Martial Artist Scott Adkins Breaks Down Fight Scenes from Movies review 2020

Martial Artist Scott Adkins Breaks Down Fight Scenes from Movies  review 2020

  

I was fighting Matt Damon. He kicked me low, he kicked me in the balls and I thought he was about to say, "Oh sorry, mate, "I've kicked you in the balls." I sort of opened my eyes to say, "It's okay," and all I saw was the face of Jason Bourne peering down at me and he was frisking me. When I saw that I was like, "Oh." And I felt stupid like I was messing the film up. Hey guys,  this is "The Breakdown".

 

First up, "Ip Man".  See, he's well up for it, isn't he? He wants to fight 10 people. Not one, not two, not three but 10 people and you know he will and he'll kick the out of all of them. I mean look at that. The man runs in with the jumping back kick, or flying kick, takes his down to the floor and straight away just stamps on his head and it looks pretty real. It's a Hong Kong so probably he actually stamps on his head. Notice as he rolls over his arm cracks and breaks. Sickening noise.

 

Brutal, just snaps his leg back like that. He's not messing about. See, that was the kick right there. Quick hook kick. I mean, Ip Man's not gonna be doing that, he's a wing chun guy but I just, you know, it's Donnie Yen so you gotta get a few in. Not that I snapped anyone's leg recently but I don't believe that it would work that way, especially not at the hip. Maybe if it snaps at the knee it would've been a bit more believable. I enjoyed it more because it was a fake leg and it looked a little bit fake. "Ip Man" is mostly about straight strikes, the wing chun. It's based on the guy that taught Bruce Lee wing chun. It's considered to be a softer style and it's very simplistic in its attack.

 

Yeah, they don't do a cycle of punches. It's all straight down the line like this. So it's like the intercepting fist blocking and hitting at the same time. Just smashes him into the ground. How brilliant is that? I tell you what, I love it when they actually get hit hard. Now, it's tough being a stunt guy, especially in Hong Kong because you are expected just to get slammed. But it looks so damn good. It really does look great. He's punching him in the face for real, right. He's just smashing him in the face.

 

Now, I don't know about this film but I worked with Donnie. There's a scene in another movie called "Flash Point" where he actually punches someone in the face. That was crazy, he just punched the guy in the face and he told me that it turned out that they had a rubber fist. He would hold the rubber fist, it would be on a stick, and they'd put the sleeve up a bit and he would just punch him with the rubber fist. So maybe they've done that here.

 

I was in "Ip Man 4", I played the bad guy. I had to take a few full on fists to the face for the art of filmmaking, as well. I got kicked in the face, I got punched in the face. Now, there's that line where you're not gonna go all out and try and put me in the hospital. I mean I believe Donnie Yen wanted me to be in "Ip Man" because he knew that I was gonna help him do what we needed to do less painfully and quicker because if you have to do 10, 20 takes because the other guy you're doing it with can't get it right, that's miserable. It's not easy.

 

Seemed like a good idea when I was 12. Turns out it's difficult And also look how hard he elbows this guy. It's one of those things in martial arts movies, especially when you're gonna fight 10 people that as a stunt performer you gotta be one of those guys in the background and you have to fill space and try look busy but obviously you're just waiting for your time to run in and get your face punched. It's very difficult to choreograph anything with more than one person. It's hard enough when it's one on one but how do you keep these people from all just storming him at once? I mean in reality, that's what's going to happen.

 

One martial art that I had a little bit of experience with was krav maga so we would always talk about taking on multiple opponents because that was a martial art that was all about realistic scenarios and how you could deal with them. If you're dealing with a lot of opponents, what you need to try and do is get them all in front of you somehow. That's when you're gonna be in real trouble if anyone gets behind you. You don't want five people coming at you at once.

 

You wanna get into a position where only one or maybe two can come at you at once. Not three, four, five. You can't plan what you're gonna do. I mean that's the thing, you used to get these martial arts books where you would say, oh if somebody tries to punch you with a straight right you need to do this and hit him there and then take him down. You don't know what's gonna happen. So you just have to have enough experience and a cool enough head to be able to react. No, there's no special effects or stunt men for Donnie.

 

Anyone that knows anything about Donnie Yen knows that he's up there with the likes of Jet Li, Jackie Chan. I mean he is the best. He's an incredible martial arts performer. Not only that, he's an action director and director in his own right. And I certainly learned a lot form him. Next up, "The Bourne Supremacy". You have a car out front? - The keys are in my coat pocket but we should-- - What? - Go out the back, I have another car. Look back at the phone. How could Jason Bourne make that mistake? Bloody hell.

 

The Bourne films are great and I'm a huge fan of them and a big fan of Greengrass but I've always been disappointed with the fights in the Bourne franchise because they're so chaotic. It's very tense watching these fights. You know, you feel the stress of it and maybe that's what he's going for but I always thought it was a missed opportunity to not actually show what's going on because you miss so much of the techniques because it's all this shaky cam stuff. But I would say that the martial arts is it's close quarter fighting, jeet kune do, escrima, Filipino martial art, that sort of thing.

