Movies Trivialize Martial Arts

I recently saw “The Quest,” a martial arts movie directed by, and starring, Jean-Claude Van Damme. The basis of this outlandish story is that the best fighters in the world are summoned by an old, demented master of a Himalayas kingdom to fight a no-holds-barred match. In this savage Olympics, the winner is awarded an immensely valuable solid gold dragon. Van Damme, of course, performs in predictable heroic style.

However, a lot of people are beaten unmercifully--faces pulverized, arms and legs broken, genitals crushed, trachea smashed, eyes gouged, ears shattered--and a few beaten to death to make the story work. “The Quest” is just another movie based on the same tried-and-true formula used in martial arts movies from Bruce Lee’s “Enter the Dragon” to Steven Seagal’s “Under Siege II”: A misunderstood, maybe somewhat cynical, but extraordinarily well-trained hero comes to the rescue of the persecuted, harshly dispatches the totally worthless bad guys, foils their evil intentions, exacts a delicious revenge and reinstates moral order.

Naturally, to accomplish all this entails a rather astonishing and preposterously unrealistic display of martial arts. Sometimes all the flailing and whining is done tongue-and-cheek, as in Jackie Chan’s “Rumble in the Bronx,” but in the majority of the so-called martial arts movies the hero grimly trashes his adversaries. All this could be written off as more Hollywood inanity and glorification of violence, but the problem is these movies present a completely distorted picture of the martial arts. What’s even more disheartening is that I see far too many people, especially younger men and women, who actually believe martial arts will endow them with awesome, almost magical, power.

To begin with, contrary to celluloid fantasies, no martial artist, no matter how accomplished, beats three, five, 10, 20 attackers at once. Besides, just a few of the blows inflicted or received in the movies would maim or kill a person; but miraculously everyone keeps bouncing up and down until the hero finally finishes off his enemies. Real-life fights are ugly and brutal, usually ending up on the ground in a disgusting melee. Movie fights, on the other hand, are carefully staged to allow the good guy to fly through the air, delivering spectacular kicks and punches and to gracefully launch bad guys through the air. Disturbingly, the star looks to be enjoying his power to hurt.

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As if martial arts movies weren’t absurd enough, we now have the “real-life” cable-TV “Ultimate Fighting Championship.” In these matches, there is not even a pretense about the ethical and spiritual aspects of the martial arts. At least in the movies, a few hoary aphorisms are thrown around about the enlightened warrior. But the pay-per-view beatings are strictly about pummeling and conquering.

What these fighting championships and martial arts movies are lacking is a sense of decency, humility, honor, compassion, along with common sense and realism. They trivialize and devalue the martial arts and undermine their aims.

From my perspective as a martial arts instructor and fellow human being, hurting people to sell tickets, win prize money or a gold dragon is tawdry, wrong and it certainly is not what the martial arts are about. The martial arts are about cultivating awareness of body and mind, about enhancing physical well-being, about the lessons and rewards of a long, difficult training.

Most importantly, it needs to be made absolutely clear the martial arts are not about fighting, but about self-defense. One of the fundamental purposes of these arts, be it kung fu, grappling, karate, jujitsu, aikido, whatever, is to provide tools for sensing and avoiding violent situations or to redirect them into a nonviolent dialogue.

On very rare occasions, however, peaceful methods do not work. Martial artists train for that eventuality so as to make split-second and appropriate decisions in grave situations. The controlled intensity engendered in the dojo (school) is used to teach students how to deal with an attacker and one’s own fear and aggression. The objective in a “real-life” attack is to neutralize an attacker while inflicting a minimal amount of injury.

In stark contrast to the explicit message of violence found in the movies and “Ultimate Fighting Championship” and its spin-offs are the admonitions of the sages of the martial arts: If force is required it is cause for great disappointment and reflection. For the highest accomplishment in the martial arts is to win without fighting. A lifelong and noble quest indeed.