Thursday, July 29, 2010

"The Bourne Identity" Fight Scenes



I thought I'd lighten things up a little, so here's a collection of the fight scenes from "The Bourne Identity", which I watched the other night.
-I know, I know, it's been out for a while, but I never watched the entire movie. I did see the made-for-TV version with Richard Chamberlin years ago however.
The fight scenes are refreshingly realistic, with the possible exception of Bourne (Matt Damon) riding a dead guy's body down three stories, shooting another guy in mid air.
Lots of joint locks, dislocations, knee-breaking. Good stuff. I like how he uses the Bic pen to Gak the hit man's knife hand - cool use of improvised weapons. The fight with the hit man was a little too much for my wife however. I thought she got over that with all the stabbings, shootings and throat-slitting when we watched "Deadwood" and "Rome".
Anyway, it got me thinking about the fighting system and training. Here's what Wikipedia says about it:

"Damon, who had never played such a physically demanding role, insisted on performing many of the stunts himself. With stunt choreographer Nick Powell and trainer Jeff Imada, he underwent three months of extensive training in stunt work, the use of weapons, boxing, and eskrima. He eventually performed a significant number of the film's stunts himself, including hand-to-hand combat and climbing the safe house walls near the film's conclusion.[5]"

Damon's trainer, Jeff Imada is credited with acting in or directing fight scenes in over 100 movies:

Jeff Imada (born June 17, 1955) is an American martial artist, stuntman, director, and actor from California. He has performed stunts in over 100 movies and television programs and authored one of the first books published in the US about the balisong knife.
(snip)
He was also a close friend to Brandon Lee with whom he studied Jeet Kune Do under the tutelage of Dan Inosanto. He was the primary fight choreographer on Lee's final film, The Crow.[1]
Imada has authored two books on the history and use of the Balisong knife.[2][3] The Balisong Manual was one of the first books published in the US about this unusual knife.

4 comments:

BSM said...

DJR -

Go to Red Box and rent IP Man. You get to see some cool Wing Chun!

Re: dead guy down the stairs.

I have to disagree. I do that move all the time.

Charles James said...

DR: The real shame is they didn't follow that same choreography for the fights in the sequels, disappointing, the jerky camera stuff as well, crappy.

steve-vh said...

Been a long time fan of Imada, ever since Big Trouble in Little China (and I bought his first book new).
A game of popup trivia to catch him onscreen in a film.
Saw him over the week end in Point Break.

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