useful IRL, not that anyone should seek or hope to encounter a situation like that.
Bonus: Ex-Delta Force Operator Larry Vickers breaks the scene down in real world application in this video he made
ua-cam.com/video/fEZeb5lKPkk/v-deo.html
This really is the best channel. This series is going to be huge!
Love your videos! Keep going!
not related to this essay, but I just want to say your video essays are some of the best on the platform. Really amazing work you're doing.
Personally I think Mounty Oums style of Gun-fu was the best
I never seen Equilibrium but watching these scenes in this video I was like "It looks like he's duel wielding Katana's more than he is holding a literal gun"
Great Video AC :D
Yes! It's a kinda silly but overwhelmingly stylish movie, and the action is stylized to the nth degree. It's a very fun romp, and a great performance from Christian Bale AND Sean Bean. If you like Gun-Fu, it's a must-watch. You'll see so many things that became blueprints for (admittedly often better) movies that have come out since.
Go watch it then
Spoilers: Those are not literal guns, they're literal katanas -- made to look like guns.. and the bullets are actually shurikens! =)
After these awesome Gun Fu videos I may have to give Stranglehold (video game sequel Hard Boiled) another playthrough.
Love Equilibrium, the flat line scene was great
Now when i say to people that Jhon Wick is not an original thing in his fight and gunfire styles that all came from hong kong and people look at me like im crazy im gonna just link this series of video to them! Thank you!
A friend and I watched Equilibrium for our first time only a few years ago. We actually ended up laughing through half the movie because the violence and action is so over the top.
It's epic, don't get me wrong, and we had a brilliant time, but it plays a little differently now than it would have when it first came out, not just because of the era but also because we're older now.
It's a movie that tried so hard to cash in on The Matrix and tried so hard to be cool that it's laughable for sure
I loooove your works! Every single one helped me to appreciate more about movies and movie-making. I wish you big success and prosperity. Thank you, sincerely.
Great essay, Hong Kong cinema and the golden age of the western paved the way for Gun-Fu. Tip my hat off to you for referencing "Equilibrium", that movie gets far too overlooked. Yes It wasn't a great movie overall, but it's execution of action concepts, techniques, and elements, opened another door of creative for Gun fighting in Hollywood movies.
About the: "Woo and Western directors took different readings from the Western gunfights" segment, couldn't it just be as easy as Woo being a big Sam Peckingpah fan, whose gunfights are very focused on chaos and visceralness rather than speed or precision?
If I remember correctly and it has been awhile since I learned information about Woo. He was a dance choreographer before directing films, and wanted his gun fights to be like dance choreography and that is how his style came about.
@@Dlatest His style is Peckinpah all the way down to the slowmo.
The answer is both and more. He wasn't a choreographer. He loved dancing, acting, and he was inspired by Peckinpah, Gene Kelly and Hollywood musicals, Truffaut, Scorsese, Fellini, Kung Fu, chivalry, his Christian values..
@@kimberleywoo5658 add Melville too
"The Real Folk Blues 2", the final action sequence is the love letter to John Woo from Watanabe.
Great video, the only movie I wish was included, Shoot Em Up with Clive Owens, which took Gun Fu to pure parody and violent comedy purposes
I love Equilibrium it’s just so open with its silliness
Plus Gun Kata is the fighting style of my favourite character from my favourite fighting game series
Finally i can watch this. So happy u talk about gun fu. It is a long journey.
Thank you for makin gun fu film history. This video amazing.😁😁😁😁
Very detailed analysis! Always keep looking forward to your analysis of how HK cinema keeps evolving and the dynamic inter cross cultural impact of various genres and movies from different geographies
Omg, this video is so interesting. Thank you so much, I have never even thought about that part of cinema history.
Thank you for the videos, man!
Excited to see how the gun fu and the action landscape continue evolving! 🙌🏾
Amazing work! I'm hungry to see more of what's to come. What a great time to be alive
This was fascinating! Great video.
this is a brilliant examination into this topic. i really appreciate the eastern understanding exploring the western demonstration and comparing and contrasting the two.
I really love your essays man! Im currently working on a game inspired by gun fu and found these really fascinating
It's really amazing to see the 'cross cultural' of gunfu lead to a more exciting gun fight in film. And thanks for covering a bit about Gun kata from Equilibrium. The gun fight scene in that film is one of my favourite.
For me, the best gunfu scene is from PMMM: Rebellion movie, but that's a whole another story I guess :v
8:42 film Ultra Violet was made by the same director of film Equilibrium.
Too bad that the studio intervention made the film being 'not good'. The gun kata scene is still great but overall storytelling and CGI is downright disaster.
