Any good resources/commentaries on fight choreography?

[INCspot]

I'm trying to find some good resources on what exactly went into fight choreography for classic martial arts films and what the process was for choreographing a fight - everything from how long it took to how they decided on the moves, what was scripted and planned vs. what was improvised on the spot, how blows were delivered and taken, safety precautions, stuff like that. The DD King Boxer special features had some good stuff from Lau Kar-wing on this, but I'm out for all the info I can get on this, particularly focusing on the late 1970s. (It's for a novel I'm working on set in the world of Bruceploitation movie-making - I want to have scenes of fights being choreographed and fight scenes being filmed. I was originally specifically looking for how Bruceploitation fight scenes would be done, but I don't suppose it would be any different for other martial arts movies made at the time.) Any recommendations for resources on this?

Also, the style names should be Cantonese, correct? Hak fu kyun as opposed to hei hu quan, for instance?

Thanks!

[Drunken Monk]

I haven't read this book but it might help...

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1592006795

[INCspot]

Thanks for the recommendation. However, I noticed this in one of the reviews:

"He spends a great deal of time talking history, which I enjoyed. Not many books do that. He talks about taking the character's background into consideration when fighting. Wonderful, very few films do that today. However, there is no talk about doing ACTUAL CHOREOGRAPHY. He never explains shooting or editing a fight scene properly (although, he tells many tales of badly shot or edited fights).

What I was looking for the most way a way to record choreography (like writing down the moves while choreographing so they can be performed on location later). No such luck."

It doesn't sound like this book has what I'm looking for, based on this review. Has anyone else here read it?

[xianzai]

I've seen a lot of bits and pieces of fight/stunt choreography in various films or as special features, and will try to remember more references. There was an HK book on fight/stunt choreography, but I don't have it and can't find the title. YT does have a lot of good material.

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Yz39OSvvHh0 Also has fight choreography.

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Michelle Yeoh's Ah Kam has fight and stunt scenes being choreographed.

I appreciate the desire to 'get it right,' but readers may be more interested in the overall story than pages of descriptions of fight scenes. Much of the fight choreography behind-the-scenes I've seen boils down to the fight choreographer describing and demonstrating the action, a rehearsal or two, and then filming.

[INCspot]

Oh, those scenes won't go on for pages, not to worry. However long the scenes are, though, I'll still need to understand these things for accuracy's sake.

Thanks for posting the clips!

[northern b]

INCspot

One thing I notice is that the Opera School students\ Wu Shu players and Skilled Martial artists like HJL seem to handle the fights with consummate ease so I am guessing that the hours of practice a day were taken and adapted to the films they were working on. I 'd include actors like Beardy in this even though they were not martial artists.

I am under no illusion that to do this and make it look authentic is extremely difficult but those films like the victim and Buddhist Fist still stand up and I never tire of them!

Not to digress too much but this is of interest to me also for 2 reasons 1 I like the intricate choreography fight style that some called 'dancy Kung Fu' which is ironic because the second reason these type of films interest me is because they were of HUGE influence to both break dance culture and the Jazz Funk and later Jazz Fusion UK dance scenes- there is a big affinity between Kung Fu and Dance