Why is martial arts movies less popular today?

[Hot Lunch]

Just going to throw this in

I think back in the day the onky place place that people could see martial arts was the movies.

Now with all of the martial arts competition K1, UFC, Bellator etc. People have access to martial arts and maybe expect a little more realism or at least something different in movies.

The styles in John wick, Bounre identity, extraction. Are still martial arts but more gritty.

Also the martial arts in the mainstream thanks to the sport side of thing has done much to dissolve the mysticism of the arts. People maybe are less interested in stories of going to train on a mountain top for 20 years and learning the secrets of the 5 Buddha fist.

That being said... Cobra kai had a big following

Glad to finally see someone else saying this. We thought those movies were grounded, and then we learned that they weren't (thanks, MMA).

Cobra Kai succeeds because it appeals to the nostalgia of people who watched the original Karate Kid series, and also because the series doesn't take itself very seriously (for example, making Johnny unrealistically buffoonish).

Bloodsport was presented as being a true story, complete with an epilogue. Let's see anybody try THAT in 2023.

 

[BobY777]

Why is martial arts movies less popular today?

In the 70s, 80s and 90s martial arts movies and martial arts cop movies where popular you had strong tough martial arts cop.

Yes like Chuck Norris, Jackie Chan, Steven Seagull, Bruce Lee, Tony Jaa, Jean Claude Van Damme, Bolo Yeung, Sammo Hung, Gordon Liu so on.

Well Clint Eastwood, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone are not really martial arts they took on more tough strong cop role.

Now it seems martial arts movies and martial arts cop movies and tough strong cop movies are less popular. Today seems detective cop shows and comic movies is where rage is today.

The car chases, shoot outs with mad guy and fighting the mad guy is less popular it more about detective cop shows and comic movies.

If you are looking for action and fighting it is comic movies now. Where martial arts movies and martial arts cop movies seem less popular.

There else no young actors in the US to take on role of aging Chuck Norris, Jackie Chan, Steven Seagull or dead Bruce Lee or even not really martial arts but just tough strong role like Clint Eastwood, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone.

The ninja movies are even less popular it seems like in past like The Domination, Enter the Ninja, 1983’s Revenge of the Ninja, American Ninja so on.

So what is going on in the US?

Maybe

Why is martial arts movies less popular today?

In the 70s, 80s and 90s martial arts movies and martial arts cop movies where popular you had strong tough martial arts cop.

Yes like Chuck Norris, Jackie Chan, Steven Seagull, Bruce Lee, Tony Jaa, Jean Claude Van Damme, Bolo Yeung, Sammo Hung, Gordon Liu so on.

Well Clint Eastwood, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone are not really martial arts they took on more tough strong cop role.

Now it seems martial arts movies and martial arts cop movies and tough strong cop movies are less popular. Today seems detective cop shows and comic movies is where rage is today.

The car chases, shoot outs with mad guy and fighting the mad guy is less popular it more about detective cop shows and comic movies.

If you are looking for action and fighting it is comic movies now. Where martial arts movies and martial arts cop movies seem less popular.

There else no young actors in the US to take on role of aging Chuck Norris, Jackie Chan, Steven Seagull or dead Bruce Lee or even not really martial arts but just tough strong role like Clint Eastwood, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone.

The ninja movies are even less popular it seems like in past like The Domination, Enter the Ninja, 1983’s Revenge of the Ninja, American Ninja so on.

So what is going on in the US?

The purpose of the ma movies was to raise awareness of ma's. Now there's need no more to raise awareness cause PPL are aware of them already and you find all the info from internet.

Ppl who do ma's will always enjoy ma movies, yet nowadays you can just go and do them yourself. Supply is good

Or maybe the target audience of ma movies is such that it needs a lot of stimulation, hence they favor video games of passive watching of movies.

 

[Dirty Dog]

Maybe

The purpose of the ma movies was to raise awareness of ma's.

No it wasn't. The purpose of those movies is and was to put peoples butts in the seats and empty their wallets.

 

[HighKick]

I forget the full name of the Legend of the Ten Rings movie? Pretty cool and very new.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

It's one thing if a movie is presented as fantasy or sci-fi. Suspension of disbelief is easy in that case.

If a movie is presented as realistic, and then you find out later on that it was BS, you're not going to look at it the same.

Look at professional wrestling. People thought it was real back in the 80's and 90's. And then the general public learned that it wasn't. Now, professional wrestling is not as popular as it was back then, and it never will be again.

The general public was aware WWF was fake back in the 70’s, at least.

Action movies (including old MA flicks) never seem to bother trying to be all that realistic - even the ones that try to use good technique in the fight scenes.

 

[drop bear]

Glad to finally see someone else saying this. We thought those movies were grounded, and then we learned that they weren't (thanks, MMA).

Cobra Kai succeeds because it appeals to the nostalgia of people who watched the original Karate Kid series, and also because the series doesn't take itself very seriously (for example, making Johnny unrealistically buffoonish).

Bloodsport was presented as being a true story, complete with an epilogue. Let's see anybody try THAT in 2023.

And frank Dux got away with that for ages.

 

[drop bear]

The general public was aware WWF was fake back in the 70’s, at least.

Action movies (including old MA flicks) never seem to bother trying to be all that realistic - even the ones that try to use good technique in the fight scenes.

Not really. Yes the WWF was pretty much known for what it was. But Bart Cale was crowned full contact fighter of the year off the back of a Japanese pro wrestling promotion. A d people fell for that hook line and sinker

So there was definitely less knowledge about what real martial arts and what wasn't.

