Iko Uwais and Mile 22
I just got out of the theater where I saw Mile 22, a film starring Mark Wahlberg, Lauren Cohan, Ronda Rousey, John Malkovich, Iko Uwais, and directed by Peter Berg. I myself was drawn to this movie because of Iko Uwais, an actor and martial artist known for his work in Indonesia for the films Merantau, Raid: Redemption, and Raid 2. When someone like this makes his way into a big American film I get excited for incredible martial arts action, and just about every time I am let down. Not by the actor, but by their director or someone else in charge. It is upsetting that if I had to choose between watching the fight scenes with Uwais in Mile 22 and the bathroom fight scene with Tom Cruise and Henry Cavill in Mission Impossible: Fallout, that I’d rather watch the one with the two non-martial artists.
Asian Stars in Hollywood
There has been a history of mistrust when Hollywood brings in a foreign star, mainly if they aren’t white. Bruce Lee was kicked from the television show Kung Fu(1972) and replaced with the American, David Carradine. The Jackie Chan film Battle Creek Brawl(1980) was one of Chan’s very first ventures in American film, and they refused to let him handle any choreography. Chan again was let down in 1985 with The Protector, where after being so disappointed with the final product, that it drove him back to China to create some of his best work with Police Story. This happens with more than just actors. John Woo’s first American film was Hard Target(1993) starring Jean-Claude Van Damme. The studio, despite all of Woo’s previous work with films such as Hard Boiled(1992), A Better Tomorrow(1986), and The Killer(1989) had very little faith in him as a proven director, so they hired Sam Rami to stay on set in case anything when wrong.
It is this mistrust which leads to less than stellar finished products, and low box office numbers, and if box office numbers are low then the studio begins to point fingers.
It isn’t always mistrust that leads to stars being disappointed with their films. After the first Rush Hour(1998) Jackie Chan became a household name in the US; however, when he tried to film fight scenes the way he did in China, the way that he’d been doing for decades and fans had loved, he was told otherwise and forced to film the Hollywood way: with multiple cuts and close up angles. This wasn’t the only thing hindering his work at the time. In China Jackie Chan was more than just a leading man or a star, he was an industry powerhouse. If his movie needed more money, he got more money; if he needed more time to perfect a stunt or fight scene, he was given time. Hollywood does not operate this way. Films are given a specific date that they need to be finished and if he wasn’t happy with the result of the takes he was given then it was just time to move on.
Because of treatment like this and a large lack of creative freedom many Asian action performers and directors are mentally and emotionally convinced that that need to go back to their country of origin. This has constantly proved to be the right decision with Bruce Lee returning to Hong Kong in 1971, John Woo went back in 2008, and Jackie Chan going back to Hong Kong in 1985 and repeatedly going back between American films with each gap getting bigger.
Martial Arts in Hollywood Cinema
This doesn’t mean that there can’t ever be martial arts in American films. Hollywood has had multiple eras of martial arts being the main focus of a movie. In the 1980s and early 1990s Jean-Claude Van Damme was everywhere, and in the early 2000s with Jackie Chan, Jet Li, and Jason Statham were constantly pushing out movies; and thanks to The Matrix(1999) and Blade(1998) a lot of movies tried to incorporate martial arts but failed, see Charlie’s Angels(2000). I know Chuck Norris had a good run but there are like two or three good movies out of thirty.
These days the Fast and Furious films, the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Mission Impossible, and more are full of decently choreographed fight scenes. But nearly all of them are made with the exact same formula: keep the camera close enough, and cut on all of the hits to hide that they are missing. Sometimes they triple the number of cuts to hide the inexperience of an actor. Eventually when you get someone with martial arts experience like Keanu Reeves or Jason Statham then you get a good finished product like John Wick(2014) and Safe(2012). There are other times when extremely dedicated actor’s team up with a director like Christopher McQuarrie or the Wachowski siblings and you get movies like the aforementioned Mission Impossible: Fallout and The Matrix.
