Thinking about upcoming trends in choreography...

I have been collecting sources regarding martial arts movies for the past few weeks, and it is interesting to note the ones I gravitated towards. As a martial artist myself, and someone who is very interested in film, I have always taken note of fight choreography and its affect on the quality of a film. For a true martial arts fan, the choreography and skill of the fighters will be the selling point for a film.

Three of my sources specifically address martial arts choreography, and it is quite intriguing to me how the sources break the concept down. It really is important to take into account the martial arts style, editing, camera angles, sound effects, rhythm and myriad other factors when choreographing a successful fight scene.

Since this movie is about trends in the martial arts cinema, I got to thinking about what the trends in choreography are developing towards. Naturally, there has before been a contrast between the western types of martial arts fight scenes (which I would say are most easily exemplified by Jean Claude Van Damme), versus the Hong Kong style fight scenes seen in the movies of Jackie Chan (and of course many others). The American style used to be much slower, clunkier, and with fewer variety of techniques, while the Hong Kong style was much more varied, faster and emphasized more contact.

Yet this blog is about change, and new emerging trends. It is clear to see today that this difference between eastern and western choreography is changing. One of the primary reasons is that much of the choreography in American movies today is done by Hong Kong choreographers, or people who have trained with them. Another change is the increasing emphasis on acrobatics in choreography, which is always a crowd please (see: Jaa, Tony).

These are just a few reflections, but there is more to come soon.