Martial Arts in Film : Does Authenticity Compromise Action?
We speak with Jesse V. Johnson on a concern raised by some martial artists, whether action films truly respect the authenticity of martial arts.
JESSE : I am a director of films that have a lot of action in them. My background was stunt work I did about 20 years of stunts on some big big movies. I was very lucky to be born into a family of successful stunt coordinators and stuntmen, and so I was able to apprentice within that within my own family and learn the ropes so to speak.
They were very very hard taskmasters and made us work doubly hard to get any kind of recognition but it was still easier than the average person because we had the initial contact but what it allowed me to do was watch how a lot of great great directors worked and it was probably one of the most incredible apprenticeships imaginable. And I knew from an early age it was the directing and what they do not the stunt work even though that was exciting and planning for a young man and so I learned fairly early on that the best way to do that was to write a script that would get people excited you know. So I wrote and I wrote and I wrote until finally someone read it and they liked it and they said we'll back this but we're not sure if you can work with actors and we're not sure if you can do dialogue.
“But the thing about being a stunt coordinator is that your entire life is revolves around calming actors down and making them feel safe and making them feel invulnerable in a very very nerve-wracking situation. So in actual fact I think that if you're a good stunt coordinator you're probably as well prepared to work with actors as anyone.”
Now does that make you a good director ? Does that make every film that a stuntman directs a successful film ? Of course not because they still have to be well chosen they still have to have taste they still have to have all of the correct because it sort of parts that make great entertainment a great make a great story.
MARTIAL ARTS - CONFLICT VS PURITY
JESSE : I think we're making entertainment, and we're not doing a martial arts documentary. I think if it entertains the audience and it's it's the way it should be then i say it's all fair uh and i know that purists and and martial arts theorists may want to hang me from a from a pier but that's okay.
I think if your character is a pure karate then it's up to you as a director to make sure that choreography reflects that as much as you possibly can and you put into the dialogue you put into his character and you put it into his backstory and you make sure that you've layered it into the story but if you're talking about the actual choreography in a fight scene.
I've seen a lot of real fights and i don't think i saw one where pure martial art was ever used - you know, you use whatever you could to save yourself whether you're a you know seventh degree Kokushinkai practitioner or a Muay Thai Fighter, they will use whatever is practical at the time and if they tell you that they aren't, then i tell you that they're telling fibs because desperation will do things to you and when we're making movies we're making movies about people in a desperate situation in in a state of conflict in a and i think that excuses you to a degree uh but if you're talking about sloppy martial arts or you're talking about sloppy directing or sloppy filmmaking then i'm against it.
In film i'm a little bit more of a realist. You know i love them and i studied them but i will take as i want for my film. We have an interesting situation on this film at the moment as you guys are very well aware we have three lead characters who have very different styles and the one thing i've been very conscious of with Tim, the choreographer is to make sure we reflect these characters styles in their choreography make sure we flip Silat in Iko’s choreography make sure we reflect Wushu in Tiger Chen’s choreography and make sure we reflect this very unique style of Muay Thai that Tony Jaa does in his choreography and we have done two degree and it's very very exciting but we've incorporated it we haven't let it dominate us.
A conversation with Jesse V. Johnson, Jonathan Hall ASC, Shade Asri and Mashitoh Chen.
Padang Kota, Penang, Malaysia. July 2017.