This formulaic Hollywood style originated with a movie that did it rather successfully, The Bourne Ultimatum(2007). Paul Greengrass, the director of The Bourne Ultimatum, has a style that includes a heavy use of shaky cam. This style makes every scene seem frantic, fast-paced, and tense. This was applied to every single moment of the movie, Bourne walking down the street felt worrying, people in an office staring at screens created an anxious feeling for the viewer. While it did make it a little difficult to tell what was happening during most of the action sequences one fight scene in the movie used it quite well, the fight between Matt Damon and Joey Ansah. The choreography was fantastic without the shaky cam but what made it so great was that they acted during the fight. The intensity was built with the camera use and the performances of the actors together. This one fight scene inspired future films to utilize this style but they forgot about the performance aspect.
Since this movie, countless films have tried to recreate that magic using shaky cam to add and create artificial emotion and atmosphere where there isn’t any. The real crime is when the shaky came actually hides or destroys an incredible performance or carefully choreographed fight scene.
Martial Artists in Hollywood
Scott Adkins, Michael Jai White, Ray Park, Matt Mullins, Gary Daniels, Emilien De Falco, Amy Johnston, Joey Ansah; that is a short list of incredible, non-Asian, English-speaking martial artists with the skills and charisma to lead any movie that they want. I’ve heard a million times, “Well that person isn’t a very good actor.” At one point that didn’t matter. Huge names like Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jean-Claude Van Damme were terrible actors when they hit it big in Hollywood. It simply did not matter. Schwarzenegger’s frame astonished people and it made sense that he could destroy people in movies like Conan the Barbarian and The Terminator. JCVD’s martial arts skill was something that American audiences hadn’t really seen since the death of Bruce Lee. Movies like Captain America: Winter Soldier(2014) and John Wick have proved that audiences love seeing incredible fight scenes in their movies, but Hollywood refuses to build a star based solely on action capabilities. Just like Asian stars going back to their home country for better opportunities, martial artists go to “B-movies” (why can’t we just refer to them as independent films?).
Scott Adkins is the modern-day king of B-movies with Amy Johnston quickly rising as a star of the martial arts genre. Scott Adkins has appeared in numerous major Hollywood films and many people don’t even notice him. Films like The Bourne Ultimatum, Doctor Strange, The Brother’s Grimsby, and Expendables 2 have all featured Scott Adkins in minor roles while between each of them he has made extremely awesome movies outside of the Hollywood guise. The Undisputed Franchise, Ninja 2: Shadow of a Tear, and Accident Man are just a few of the epic films he has lead between the big-budget projects. That’s just Adkins alone. Because of a huge number of martial arts stars, the “B-movie” landscape has well surpassed Asia as the number one place to go for martial arts action.
The State of Martial Arts in American Film
Nearly every action movie and action franchise contain martial arts, but none of it is the actual focus of the product. As the characters of Fast and Furious have become superpowered international soldiers they’ve been able to fight, and Captain America and Black Panther are expert martial artists. These are the two biggest franchises in American film today and neither of them put as much effort into the delivery of the fights on screen as they do the choreography and preparation on set. Producers and studios sacrifice authentic martial arts for the draw of a mainstream celebrity instead of creating a new one. This leads to the heavy and tiring use of intense shaky cam to hide every fault being filmed. When we go see movies in theaters we see lazy and nauseating fight scenes but when we get home we can turn on a low budget movie on Netflix or something we found at Walmart and see fight scenes that were carefully constructed and filmed over the course of days with dedication to create the perfect fight scenes.
We are grateful for the amazing displays of skill and acrobatics in B-movies and Independent films, but it is nonsense that we should constantly be let down by movies with increasingly higher budgets and way more resources. We always want our favorite low budget stars to find success in higher places, but it doesn’t seem that Hollywood is ready to create any new stars any time soon.
What do you think about martial arts in American cinema? Let me know in the comment section below!
Check out my Youtube channel where I review and discuss martial arts films.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUYUbj1Rjnf07S3UbVvKZ0Q?view_as=subscriber
- Five Bad Martial Arts Sequels - November 22, 2021
- The Top Five Essential Films of Jet Li - March 8, 2021
- Essential Film of Jackie Chan - December 4, 2020
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