Actually, I have never been a great fan of martial arts competitions. Not even when I was training martial arts myself.
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?
I've done a lot of training in martial arts. I started out in warring tempo, I did sports jujitsu, and I've also practiced extreme martial arts.
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!'
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
As a martial arts promoter and as a fan of martial arts, you go, 'What would happen if this guy fought this guy?'
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.
You can use martial arts to tell a different story. Ang Lee used martial arts in 'Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon' to talk about love.
In my mind, martial arts movies are martial arts movies and action is action. It's quite different, because martial arts doesn't just have physical form; you have a philosophy, internal and external. A lot of it involves your life. How you see the world. An action film I think is just about the movement. I think it's different.
When I was 8 years old, I knew nothing about martial arts. The coach told me I was talented with learning martial arts, and put me in a school.
My background in promoting martial arts started in 1985 when we were doing PK Karate, which was on ESPN. Fast forward to when mixed martial arts became legal in California. I made the jump to MMA and never looked back.