Word: jiu
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...professional boxing was ever in any way elegant, UFC has stripped away any of that grace. Based off a form of Brazilian jiu jitsu, which literally translates as “anything goes,” UFC fights, which take place in an octagonal cage, involve flurries of punches, kicks, takedowns, wrestling, and, every so often, a knee to the face. Ultimate Fighting does have a set of rules to which all play must adhere, but even when the prohibitions against eye gouging and against kicking the head of a grounded opponent are accounted for, the result is still...
...that can obliterate even young, healthy bones. As such, he amounts to a litmus test for the next wave of young MMA athletes, who have to wonder, how long can we hang around this grueling sport? Mixed martial arts, after all, is a violent sport that combines wrestling, boxing, jiu-jitsu and other forms of combat fighting. So in spite of the money he can make, won't Couture see the lasting damage inflicted on so many fighters, like pro boxers, who just hang around too long? "I think that's bull," says Couture, an alternate...
...There is, however, one difference between writer-director David Mamet's film and other fight game tales; it is not about boxing. It is about a mixed martial arts, combat that involves elements of jiu-jitsu, kick-boxing and the many other weird ways men have devised to do great bodily harm to one another. That gives Redbelt an original edge that somewhat separates it from the boxing genre. This advantage is greatly enhanced by its protagonist, Mike Terry (Chiwetel Ejiofor, who is excellent in the role). Mike is a black belt jiu-jitsu instructor, running a none-too-successful...
...Elswit, who just won an Oscar for There Will be Blood. This cram-it-all-in manner is particularly surprising given that the film is obviously a labor of love for Mamet, who tells us in a director's statement that he has spent something like five years learning jiu-jitsu and is passionately committed to the values it represents and promotes. I also missed the hard wit of the language we associate with Mamet - funny, cynical, laced with well-chosen obscenities. It's almost as if his tongue was slowed by the seriousness with which he regards his subject...
...fully intact) seems to cry out for the intensity of expression that made plays like Glengarry Glen Ross and movies like The Verdict sing with a sort of atonal harshness, helping them transcend the rather confined situations he prefers. Redbelt (the title refers to the highest honor available to jiu-jitsu fighters), despite its novel milieu somehow remains trapped in genre conventions. It's still basically a boxing picture, not essentially different from dozens of other movies about life in and around what the old time sportswriters used to call "the squared circle." Mamet's circle is, alas, just...