Closest depiction of MA in a movie

[Spartacus Maximus]

What is in your opinion the movie that shows the most accurate and realistic depiction of a martial art?

My choice would have to be the Karate Kid series. Besides a few exceptions techniques are simple and not fancy, closer to the way karate would be used in reality. The movie also mentions several truth such as quality versus quantity and the role of kata in training. Besides this there is a very accurate dialogue on the moral and philosophical aspects.

Please evaluate your choice according to:

Realism of techniques depicted and their effects

Training depicted if any

Martial art theory of attack/defense.

Moral/philosophical aspects of the art depicted

Ok go!

[Archimoto]

Great question and great choice!

One of my favorites.

So many good choices but I go with The Last Samurai

An epic story about a martial artist and his transformation

[Spartacus Maximus]

The Last Samurai was a good movie for the actions and battle scenes but what in your opinion makes it close to reality in the way it shows the martial art? Is the use of weapons shown close to how these weapons were actually used?

[Hawkmoon]

Imo .... not that many films do show or depict MA in anything close to the real world or its true nature and execution!

For example:

"Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon"

A truly awesome piece of entertainment, loads of action great fight sequences, an easy to follow story and a certain amount of 'zen' about its view.

Great film! I enjoy immensely and have the DVD in my collection.

Is it real?

Or

Is it showing off MA ability truthfully?

Nope.

I get its a fantasy story and that's part of its appeal to me, but did an Martial Artist do things like that, do they (we) do things like this today?

Nope.

Did a fight war in days gone past have the enemy respect fully stand in line to fight the other guy?

Not likely, hack slash chop shot...next!

...just like it is today!

Another example would be:

"The Punisher"

A version you may not be aware of, it was a 'B' movie when it was released back in 1989.

Shame really , I do like and enjoy the Frank Castle story!!

This version of "The Punisher" is one of Dolph Lundgren earliest films, his acting is ...what it is... the story is one as I say I enjoy, but the fights (not the gun play, the fights) are simple direct, brutal and to me reflect how a fight between professionals (SWAT, military forces, FBI, etc etc) might go when push comes to shove!

[Spartacus Maximus]

Most films featuring any kind of fighting, or martial arts show something that is meant to be flashy and specacular. It is all for entertainment after all. This is why my original question is a challenge to answer. The are very few films made where the fighting scenes are realistic. For that there has to be a very good choreographer preferably someone who has knowledge of how and why techniques work. That is a difficult job because realistic is often chaotic, hard to observe and not entertaining enough for the masses. It is also easier for a spectator to evaluate what is shown if said spectator is familiar with it.

Interesting choices so far, keep them coming.

[jaypo]

What about the Ip Man series?

I haven't seen the entire movies, but I watched a fight scene between Donnie Yen and a class of karate black belts, and it was pretty different than any fight scenes I had seen before.

[Kanku65]

2 Indonesian films, The Raid:Redemption and The Raid:Berandal are both great films if you like both flashy martial arts entertainment and gritty realistic martial arts techniques and applications. These 2 are by far my favourite MA films of all time. The MA most demonstrated throughout the movies is Pencak Silat, and the fight scenes are all choreographed by Iko Uwais and Yayan Ruhian. I would like to put a gore warning on both these films, in case some are unable to handle such.

[bushido_man96]

The title of the movie escapes me, but it starred Tommy Lee Jones and Benecio Del Torro, and they were special forces, and they did knife combat. From what little I know of Filipino knife fighting, I felt that they did a good job of showing the brutality of a knife fight.

[Spartacus Maximus]

I believe you are referring to the movie titled: The Hunted?

Also as a reference to what I said about choreography , I highly recommend a British TV programme called ITV. Go to YouTube and search for the ITV martial arts episode. There is a very clear explanation of how techniques are adapted to the movies versus how they are really used. Very interesting.

As for one of my second choices of movies depicting fights I would chose an old war movie about WW2 called The Devil's Brigade. I like the hand to hand combat training scenes and fights with the Canadian hand to hand instructor. I saw old historical footage of empty hand training and it was very much like what is shown n that movie

[Archimoto]

The Last Samurai was a good movie for the actions and battle scenes but what in your opinion makes it close to reality in the way it shows the martial art? Is the use of weapons shown close to how these weapons were actually used?

I agree the battle scenes were terrific.

Good question though.

I really liked the training scenes after Cruise's character was captured and he was being brought into the fold culturally and as a martial artist - I thought the sword training and sparring was great to watch and very realistic.

Further I liked the scenes in the cherry blossom orchard emphasizing the philosophical side of MA.