For anyone interested, new documentary on History channel about the samurai tonight at 8pm est.

Samurai, samurai, samurai. We have enough information, documentaries, and movies on the samurai for someone to spend multiple lifetimes boning up on it all. Where's all the documentaries about the Chinese militaries of various eras or the history of the Southeast Asian pre-Muay Thai systems before they adopted gloves and standardized in the thirties?

I've class during the airing of Samurai, but, I'll be recording it and then I'll watch it when I get home. I'm only watching it for two reasons. One, I love ALL martial arts history. Two, something might be aired that's new to me or forgotten by me about the Samurai.

Either way, History Channel will more than likely do the topic justice.

Doh, i missed the doc . Was it any good?

Doh, i missed the doc . Was it any good?

Imho, It was just ok. To me it seemed to focus on Al Dacascos more than on Musashi...again, it was just ok...no wow factor.

I have to agree with sensei8. It was, meh interesting and I am stretching the word. I have it recorded on the dvr so i can watch it again to see if I missed anything.

Worst Martial arts documentary ever!

One, I hate bait and switch documentaries: where you spend more learning about the people doing the research than what you were told this is about. In this case they spent so much time talking about Dacascos (with his cool Brandon lee\matrix look) than Musashi.

There were two 5-10 minute sections with this guy just doing Kung Fu with his shirt off. What does Kung Fu have to do with Musashi? On top of that anything that was interesting was interrupted by him, like the sword scenes at the school.

Then, they wrap up with the book of five rings in like 5 minutes...the end. Isn't that the most important part? His writings?

Finally, there were factual errors. One, they claim that Jujitsu was derived from Judo. Second, they claim that "bushido" was abolished during the Meji restoration. Yes it was suppressed, but it do not go away from the culture. They also claim that after some guy wrote dime novels in the 30's that suddenly, bushido became part of the new Japanese imperialism. So i guess Japan was not imperialist until the 1930's. Someone better tell the Russians, Koreans, and Chinese that Japan was not an imperial power until the 1930's

Those are just the facts I found I am sure if I watched it again there would be more.

Garbage!

james4949,

Welcome to Karate Forums. Nice post and dead-on sir!

Hey, at least the doc had cartoons!

I guess I'm the only one who enjoyed it. I know some things about Musashi, but not much...this docu shed some light on things about Musashi that I never knew.

I'll agree the docu was not perfect, it seemed to be a vehicle for Dacascos to show himself, and I also caught the factual error about "Jujitsu evolving from Judo". But I still enjoyed it.

One topic I would like to see covered in a documtary is the goings-on in the daily lives of the monks in the Shaolin Temple.

The tenured wushu performers that inhabit it now, or the actual Buddhist martial monks that were there until the Cultural Revolution?