On that note. I don't even think a Never Back Down series. Which had the worst of tropes regarding MMA could be taken seriously these days.

 

[HighKick]

Not really. Yes the WWF was pretty much known for what it was. But Bart Cale was crowned full contact fighter of the year off the back of a Japanese pro wrestling promotion. A d people fell for that hook line and sinker

So there was definitely less knowledge about what real martial arts and what wasn't.

On that note. I don't even think a Never Back Down series. Which had the worst of tropes regarding MMA could be taken seriously these days.

This post seems to put us back to defining what is and is not a martial art. I think everyone agrees Roman-Greco wrestling falls into the sport MA category. But 'professional' wrestling is just high-end physical theatrics.

 

[Hot Lunch]

This post seems to put us back to defining what is and is not a martial art. I think everyone agrees Roman-Greco wrestling falls into the sport MA category. But 'professional' wrestling is just high-end physical theatrics.

An argument could be made that professional wrestling is improvised yakusoku kumite for catch-as-catch-can in front of an audience and TV cameras. So although not a real fight, you might be able to look at it as training, somewhat similar to how it's done in a TMA dojo. In other words, I wouldn't write off a professional wrestler "on the streets."

 

[Xue Sheng]

Not really wanting to get into this much.... one of my favorite movies is Kung Fu Panda, and one of my youngest favorite movies is Kung Fu Panda and she worked pretty darn hard at Aikido. The pandemic got her to stop.

Not all kids classes are TKD, but it is sadly a fact of martial arts today, kids classes is where the money is at and things like Aikido are not big draws for kids and parents who know little about what an MA class or school is supposed to be. For that matter true Krav Maga is not for kids either, but there re a lot of kids classes in it.

But to be honest I don't have anything against kids classes like TKD, it gives kids something better to do than what they could get into on their own. And some of those (a few) go on to more martial arts training

 

[BobY777]

No it wasn't. The purpose of those movies is and was to put peoples butts in the seats and empty their wallets.

you mistook what I meant by "purpose". I didn't think of ppl's motives but a purpose from History's viewpoint

 

[Dirty Dog]

you mistook what I meant by "purpose". I didn't think of ppl's motives but a purpose from History's viewpoint

The motives of the people who made the movies are the only ones that matter.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

you mistook what I meant by "purpose". I didn't think of ppl's motives but a purpose from History's viewpoint

History doesn't really have a purpose. If you meant "effect", I'd agree that was a significant effect of the popularity of MA movies.

 

[BobY777]

I think its a few things. I don't think politics is one of them. Because you can have a woman or a person of color as the next martial arts hero, whether or not the movie is "woke" is irrelevant to whether or not it's a martial arts movie.

First, you don't need to be a martial artist to do martial arts in movies anymore. Look at The Matrix movies. Keanu Reeves, Lawrence Fishbourne, Carrie-Anne Moss, and Hugo Weaving are not martial artists. (Keanu Reeves is now, but he really wasn't then). They trained for an extensive amount of time to be able to do those moves.

That's actually a good example, because they did train extensively for the movie. Most movies just have the actors learn a few moves, and then use a combination of shaky cam and quick cuts to make it look good. Lots of movies these days have continuity errors in the fight scenes because of how chopped up, re-shot, and heavily edited they are.

It used to be that in order to put martial arts in a movie, you took martial artists and put them in the movie. But there are more and more tricks to make people look like martial artists when they really don't know what they're doing. Especially in a big-budget movie.

That's the second thing. Budget. There are no mid-budget movies anymore. Movie studios only really produce two types of movies: mega blockbusters, and cheap indy films. They only market the blockbusters. A martial arts movie is going to have to be an indy film, and then it's not going to get the same distribution as a blockbuster.

Captain America does a lot of martial arts in his movies. Chris Evans isn't really thought of as a martial artist. He's an actor. He's in great shape. He's done action movies. But he's thought of as an actor first and foremost. I don't know how much of a martial artist he is. He trained in several to prepare for his role. But did he train beyond what he needed in order to be convincing in the role? I don't know the answer to that.

Compare that to Scott Adkins. Scott Adkins is a martial artist. He's done tons of martial arts since he was a kid. Most people probably don't even know who he is, or have ever seen him in a movie. Unless you're specifically looking for martial arts movies on Netflix, you're not going to see him. Most of his marketing is from his social media, which you would only see if you knew who he was.

In order for martial arts movies to be more mainstream, I think we would need mid-budget movies in general to come back.

Cool, you actually delivered the answer to the question. Martial Arts movies haven't disappeared, ppl just are not aware of them

 

[drop bear]

By the way. I just found this out recently. Scott Atkins played Killa Hakan in John wick 4.

Killa Harkan

"A blind man, a guy with a dog and John Wick walk into a bar and take a seat at the table. That either sounds like the beginning of a stupendous joke or a most profitable opportunity. One thinks he can serve his way out. One... thinks he can buy his way out. And one... thinks he can kill his way...

johnwick.fandom.com

 

[Hot Lunch]

First, you don't need to be a martial artist to do martial arts in movies anymore. Look at The Matrix movies. Keanu Reeves, Lawrence Fishbourne, Carrie-Anne Moss, and Hugo Weaving are not martial artists. (Keanu Reeves is now, but he really wasn't then). They trained for an extensive amount of time to be able to do those moves.

You never did. Look at Pat Morita, Michael Dudikoff, Julius Carry, Eric Roberts, and Jason Scott Lee.

Michael Dudikoff ended up later training in martial arts, but this was after fact.