Hi, My first post (please read)

[lead phoenix]

Hello everybody, i look forward to talking to all of you in the future! I would like to start by talking to you about something important in regards to Steven Seagal movies. First thing first. I do love Steven Seagal movies. Recently, Mr. Seagals movies have included many stunt doubles and wire kung fu work. While the movies are great, i find myself distraught watching these wire fights. I have always thought of Seagal movies as the escape from the "fake wire stuff" martial arts movies. I know they are "action" movies and not martial arts, but there are martial arts in it obviously. I just think Steven Seagal movies should use genuine martial arts throughout the movies, not the wire fu. An example is this: Belly of the beast was great, classic Seagal, but some of the fights were beyond reason. I totally disagree with the horrible editing with the doubles used in the movie. I read on one fan site that Steven Seagal broke his leg because of a stunt he did. (15 to 20 foot jump or something like that on Belly of The Beast. The opening infiltration sequence I think. What really made me mad was the great sword fight at the end using an obvious double in places where The Great Steven Seagal could easily have finished it on his own and it would have looked ten times better. I don't know why they do this! Also, on Out For A Kill, again great fights, but there are shots where you can clearly see it is Not Seagal, but again a double on even the most simple shot of his face. Does anybody see this or am I the only one? I understand they are just movies, but it is shots like that that make the movie suffer drastically in my opinion. I truly hope Into the Sun, Submereged, Mercenary, and the rest are not plagued by this kind of movie making. Lastly, the movie Submerged is supposed to have some kind of mutants or zombies in a submarine. This is way different than anything Seagal has ever done. I just hope it is not screwed up by this plot. Thank you all for listening to my thoughts and i hope to hear from you and what you think about all of this. Bye!

 

[voetballcanine]

Hello everybody, i look forward to talking to all of you in the future! I would like to start by talking to you about something important in regards to Steven Seagal movies. First thing first. I do love Steven Seagal movies. Recently, Mr. Seagals movies have included many stunt doubles and wire kung fu work. While the movies are great, i find myself distraught watching these wire fights. I have always thought of Seagal movies as the escape from the "fake wire stuff" martial arts movies. I know they are "action" movies and not martial arts, but there are martial arts in it obviously. I just think Steven Seagal movies should use genuine martial arts throughout the movies, not the wire fu. An example is this: Belly of the beast was great, classic Seagal, but some of the fights were beyond reason. I totally disagree with the horrible editing with the doubles used in the movie. I read on one fan site that Steven Seagal broke his leg because of a stunt he did. (15 to 20 foot jump or something like that on Belly of The Beast. The opening infiltration sequence I think. What really made me mad was the great sword fight at the end using an obvious double in places where The Great Steven Seagal could easily have finished it on his own and it would have looked ten times better. I don't know why they do this! Also, on Out For A Kill, again great fights, but there are shots where you can clearly see it is Not Seagal, but again a double on even the most simple shot of his face. Does anybody see this or am I the only one? I understand they are just movies, but it is shots like that that make the movie suffer drastically in my opinion. I truly hope Into the Sun, Submereged, Mercenary, and the rest are not plagued by this kind of movie making. Lastly, the movie Submerged is supposed to have some kind of mutants or zombies in a submarine. This is way different than anything Seagal has ever done. I just hope it is not screwed up by this plot. Thank you all for listening to my thoughts and i hope to hear from you and what you think about all of this. Bye!

Wait wait wait wait. Hold the ****** phone here. Zombies and Seagal? You have got to be ****ting me.

 

[yudansha]

Welcome to the forum lead phoenix! Enjoy.

I completely agree with you, that Steven Seagal is capable of doing stunts himself ... stuntmen/women can be very useful, but when so much sunt 'doubling' is done, it's not too entertaining. Seagal's classics didn't have any wire-fu because nobody was doing wire-fu then, and now, that sort of artistic fighting draws in more crowd than a movie that contains conventional fighting. You can also get much better camera work with wire-fu which is an attractive option for directors.

voetballcanine did you just wake up or something? ... That was news a long time ago.

