Slashing The Seats

Despite all our bright eyed looking to the future lately, here at STS we’re still a bunch of miserable old bastards – a fact resolutely hammered home by the recent news that Jackie Chan is now old enough to play Mr.Miyagi. The greatest Martial artist of our youth – after China O’Brien – reduced to playing a wrinkly Yoda analogue. Add to this the fact that he’s accompanied by Jaden Smith -meaning The Fresh Prince is old enough to have a son -and we can almost hear the undertakers sizing us up as we dodder down the street.

Now, other blogs might try to age with dignity, but inspired by Jackie, we’ve decided to fight the ageing process to the death, and in order to take out such a dastardly opponent, we’ll need the finest martial arts movie makers can possibly conjure! If you made it through that convoluted opening paragraph then you might just be tough enough to check out The Greatest Movie Martial Arts!

Fuk Yu – So I Married An axe Murderer

Despite it’s odious reputation as a predecessor to Mike Myers predilection for terrifyingly bad Scottish accents, this mid 90’s rom-com does have one major plus -the ancient Scottish fighting style Fuk Yu. According to the DVD notes, it includes biting, headbutting your opponent and -in the event of a tie -drinking them into submission, and if falling asleep outside in Scotland doesn’t kill you, the art’s main weapon will – the deadly under-cooked haggis.

Rex Kwan Do – Napolean Dynamite

Bow To Your Sensei!!You think Rex goes home to Starla every night because he’s a pussy? Hell no, he’s come up with possibly the most useful fighting style in the world – mainly consisting of kicking people in the head when they mock your unnecessarily roomy trousers. Hey – it’s basically an excuse to punch out those weaker or more geeky than yourself; what’s not to love?

Bending -Avatar, The Last Airbender

If you’re going to practice something called bending, you’d better be pretty damn tough. Apparently each form of bending – I can’t believe I spend my time writing things like this by the way – is based on a real martial art, but I don’t recall Tai Chi ever giving me the ability to flood the city with a giant tidal wave or control a monstrous bison – and not for lack of trying I can tell you.

Robot Jox.

Imagine,if you can, a world where massive demilitarization has taken place. Not an explosive device for a hundred thousand miless in any direction. Now imagine you have access to a 20 metre high robot with missiles on it.

That knows Kung-Fu.

And tell me you wouldn’t be running the show. Despite attempting to make jockeys cool-by adding an ‘X’ to their name- and an 18 rating, Robot Jox still spawned a legion of tiny 90’s fanboys that saw it through 2 laclustre sequels – surely we’re due a J.J.Abrahms reboot soon? Anyway-it’s got giant robots beating each other up!

Shaq-Fu.

Ok, technically not a movie, but Shaq himself was in z-list superhero flick Steel so I’m putting it in anyway – unless you have a better source of basketball-based asskickery equipped with the worst fight interface ever designed?
I thought not.
There’s no other way to say it – Shaq-Fu is shit,but it’s also fucking ridiculous,which counts for a lot round here – head on over to www.saveshaq-fu.com and snag a copy(Sega version natch)before rival www.shaqfu.com destroys them all forever!

Kirk-Fu.

In a list already high on Fu, you’ve got to have something special to stand out, and this combination of of double-axehandles, side kicks and snap-punching women in the face at close quarters has it in spades. Combines an…unusual..uniform (corset, toupee and a requirement that you rip your shirt off and shout ‘Khaaaaaaaaannn!!!’ Half way through the bout) with some exotic weaponry (a rock), and gives us yet another excuse to play the clip above. Take her down Tiberius!

Gunkata.

Remember the trailer? Equilibrium looked great didn’t it? All high kicking Matrix-ey moments foreshadowing Bale’s Batman nicely, unfortunately wrapped around a movie where Sean Pertwee is the villain. Admittedly Pertwee does come from a line of skilled martial artists (his dad knew Venusian tai-bo or something similarly crap in Dr.Who anyway) but the dvd had the right idea-it included a skip to fight function so you could avoid all the gobbledegook and get straight to a fighting style built entirely around figuring out the best possible angle to shoot someone in the face from. Fuck yeah!

Baritsu.

Sherlock Holmes’ preferred method of asskickery, recently bought back to our screens by ‘consider yourself our mate’ Ritchie. Although it might just be a mis-spelling of bartitsu. Apparently its a Japanese form of wrestling, which we assume means its great during the week but loses its sense of balance on a friday night. Anyway, it’s good to see a man in a deerstalker taking out twenty hoodies, and hey – it filled up the list didn’t it – don’t judge me you filthy pigs.

Matrixsu.

Ok, so I made the name up, but when it comes to beating people up it doesn’t get much better than a martial art where you can do pretty much anything. Wall between you and your opponent? Punch through it! Opposisition winning? Fly away! Fulfils every adolescent boy’s power fantasies while showcasing a gobsmacking lack of imagination – if Neo can do anything, why not just make Smith’s head explode? The sequels might be shit,but they did add yet more giant robots into the mix -you can’t go wrong!

Roddy Piper super punchout! – They Live.

Its boxing see. But each round takes place in an alleyway. And lasts 25 minutes. And basically boils down to two men punching each other repeatedly in the face, before finally giving up and going down the pub.

Oh-and they kill some aliens on the way.

Can you think of a more manly form of pugilism?

Well, I definitely left out The Force to annoy you-but can you think of any other’s that would beat this lot? We’re throwing down the guantlet -dare you accept our challenge you big wuss?

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