However, this meant giving up their weapons. Now they had no means to fight thieves or angry neighbors. They grabbed anything they could to defend themselves, including common farm implements.
Connecting two sticks with a rope was how the nunchaku was born. Other story variants hold that the nunchaku were developed by the original Okinawan peasant class, and were, again, based on farm implements. Agricultural flails, used to remove the husks on various grain crops, were popular throughout Asia.
They consisted of two sticks connected by a flexible joint, allowing the user to hold one end and strike the harvested plants. One story claims that the Chinese emperor Jiu Hong Jun retreated with his army to a small village after a massive defeat by Mongolian conquerors.
For an example of why this sort of approach is not the most efficacious , we may look to the recent introduction into English of the word nunchuck. Nunchuck is a variant of a word from the Japanese dialect of Okinawa, nunchaku , which itself may come from a Taiwanese word for a kind of farming tool, neng-cak.
Nunchaku began to be used in English in the early s, initially applied to a style of martial arts, and shortly after to the particular weapon employed in that style.
Traditional Ryukyuan arts of self defense left to right —Sai, Nunchaku, and Boo, three different forms of karate — originated in Okinawa years ago. Hanke introduced him to the nunchaku, a fighting stick which Okinawans devised from a much longer rice-threshing tool.
Protect Yourself From Assault. For women of all ages, especially if living alone. Works for you when fears are aroused. It did not take long before English speakers began coming up with variant ways of saying nunchaku ; by the end of the decade, both nun chuck and nunchuck could be found. He's as intense as he's fun to watch, regardless of the choreography's haphazard nature and the somewhat sloppy kung fu. The key to Lin's choreography was having Wen throw his leg in the direction of an attacker and the stuntman would react to his leg placement.
As a result, Wen's not kicking at anyone, he's rapidly lifting his leg in many directions. It's flail-on-flail choreography with animalistic luster. Wen mimicking Lee's nunchaku dojo sequence with a piece of rope is so blatant that you've got to admire his audacity.
Wen's rope has the same sound effect, Wen copies Lee's nunchaku movements and the fight is shot using the same camera angles. Wen kicks the karate dojo sign like the Shanghai Park sign and a brief Bruce Li moment is a sign of things to come. The film follows the path of jujutsu expert Uyeshiba Jiro Chiba losing fights to karate expert Natori Shinbei Sonny Chiba; Jiro's brother and to the bokken -wielding sword master Okita. Uyeshiba thus learns karate from Soubei Honda.
Armed with newfound skills, Uyeshiba revenge fight plans go awry causing Shinbei' brother to commit suicide setting up a superbly orchestrated fight between two real brothers, Chiba vs. Chiba, with a hard-style karate vs. Though the fights are intensely riveting, it's the displays of true karate morality that is most memorable. When Honda presents Uyeshiba with a teacher's certificate and Uyeshiba declines it because he can't afford it, Honda replies, "I don't take money when I give lessons to a man I trust.
Though I can sell my skills, I can't sell my marital heart. Jiro Chiba's portrayal of Uyeshiba's martial transformation is transcendently dynamic as to how he adjusts his martial movements from one teacher and fight scene to the next. His techniques subtly change and improve over the film's duration, which shows how Uyeshiba's aikido evolves from Japanese jujutsu to aikido's basic hand guard, fight-ready position that is modeled after the way a samurai holds his samurai sword during battle.
On the surface, the movie appears to be a run of the mill, topsy turvy, grittily and cheaply made early '70s Taiwanese kung fu flick; yet it balled me over. Imagine Led Zepplin meets Def Leppard ala Deep Purple wrapped into one group and their sole song's music is translated into the sensibility of the final fight scene.
When Zhen Zheng Jiang Bin returns home, he's called a traitor, ostracized by his village and his girlfriend forsook him as his brother, a turncoat that mines red sand from a river for the Japanese, who use it to forge steel to make guns to kill Chinese. Though the early fights resemble out-of-control windmills, they're raw and you watch them to the point of mental fracking. They're filled with unabashed desperation and overblown fantastical facial expressions associated with silent-film stars.
It's like female fans of Rod Stewart saying he's so ugly that he's cute, Jiang's fights are so sloppy that they're great. Just when you think Jiang can't get any worse the attack ante rises as Yasuaki Kurata skulks onto the screen as the nefarious nemesis from Nippon, who oozes the animalistic intensity that Sonny Chiba brought to his Street Fighter films, yet Kurata's hapkido kicks elevate the film's frays and makes Jiang look like a 20 th degree black belt in everything.
Midway through the finale, Zhen taps into his Buddha Prayer Fist, a cheesy and effective turning point in the fight as they begin battling on a fast-moving freight train with the frenzied intensity of Lee Marvin vs. Ernest Borgnine in Hitchcock's savage barreling train skirmish in Emperor of the North The emotional sacrifice of breathless intent behind the assault asphyxiates every moment of the fight for them and us.
