Chinese Plot Cliches - Any Of These Done In Japan?

[Guest kungfusamurai]

Those of you who are fans of kung fu flicks will know what I'm talking about when referring to the cliched plots in kf flicks. Usually there is some sort of revenge, and occasionally the protagonist needs to go away and learn better kung fu in order to beat the lead bad guy.

After watching many karate and samurai flicks, I don't recall the same story progressions that one finds in kung fu flicks being present in any Japanese martial arts flick. If there hasn't been, do you think if they were to make a movie in that style, it would be huge?

Myself, I'd love to see a flick where an average swordfighter gets beat down, has to go away to train with an old, but superior swordfighter to learn better techniques, and then at the end of the film he faces off against the ultimate bad guy. The same type of story would be awesome in a karate-based flick. It would be interesting to see what kind of training methods could be used to develop the karate power, beyond just doing katas.

Well, that's just my rant.

KFS

[KyFi]

KFS,

Yes, I would love to see that story done within the Japanese arts---can't say that I've ever seen it. But if you're also into Western martial arts, I can recommend one like that: Scaramouche (1952)

www.amazon.com/gp/product...ance&n=130

His best friend gets killed by a nobleman, so he goes into training with an old fencing master to hone his skills for revenge. Quite a lot of fights for a Hollywood movie, with an almost 7 minute final duel---I think it's one of, if not the longest, swordfight in Hollywood history. Very good movie, and the first time I saw it I thought "hey, this plot is like a lot of kung fu movies!"

[Guest Knockabout]

Great topic..

Funny I never thought about it before, but I guess training scenes are pretty rare in swordplay flicks in general. Can't recall any japanese movies with an old master teaching a young student - but I guess, at least some must exist!?!

And to be honest at the moment I can't even recall a chinese (wu xia) movie with "real" training scenes

I can think of a couple where the hero trains himself, ie. one-armed swordsman.

Regarding the karate movies, I can only think of Fighter in the Wind.. NOT a japanese movie I know, but still depicts the progression from hopeless to karate master..

[Guest Jushinshin]

Actually I can think of one movie where an old master teaches the young student. Shogun's Ninja has this, and it's one of my favorites. The training and everything isn't the same as a hong kong style kung fu flick, but still.

[Guest kungfusamurai]

Ah yes, Shogun's Ninja. There is a brief training sequence where Tetsuro Tamba's white haired character trains Hiroyuki Sanada and his fellow fighters to take on Shogen, played by Sonny Chiba. I'm thinking that this may have been partially influenced by chinese cinema. In the late 70s I noticed that Sonny Chiba's choreography started to lean towards the chinese style, in terms of the fluid continuous movements, as opposed to the start and stop style of the earlier Japanese karate and swordplay flicks. Also, there was more acrobatics.

There was a very short training flashback in The Executioner where Sonny Chiba's character is played by a young Hiroyuki Sanada and is learning ninja techniques, if I'm not mistaken.

Still, I think someone enterprising in the Japanese action film industry, perhaps in co-production with Chinese and/or Hollywood people, could make a great, 'authentic' Japanese action flick with the plot devices of a Chinese film and start a new trend in asian action cinema.

KFS

[Guest Tosh]

The Samurai trilogy had the priest that locked up Toshiro in the attic and made him read all those books, then he got schooled at the opening of the 2nd film when he beat the Samurai with the ball and chain, and the old man came up and said he didn't win.

I think in Samurai films they usually took a Samurai's story after the fact, they were already skilled. There's no losing a Samurai fight, to go train some more to come back and fight again.

I would have liked to seen some training scenes in the Zatoichi movies, showed how he got so badass, I mean as many as they made, they could have deviated from the same story line once in a while.

[Guest KevinClo]

The Judo Saga (Sanshiro Sugata) has a bit of this with the master and student relationship and a baddie he has to beat. I can't think of any that have the cliched story though.

KC