Modern Tai Chi Ball

so heres a little clip of something called Tai Chi ball. Apparently there is this other Tai chi ball that i will get to another day, that involves an actually ball. But in this clip, there is a still fan with a ball. the person moves around to keep the ball in place. Looks sort of like lacrosse except there is no pocket. The movements of the people cradling the ball is very like the ones found in traditional tai chi forms. This actually seems pretty hard. cradling a lacrosse ball is hard, so imagine doing something like that without a net.

Kung Fu vs Yoga

So just right before the eighties, there was this movie made about the strengths between kung fu and yoga. The clip is very nicely choreographed. Although it would be hard for a yoga person to fight just being flexible. Also the Yoga person is a contortionist. so its just something entertaining to watch

Rush Hour 3

So the much anticipated Rush Hour 3 has arrived today, august 10,2007. Many fans, including myself, has waited six years for this movie to come out after watching the last blooper in Rush Hour 2. So how does this movie compare with the other ones?
Well this movie is only decent. How did this happen? Well lets start with what made the first two so great. In the first two, the comedy was original. The jokes were very funny as they weren't too racist, but racist enough to make it extremely comical. The character of lee was very raw, which made him a very good partner to the obnoxious non important cop. The fight scenes were well done. Chan fights back enough to just barely protect himself, which made the movies great. Also the stunts in the first and second movie were awesome. Remember when Jackie Chan broke in the home of Consul Hu and evaded all the guards, while his hands were handcuffed together and attached to a steering wheel? Remember in the second one when they were being chased around by bad guys on the bamboo framed building? How about the one where Jackie Chan slide down the curtain? These were some good creative stunts.
So back to the third one. The jokes weren't so great. Like Chinese people named Yu and Me. That joke is so old. There were a lot of weird jokes like Lee suggesting to rent porno. There was a lot of these old jokes that we all heard of. They even reuse ones from the first movie. The character of Lee is also not so raw anymore. The movie takes place three years later and Lee and Carter are very connected. There is no hatred between the two that makes the movie funny. Also there is this random joke about Asian people eating too much rice and being constipated. Didn't really make sense to me.
Also a little side note. The movie takes place three years later. So you remember the kid that was saved in the first one. Well she looks like shes in her early twenties in this third movie. And guess who was looking her up? Carter... dam man she is technically like 14 or 15. But yea..
so the fighting in this movie was lacking. There was the occasional dodging objects that Lee does but none of the fights were really memorable. And Tucker has become a Wushu practitioner with two black belts. Yet he doesn't use any of it. But maybe he was lying in the movie. i couldn't tell. So in this movie, he has a Japanese "Brother". The story behind it is that Lee was raised in an orphanage with this Japanese kid name Renji and Lee blames himself that he was adopted and left Renji, who got involved with the Triads. They had a little sword fight together, but Lee refused to fight him. He just defended saying that he could not kill him as he still cares about him.
This movie just wasn't as creative as the first two. They use many of the same plot lines like the girl getting kidnapped again and one of the enemies is undercover within the good guy circle. Like they had a flag and they parachuted down the Eiffel tower. That was extremely predictable. Tucker dresses up a girl when they tried to save the girl, also predictable. At the end, Lee and Tucker were at gunpoint with the enemy that they thought to be good, the taxi driver that wanted to be like an American saves the day and gets to randomly kill someone.

BUT don't get me wrong, the movie was so worth the eight bucks i paid to see it. There were some very good scenes that absolutely made my day. Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker gaily singing singing together as a plan to protect someone. The car chase scene was pretty cool. You have to watch that to find out what i mean. So overall the comedy was not so well done, the fighting and stunts were decent and the story is not creative. But since we are talking about Jackie Chan and it is Rush Hour 3, it makes the movie decent. Its a good movie to watch once or twice, but it isn't a great movie that i could watch many times like the first two.

Great Appreciation

Jackie Chan, one of the most famous stunt man and martial artist of this time. Movies are great, but you have to watch something like this to really appreciate some of his accomplishments. He is personally my idol. He is not bad ass nor does he pretend that he is tough, but he ranks among the great grandmasters of martial arts.


But this clip scares me as he almost died so many times...

This is my martial arts blog. To me, martial arts is artistic, not just pointless combat.