This was a rare accomplishment in Chinese kung fu films that also featured the bewitching soundtrack of Black Magic Woman by Santana. Overall, the fights in The Gallant are intense and well-choreographed, and Wang portrays each character and their fighting skills with dexterous prowess and violent acumen.
In The Stranger , a trapped woman flees from an abusive Triad into the arms of a man Wang that's part James Bond and knight in shining armor. He doesn't use a gun or sword instead he's armed with flaming fists and combustible kicks, and fights with tiger intensity soaked in an avalanche of bowling balls that uses up to 25 technique per shot to destroy the kingpin.
The somber Stranger Attending the Tomb features Wang as a heavy-hearted prodigal son who while guarding his father's grave laments on his own sinful past, while his sister believes her brother is the last bastion of goodness in the world. When she's threatened by a gang of grave-robbing rebels that want to loot the father's grave, with snapping dragon fists, and a pitchfork and shovel, Wang goes more berserk than Billy Jack at an OK Corral spree that is filled with wretched revenge and insane disdain.
In The Avenger , a man Wang returns home from prison after taking the rap for a treasure heist to protect two accomplices, his father-in-law, and the double-crossing Li San. While the man was away, San killed the father-in-law and heinously coveted the man's wife. With two daggers in hand, it's time to unleash a whirlwind of steel-slashing bewitchment upon San and his clan.
Never say, "Cut it out," to a former inmate with blades. However, when Ben and father use arnis to thrash two cowardly sons of the Philippines' first colonial governor Legazpi, and stop them from raping his mum, Legazpi retaliates by killing Ben's father, raping then killing his mum, and shipping Ben to Los Mananos to be executed.
Desperate to escape the storm-ravaged sinking ship, when forced to kill the captain and conquistadors blocking his way, Ben is mortally wounded. Washing up on an unchartered island he stumbles upon the old, now blind master who teaches Ben and how to make arnis sticks that can withstand sword strikes, which he needs as he prepares to battle Legazpi, his two sons and Mori, their hired deadly samurai bodyguard.
Though the muscle bound Dantes could have mimicked Lee's Enter the Dragon eskrima fights to become a Filipino Bruce Lee, he chose to using effective traditional stick fighting, applying simple disarming techniques, heaven-six double-stick maneuvers, and kali knife skills.
The impressive aspect of the arnis, Spanish fencing and samurai sword action is that each fighter stuck to their respective arts. After Chief LapuLapu killed Magellan with a Filipino kampilan dagger in , natives were forbidden to carry swords. These historical homage moments are subliminally intertwined into the film.
It's a brutal yarn about two Taiwanese undercover agents Roc and Tian Hao sent to Hong Kong to stop powerful Triads and Yakuza bosses peddling opium and other vices.
It's also one of the most outstanding kung fu films I've ever seen, not because of the bizarrely effective and entertaining fight scenes, but because of two things that no other Taiwanese-made kung fu film has ever done. One, the film's most powerful scene is when Chinese boss Chen Hung-lieh proves his loyalty to the Yakuza boss by calmly breaking his own leg while chatting with him.
When the Yakuza boss offer to see him home, the Triad boss, with hypnotic calm replies, "I'll manage it alone, thank you. It's as gripping as a pair of rock-climbing shoes on flypaper. And if that that wasn't enough, it takes a minute to realize the English dubbing is excellent. It's the beauty of shooting without sound. The Chinese actors were saying their lines in English, thus having true lip movement and then dubbing the lines later with English speakers.
I did several scenes like this in Battle for the Republic of China Roc delivers his lines with a Humphrey Bogart-esque grunting lisp and glare and displays fighting savvy with the cool of Napoleon Solo. His strait-laced posture and swanky placement of look-away kicks looks in the opposite direction a split second before making contact are alive with voodoo magic. While there will be many familiar faces competing at this year's World Master, there are also plenty of world class competitors making their debuts in Paulo and Joao Miyao have won every major gi title since taking the sport by storm when they were just purple belts.
The brothers rose to jiu-jitsu stardom with their insane work ethics and berimbolo back taking techniques. Their philosophies and competition results have inspired many of the new generation of jiu-jitsu athletes. Although they don't compete quite as often as they used to, look for them to be the top contenders for a Masters World title in the Master 1 light featherweight division.
Any of these could be correct, or none! In Canada, buying, selling and possessing nunchaku in public, is illegal unless they are made of foam. You can make your own but cannot have them in public. Hysterical but not in a funny way…. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. Notify me of follow-up comments by email. Notify me of new posts by email. This site uses Akismet to reduce spam.
Learn how your comment data is processed. Origin Antique Asian flail The origin of the nunchaku is cloudy, to say the least. Form and Variations In general, nunchucks are pretty uniform.
Surge of Popularity The weapon would have probably been relegated to the annals of history if not for the work of two men. What you thought you were the only one? Legal Restrictions Many places in the world have restricted the use, or even ownership, of nunchucks. Do you have a good nunchuck story? Share it in the comments below. About Latest Posts. Jaredd Wilson.
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