the rum soaked fist: internal martial arts forum

Nicely made film. And practicing with dussaks! Good performers, too.
I guess the fight would have been over much more quickly, one way or the other, if they closed like they do here. Or they would have hung back more, waiting for an opening with less chance of oneself getting killed in the process.
Says me, the big duelling expert...

The protagonist's teacher was a total dick. "Got a life and death duel coming up? Here, let's do some light practice so I can easily defeat you and make you feel like you suck before you fight that guy. Despair will help you fight better!"

I didn't think about that, but good point. Dramaturgically speaking, it establishes the protagonist as the underdog, so we root for him more and it make his eventual victory more 'satisfying'. As often, realism vs. dramatic necessity.

Giles wrote:I didn't think about that, but good point. Dramaturgically speaking, it establishes the protagonist as the underdog, so we root for him more and it make his eventual victory more 'satisfying'. As often, realism vs. dramatic necessity.

Yeah, I get why they did it, but honestly it's just weak story telling. Even though it's weak and lazy, it's the standard for how things are done-- gotta dumb it down to the lowest common denominator. It's certainly no worse than the latest James Cameron bazillion dollar blockbuster, so don't take it as a serious criticism of the piece, it's just something I hate about today's storytelling.

Sure, I get you. I should have said "perceived dramatic necessity". As regards storytelling, it's usually the formulaic approach and in fact it always has been through the ages. There was a ton of mediocre storytelling in various genres in past centuries, too. But this generally slips into oblivion and only the good stuff is retained/remembered for later ages.

[youtube] https://youtu.be/zwi4Q-RGX8o[/youtube]