Snake, Remember the basics of CQC, I also, enjoy more an action movie, with this, dumb excessive blasts, fast paced action secuences, and bloody without any realistic sense. it is what made old action movies so great. and i like when new movies bring this simplicity.
never actually thought John Wick would categorize as "GunFu", but I guess in the sense of "It's Martial Arts with Firearm" CAR can fit that description...
This was beautiful to watch, great job🔥🔥
Great analysis, esp. pointing out the differences. I've always thought what separates Kick-Ass from previous movies that uses the style, is that there's emotion/catharsis in its best fight scenes (Hit Girl rescuing Kick-Ass and BD while BD shouts instructions, Kick Ass firing the machine gun ) rather than just looking cool, which I thought references John Woo movies. And I was actually expecting that you'd include the scenes from Kick-Ass that I mentioned, because, as you said, violence is beautiful.
Officially my favorite of your videos
Thanks a heap for making it
Brilliant analysis and great story telling! Bravo!
Hey man I missed you! Glad to be here early
One of the interesting things I find is that in terms of Hollywood gunfighting in general, John Wick is one of the first American movies that had gunfights that were both interesting for an audience who doesn't shoot to watch, and not madenly stupid to an audience that does shoot. Before then, gunfights were either not very interesting to a general audience (typically action movies focused more on the conditions surrounding the gunfight to add tension rather than the shooting itself) or felt incredibly dumb to anyone who knew how guns work. John Wick meanwhile, through the blending of gun-fu with competitive IPSC shooting, created something that everyone finds fun and interesting to watch
i appreciate your videos man, keep up the great work
Excellent video. I discovered this channel very recently and I'm still going through the backlog. It has a very good writing and editing - a pure joy to watch. Not to mention it's unique (for me at least) perspective - I learn a new things about Chinese culture with every video. I really appreciate the listing of the movie clips at the end of the videos - it will be useful to-watch checklist :)
I love the John Wick trilogy, and the action in it is great! Love the video
Great video! I think you should discuss the Johnnie To movie if you have time. There are many static scenes in the gun battle scenes in Johnnie To's movie, which has a surreal feeling. Few movies on the market are similar to him
I think Christopher McQuarrie's The Way of the Gun (2000) deserves a mention. McQuarrie's Navy Seal brother was an advisor and lent an air of tactical realism to the action
In fact, modern media made this distinction between gun fu and gun kata, gun fu was a Chinese-style appropriation of Western style shootings in Chinese style, gun kata was an adaptation of equilibrium gun kata to the Japanese style of anime and games!
Stunning video as always. I am amazed at the great in depth discussion in the comments! 🙂
Yeah the Equilibrium seen with the motorcycle cops was amazing. If only it was longer.
A beautiful rundown essay of gun fu
Gun-kata looks so smooth
Another awesome video!!!
Great essay
you're insights are always so amazing
Excellent video, I definitely want to check out some of the movies you showed off here 🙂
@8:24 alright Super Eyepatch Wolf
From John W. to John W., poetic honestly
Loved this video, and your channel. Glad you’re always making videos ❤️
Being an action movie fan, I LOVE THIS VIDEO !!!
great essay. keep up the great work.
Good shit!
Brilliant video… never thought but John Wick is a pretty close name to John Woo, I wonder.
Thank you for this video ! 😊🌷
While Gun-Fu is purely a cinema thing, it's funny, because when we did stress shooting drills with the police, I've heard them called gun-fu. These are those drills you see on TV a lot where the officer is going through something like a maze, and has several targets pop up, and he has to quickly decide to shoot or not shoot based on the picture, though in real life, you are often just walking down a line, and the targets are angled so that you don't see them until you step in front of them. I guess bigger departments have the pop up targets, or that is just Hollywood.
Hello, I think "Léon", a french movie with Nathalie Portman (her first movie) and Gary Oldman was a precurssor in the west. It aired in 1994 and had pretty action gunfight with a cold, precise, professionnal killer.
Very good movie by the way, same realisator than The Fifth Element (Luc Besson).
Loved this essay, thank you.
anddddd... subscribed! great channel mate
Absolutely great Gun Fu action scenes.
What a great video! Can't wait for more on this awesome sub-genre.
Also I literally just realised that John Wick's name is perhaps inspired by John Woo's. The biggest brain expand moment I've had in a while
John Wick is based on books tho. The guy where wrote the books hates Reeves as the Character because Wick isn't a pretty boy in the books.
Really cool channel man. Love it.
Violence can be ugly or beautiful and sometimes both. I learned that at a tender age watching the wild bunch with a friend. Shootings in movies were never the same after that.
I know it is an animated movie, but Killer Bean is another example of Gun Fu and even martial arts. You should check it. Is really good. Especially considering it was made by one man.