 

[Reservoir Dog]

Welcome to the Board!!

I do agree with you. I do find the stunt doubles somewhat distracting, but I am not sure if it hurts the overall quality of the film. My cousin was over a few days ago, a big Seagal film from way back (he got me interested in Seagal). Strangely, my cousin does not view the new DTV's, not because of lack of interest, but lack of knowledge the existed (he is used to seeing Seagal on the big screen). I showed him "Belly of the Beast", and he really enjoyed it. He too, agreed that some of the fights were ridiculous (Seagal has never, EVER, done a spinning kick in mid-air, why are we supposed to believe he is starting in his 50's)? The question becomes, should Seagal change his style to keep up with the times, or stick with aikido, and risk being deemed too "old school". I wish we would see more of the fights like in Above the Law and Out for Justice (Seagal flipping people and breaking necks). Now, he seems to be doing a lot of different styles of martial arts, even though his aikido training is what sets him apart. This can debated for a long time, but no, you are not the only one on this board bothered by this!!

 

[yudansha]

I listened to your thoughts; you're welcome.

"i hope to hear from you and what you think about all of this"

Why make a duplicate post?

 

[lead phoenix]

I do agree with you. I do find the stunt doubles somewhat distracting, but I am not sure if it hurts the overall quality of the film. My cousin was over a few days ago, a big Seagal film from way back (he got me interested in Seagal). Strangely, my cousin does not view the new DTV's, not because of lack of interest, but lack of knowledge the existed (he is used to seeing Seagal on the big screen). I showed him "Belly of the Beast", and he really enjoyed it. He too, agreed that some of the fights were ridiculous (Seagal has never, EVER, done a spinning kick in mid-air, why are we supposed to believe he is starting in his 50's)? The question becomes, should Seagal change his style to keep up with the times, or stick with aikido, and risk being deemed too "old school". I wish we would see more of the fights like in Above the Law and Out for Justice (Seagal flipping people and breaking necks). Now, he seems to be doing a lot of different styles of martial arts, even though his aikido training is what sets him apart. This can debated for a long time, but no, you are not the only one on this board bothered by this!!

Yeah, the old stuff i can't get enough of. I definetly want to see more aikido. It just doesnt get old to me. As for his other styles, he really is good at kung-fu i admit, but seriously, the genuine aikido stuff is and always will be the best.

 

[lead phoenix]

"i hope to hear from you and what you think about all of this"

I did say something about this ... I gave a reply ... It got deleted.

It got deleted. Thanks anyway for showing interest about this stuff. I don't know why in the world they would delete it.

 

[yudansha]

Seagal's Kung-Fu is weak to tell you the truth.

I have no problem, I would love and enjoy it more if Steven Seagal did movies in his style, incorporating aikido very much into it. Also, because Steven Seagal is such a large male, I think that it would also be cool to see him use judo at times ... something different ... very different ... but it would be very exciting ... Van Damme tried it, and it worked very well for him in "Derailed" (although that was practically the only good thing about that movie ... unfortunately). Just some thoughts to ponder on.

 

[Amos Stevens]

Welcome to the group Lead Phoenix

 

[Feiyanjifeng]

and I humbly think that Mr.Seagal is sort too chubby to do some wire fu's like you said.

How I long for a dynamic scene of aikido action sequences in Above the law, or some violent and "graceful" throw moves in Out for Justice!

 

[Serena]

Don't worry, lead phoenix. We'll figure out this double post thing yet!
For now, I've merged these two threads into one, with this one located in the General section.

And welcome to the forum, lead phoenix.
Nice to see you posting already. Enjoy!

 

[tora]

Welcome,Lead Phoenix...Though you don't sound like you'll be my Phoenix bird here but welcome anyway.