Am I the only one disgusted by hollywood white-washing yet another eastern tale? First Tom Cruise learns all the secrets there are to know about swordplay, swooning japanese women, and saving their entire culture all by his little 'ol self, and now Keanu is their only hope. At least he is a fraction of the somewhat-correct geographical ethnicity, but that's stretching a long ways.

It does amaze me that Keanu has been involved with theater and film nearly his entire life, and he still has one of the most difficult walls between his acting and the audience. I don't think I've ever seen him in a role where it wasn't totally, obviously him and his bad acting.

How anyone can enjoy swordplay this simple after playing mount and blade is beyond me..

For the rpg elements i dont know

>> ^Shepppard:

@<a rel="nofollow" href="http://videosift.com/member/Xaielao" title="member since March 13th, 2009" class="profilelink">Xaielao
Yeah, I'm pretty sure you're the only one who thinks the old battles were better. The old battles were slow.. and that MADE them unrealistic.
In a typical swordfight, I'm pretty sure you're not gonna hit 3 times in 5 seconds and stop. And I can probably back the rest of that up with Lore.
Despite being "The Chosen One", Luke was only trained when he was older. Yoda came close to showing off a jedi's true potential by lifting the X-wing out of the marsh, but at that point he was old, and likely hadn't used the force for ages since Luke had appeared.
The Jedi we see in the prequel trilogy had been raised since they were insanely young (Younger then the 9 year old Anakin, because someone even says "He's too old.") and whenever you see someone fighting they're not just a run-of-the-mill jedi, it's typically someone from the council, essentially, the cream of the crop.
And.. just on a last little rant about the swordplay.. they're Jedi. Again, people trained since they were extremely young to use the force as a guide. Qui gon Jin at one point even says something about "He can see glimpses of the future, it's a jedi trait." which again, is something that happens in battle making the fights faster and more epic. Jedi are essentially a partial ripoff of samurai anyway.. and if you don't think sword fighting can be that fast and action packed, watch a couple good Kendo matches.



I may be the only one (though I sometimes doubt that hehe, but I must disagree about the saber battles in the original. They were choreographed by Bob Anderson, one of the greatest holywood sword trainers ever. The guy is behind literally every major action movie with sword fighting in them from Star Wars to The Lord of the Rings, and Pirates of the Caribbean to Highlander. The saber fights are slow I'll give you that, but they were slow for a reason. As I said they were choreographed in such a way that you could almost feel the battle of wills behind the sabers themselves.

@Xaielao

Yeah, I'm pretty sure you're the only one who thinks the old battles were better. The old battles were slow.. and that MADE them unrealistic.

In a typical swordfight, I'm pretty sure you're not gonna hit 3 times in 5 seconds and stop. And I can probably back the rest of that up with Lore.

Despite being "The Chosen One", Luke was only trained when he was older. Yoda came close to showing off a jedi's true potential by lifting the X-wing out of the marsh, but at that point he was old, and likely hadn't used the force for ages before Luke had appeared.

The Jedi we see in the prequel trilogy had been raised since they were insanely young (Younger then the 9 year old Anakin, because someone even says "He's too old.") and whenever you see someone fighting they're not just a run-of-the-mill jedi, it's typically someone from the council, essentially, the cream of the crop.

And.. just on a last little rant about the swordplay.. they're Jedi. Again, people trained since they were extremely young to use the force as a guide. Qui gon Jin at one point even says something about "He can see glimpses of the future, it's a jedi trait." which again, is something that happens in battle making the fights faster and more epic. Jedi are essentially a partial ripoff of samurai anyway.. and if you don't think sword fighting can be that fast and action packed, watch a couple good Kendo matches.

"ASU aikdio"

Maybe this very scene was the basis of Saotome-sensei's kata then! Wouldn't surprise me in the least. After all it was staged by one of Katori Shinto ryu's most distinguished proponents.

Saotome-sensei's bokken and jo are very different though from Saito-sensei's, who was taught the most by Osensei in bukiwaza matters. Osensei based most of his swordplay (he didn't teach any sword kata per se) on Kashima Shinto, in which style he briefly enrolled. The Kashima shrine is directly on the opposite side of the river from Katori shrine, so maybe Saotome-sensei saw fit to bring something from Katori in aikido too? But Saotome-sensei seemed at one time to follow Kashima Shinto (viz. the bokken shape)... Anyways, Katori and Kashima are like cousin-ryu so the basics remain the same.