 

Why that kick there, he throws the kick from the one side of the camera and then they jump the line to the other side so now you see the kick coming from where the other guy was stood and that's what confuses the audience, you don't know who threw the kick. They're both wearing black. I've got no idea what's going on. The fight scene that I did in "The Bourne Ultimatum", Matt Damon did every single bit of it himself. He didn't have a stunt double and he's really good and he remembers the choreography perfectly And he was a really great screen fighter. That's where the Bourne films are great is they'll use [man groans] different elements that are around them like the magazine and he's got this telephone wire now and he's using it to wrap the cord around his neck and he's using his shin bone against his throat. That's a legit jiu-jitsu hold.

 

But I'll tell you a funny story on "The Bourne Ultimatum", I was fighting Matt Damon. He kicked me low, he kicked me in the balls. I went down and it was okay, it didn't hurt too much but it definitely stung a bit. But no one said cut and then I could feel Matt Damon touching me like this and I thought he was about to say, "Oh sorry, mate, I've kicked you in the balls." I sort of opened my eyes to say, "It's okay," and all I saw was the face of Jason Bourne peering down at me and he was frisking me. When I saw that I was like, "Oh." And I felt stupid like I was messing the film up 'cause he was doing his Jason Bourne thing and I was going, "Oh no, don't worry about-- "Oh." But yeah, Matt Damon is a great guy.

 

One of the nicest actors I've worked with. Next up, "The Karate Kid". [air whooshes] It's a great film. It really is. I'd say it's one of the best martial arts films ever made, honestly, and people laugh at me when I say that. It shows martial arts off and karate in such an amazing way. It shows everything that is great about martial arts but the fights are a little bit dated so let's take a look. Cause if you're doing the whole fight from beginning to end, you can't go full out 100% intensity for the whole fight because number one, you're gonna be worried that you're gonna forget the choreography, you're gonna make a mistake, you're gonna hit the guy. He's gonna throw a punch, you're not gonna duck.

 

But if you just chose a section of the fight and you rehearse it and you know what you gonna do then you can go full out, 100% intensity but I can tell that that's not the way they did it here. I mean that closeup shot there you can see that he's throwing some techniques but you can't actually see the techniques. Yeah, it's kind of a wasted shot. Let's see what the choreography is. Let's see the technique. I did a lot of taekwondo tournaments back in the day and you'd be paired up with different fighters throughout the day and if you won your fight, you'd go through to the next round and through to the next round. So in the arena there would be all these fights taking place so by the time you get to the semi-final, everyone's watching and then of course, the final.

 

There everything stops, everyone's watching that mat to see who's going to win the final of that weight category or that belt, whatever. So that is what it was like and it probably still is like. You shouldn't be allowed to actually punch him in the face. You know, normally the rules are you can kick to the body, you can punch to the body but you can't punch to the head. Like in kyokushin karate, you spar without pads. You can kick to the head 'cause it's harder to land a kick on the head but you can't punch to the head because people are gonna be covered in blood. You're not wearing any protection, just to keep it a little bit safe.

 

Actually the ref here is a guy called Pat Johnson, legendary fight coordinator type guy. He's not allowed to do that because he's trying to break his knee. That's definitely a bad move. Finish him. No, I don't think that happens. He'd be more like, "Finish him, finish him." Wouldn't want anyone to hear them 'cause that's not the done thing in martial arts. He knows he's in trouble, he knows he's losing the fight. There's a lot riding on this. He's got a girl that he wants to keep. He's gonna lose the fight so what does he do?

 

He thinks okay, "I'm gonna do the crane kick. "I'm gonna bring one knee up, "I'm gonna get these arms up like that. "He's never gonna see this coming." Let's see what happens. He didn't see that coming. How did he not see that coming? Let's take another look at that. He must have just been confused. Like what is he doing? He's standing there, he's trying to look like some sort of stork.

 

What is he? Is he a bat? Is he a bird? What's going on? He makes a move, bang. That's just one of those techniques, I guess. You just wouldn't see it coming. I mean, once he strikes that pose it's obvious he's up to something. So what I would do is I would just back off and let him get it out of his system and then when he goes back to normal fighting we can continue. 34 years of martial arts training, I have never come across the crane kick in reality. I only know it from "The Karate Kid" movie.

 

Yeah, it's not gonna work in real life. Back in mid '80s, we were lapping it up. It was great but he had a bad knee, didn't he, so he had no choice. I've gotta do the crane kick now 'cause I've only got one leg. That kick has been used. I mean I remember Lyoto Machida doing that kick against, I think, Randy Couture and he knocks him out cold and he knocks his tooth out. And I've worked with Randy and he didn't see it coming. But because he wasn't in the stork position, he did it from a normal fighting stance. So you bring the one knee up, they think you're gonna kick with that leg and it's the other leg.

 

I think a lot of the time, people think they're gonna take the front kick to the body and they brace for impact, and they're not expecting to get kicked in the head. Back in those days, in the UFC, to get a front kick to the face was quite unusual but then Anderson Silva did it, Lyoto Machida did it and then people were on notice then. They knew to look out for the front kick to the face. You can certainly tell that Ralph Macchio didn't know what he was doing with the martial arts but it's okay because his character is learning karate and he's not meant to be an expert, at this point. But the other guy, he seems to know a bit. I would be surprised to learn that he hadn't done something before that movie.

 

Obviously, they went through some training but he's the better mover. The whole thing was Danny's fault. He stole the guy's girl and then beat him up for it. Not a nice guy really, that karate kid.