"Fearless" sword work

[student99]

Hi,

I am new to your forum. I am interested to know if the sword work seen in the movie "Fearless" between Jet Li's character and the Western swordsman would actually happen. The angles of attack and defense are they similar East and West?

[Scott M. Rodell]

Movies are movies, they are meant to entertain not instruct. Typically, when I ask a student why they are executing a technique in a ceratain manner & he answers he saw it in a movie, they get the flat of my jian. Honestly, I've yet to see a movie where the swords were used in a completely historically correct manner...

That being said see below...

[Scott M. Rodell]

Take a look at the "Fearless" swordplay in these clips:

Jian Vs. European Saber-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1lJ0oHOc0RM

Chinese Dao Vs. Dao-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7fLssyEyFug

In both cases each "swordman" is simply striking the attacking sword edge on edge. Each is fighting the others sword, not deflecting & creating openings for a clean cut to a vital target. If you have even seen little kids "sword fight" with sticks, this is exactly what they do, bang their swords together. True swordsmanship employs the edge & flat, where the flat is used to engage the opposites blade & the edge is only used for cutting.* Parry riposte is a common ingredient of all types of swordsmanship, Chinese, European, all; this is something that is always lacking from movie sword fights. (But what can we expect? They are actors not trained swordsmen).

Responding to an opposite's cut by meeting it with a counter-strike with one's own blade edge will quickly cause serious damage to one sword, to the point where to could break.

*I discuss this in detail in my book "Chinese Swordsmanship - the Yang Family Taiji Jian Tradtion."

[Scott M. Rodell]

... angles of attack and defense are they similar East and West?

Since there are only so many ways a blade can cut, yes the angles of deflect & counter-cut are the same across the board.

[Scott M. Rodell]

Readers might like see the tread:
Eastern and Western Swordsmanship.
viewtopic.php?t=277

[Scott M. Rodell]

... the sword work seen in... "Fearless"... Western swordsman... actually happen...?

Well it has recently...
see: SFI Thread: Cross Sparring with Chinese Swordsmanship
viewtopic.php?t=203

[student99]

Thanks Scott,

I have more to think of. I think I will get your book.

[Scott M. Rodell]

...similar East and West?

As for similarities European & Asian, see this article about edge damage from the "Western" perspective John Clements:
http://www.thearma.org/essays/damagededge.htm

[josh stout]

Here is a link to an oxtail dao that looks like it was blocked while cutting with the back edge. The square nicks in the blade imply it was blocked with the back of the other sword. Imagine how deep the nick would have been if it had bean blocked with the edge. I have a feeling that most styles try and avoid hard blocks that cause this kind of damage, though in this case the back may have been intentionally used to cause damage. Edge to edge is the worst, but even edge to back edge can be bad. In my style with a saber we try and deflect at an angle with the back edge to reduce the impact. When working with Scott, the jian was also used to deflect more than just hitting with a hard block. Even with the flat, one could damage the sword if the impact were not deflected a bit.
Josh

http://forums.swordforum.com/attachment ... 1159862188

[Scott M. Rodell]

Yesterday, in Shanghai, Meilu & I had dinner with a gentleman from Taiwan, one Chen Dalong. He is a TV producer. So I put it to him, "Why when so much money is spent making Chinese movies, TV series, so much spent on locations, on historical dress, why is nothing spent on the sword play."

Mr. Chen explained there are two reasons. One is time, when you are using famous stars, they haven't so much time for filming, they haven't time to teach these guys jianfa. And time is money, & they have a limited budget. The second reason is they aren't really concerned about real swordsmanship or historical accuracy. Of course Mr. Chen didn't say it that way. He said, "It's for entertainment."