I hate the pussy-footing of chinese martial arts like kung fu and this. Just feels like a waste of energy to go from pose to pose in order to show off your might. But it's aesthetic. Nonetheless, 5 stars because they still kick ass.
Yeah but most marital arts seem to be based around the idea that if you time your attacks correctly or manage to control your opponent's limbs properly you can beat him up. As we all know this is impossible without being some sort of meta human with incredible reflexes and strength or in the movies. However at some point when these fighting styles were being developed one of two things had to happen: either someone could actually do this sort of craziness or someone couldn't but was such a great bullshit artist that he convinced enough people that he could and it was possible to learn how to do it too that a tradition started. I'm betting on the latter.
zato: Dead on but the 5th word in your comment should be 'movies'. Real martial arts never looks like that stuff and only revolves around constant training to reteach your body to replace less efficient instinctual reactions with more efficient ones. I look at this stuff like the coolness of the stop motion sinbad and clash of the titans movies- just fun fantasy. In real life 75% of all fights end up on the ground in under 30 seconds.
Uh this is cool and all, and it's Yuan Wo Ping, so you know, five stars. But it's hardly better than the flaming posts showdown from Iron Monkey. It was hardly as boring as something from Kill Bill, either, though.