I am so happy because I want more people to like martial arts movie not just martial arts audience. Even martial arts can be used in comedy, in drama, in horror movies, in different kinds of movies.
A lot of people don't realize, when you are acting in a martial arts film, you're not just performing martial arts. You're not just performing martial arts. You're actually acting as much as any other actor.
If you are afraid of other people take a martial arts class. The best way to overcome fear is learn to be proficient in martial arts.
Miles and I had been looking to do a martial arts show for some time. Our first two movies that we wrote were "Lethal Weapon 4" and "Shanghai Noon" with Jackie Chan. Then we sort of got pulled into the superhero world, but then you look around at what's not on television and there wasn't really a martial arts shows. There are shows that do martial arts to a degree, but there's not a martial arts show.
I wanted to know what exactly martial arts is. When you look at martial arts films, the later ones became more and more exaggerated. It's like, wow, is martial arts only a show?
To me, the extraordinary aspect of martial arts lies in its simplicity. The easy way is also the right way, and martial arts is nothing at all special; the closer to the true way of martial arts, the less wastage of expression there is.
I go to gyms quite a bit, martial arts gyms, MMA gyms. I try to train with the best people, with who's who in the martial arts, just to keep myself sharp.
A lot of Chinese martial arts films were based on Chinese martial arts novels. And these novels created a world of putting history, calligraphy, and martial arts into one.
On 'Black Lightning' I have a stunt double who's a lot younger than me. The fighting style on the show is heavily martial arts-based, and I know boxing; I don't know martial arts. I also have a really bad knee, and he's been doing martial arts since he was 6 years old, so I'm not thinking, 'No, I can do that! I can make that look cool!'
Martial arts, for me, is not just some kind of job to gain some money or whatever. No, martial arts, for me, is my lifestyle, my religion, my philosophy... Martial arts are everything for me.
You know, women are so much cooler than guys because we can do more martial arts. Martial arts are pretty much made for women because we're quicker and we're smaller than men, and so we're faster. You girls really should take martial arts.
To AMC's credit, I think what they saw was the show doesn't exist in the marketplace. They knew that there was a hunger for a martial arts show. They also knew that you have this strong tradition of martial arts cinema, so even though it's not branded by a novel or a comic book or an old movie or something, we do have the genre itself, which people love.
People often say, 'Ah, ultimate fighting is so violent,' but it's rooted in martial arts. Martial arts incarnate respect. You can't walk into a dojo and say to your sensei, 'Hey, salut tabarnac!' After every one of my fights I go and shake the hand of my opponent. I don't need to hate the other fighter to fight him well. It's a sport.
Actually, I have never been a great fan of martial arts competitions. Not even when I was training martial arts myself.
I do practice martial arts, more as a recreational thing, but a lot of my friends have been heavyweight champions the in mixed martial arts world.
I didn't know anything about martial arts. I'm a big fan, but I never practiced martial arts.