"You should relax your wrists."

Well, it's not because is wrist is bent that it's tense. Apply nikyo ura to your own wrist (like we do in warming-up) or have it applied to you by someone else. Your wrist is bent but still your keep your wrist relaxed, or at least you should to avoid injury. But here again, in waki kamae the point is moot since you will need to change your grip before striking, even if you strike from below.

"And every kumitachi can be done differently from Dojo to Dojo depending on the teachers."

Yes I know full well, hence the question. It's simply that I do not practice ASU kata, only Iwama (I practiced ASU nito at two seminars but that's it).

First, Kumi Tachi ni of what style? Aikido? Then what style of aikido?

Second, it's not a habit it's called a style. How you hold your sword in waki kamae (that's the usual name, gedan hasso is rarely used and its used mostly in aikido circles) is moot anyway since its not a striking stance but a waiting and inviting stance, i.e. you have to take another stance before striking, even if only for an instant. Here he switches to jodan before striking the ronin down. Yoshio Sugino of Katori Shinto Ryu was swordplay instructor so I do not think the left hand making an L is a mistake, though this doesn't seem to be the waki kamae of Katori Shinto.

Third, the ronin's stance is jodan, not hasso. It's not a foolish stance, but of course the ronin is not very good at it.

Fourth, it's called aiuchi. And it's not like he held back with the bokken. It's just that a bokken doesn't cut like a katana, so you have to give a blunt hit to show you touched the other guy. If Kyuzo had pulled back like he did the second time it would have looked as if they had both missed each other. Pulling back and missing by inches is how you'd practice the kata with friends, but this was a match.

Still, a great movie and a great sequence so upvote from me too.

Eh? Who's acting tough? I was just commenting on how hilariously bad their swordplay is, and how nerdy it is that I think I could take them. (A member of the SCA, of course, would mop the floor with me, for reference.)

You have a point about the thrusts. It doesn't look like they were using weapons with rounded tips. Even without thrusts being allowed, there could have been accidents.

Their arms and legs were armored, though. A blow to the gauntlet or forearm might have stung, and might very well have knocked a sword out of hand, but wouldn't have done any real damage.

I suppose I can join in the fun... Hello everyone, I'm mike sol (short for my real name)... I'm 20 years old, I go to UTEP (University of Texas El Paso) and my part time job is telemarketing for AT&T wireless...

My user name MAS8705 has a long history behind it for this has always been a user name I have had since I was young... My sister set it up for me and since then I have like the sound of it and how it was put together... the part MAS is actually my initials Mike Austin Sol... I like my initials and its fun to spell it out... the part 87 was the year I was born and finally the part 05 was the year I graduated from high school... While I do have other user names I use in other places (TheMASterblader on XBOX live) I have been happy with my original user name...

As for my avatar, so far I have had three of them (planing on making/using more...) When I first started, I had a picture of Kenshin from the anime since I was a fan of the anime (along with others) and always love the idea of swordplay... My second avatar was my version of the "why so serious" Joker, I admit I got the idea from Lucky when he turned his Lucky avatar into the Joker and decided to make one of my own, it actually came out well, considering I'm not that artistic yet... And finally the one I'm using now is Homer as Kratos, God of War... This was off of a site for Mugen and was from a guy named Warner, I thought this was the perfect avatar to have since everyone loves Homer and furthers the idea that I'm the Video Game Expert of Videosift (now if I could just take over the channel)..

As for my next avatar, well I'm sure I'll figure something out soon...

From a girl whose boyfriend fences and does swordplay as a hobby, honestly, the huge sweeping motions are great for romanticism and "cool" factor, but a well-placed eppe or saber with just a flick of the wrist could slit a throat. Small motions are best with an organic, metal blade. I realize that with lightsabers, there isn't the "bend" that metal blades have, so the motions would have to be bigger, but I would imagine one would try to keep his weapon across his torso at all times, so as not to have an embarassing and deadly injury.

That said, you boys are great! Extremely well-choreographed, good timing, a bit slow now and again, but that adds to the drama. Cute, too!

I really wish more girls did swordplay--it's hella cool.