Shalen's The Protector Review

[Al]

Excellent review!

And the summary capsule cracks me up to no end. Nice job!

[Head Mutant]

Absolutely, one of your better reviews!

[StarOpal]

And on to my List it goes....

[Spiderdancer]

Thanks, all!

I know reviews have been sparser lately, but don't give up on me yet. I'm still struggling through the moving process, but I now have a job and my class schedule and am bound and determined to remain a Mutant through it all.

Also, hopefully I will soon have home internet and not be limited to sending things from the local library...

[Hucklebubba]

Excellent review as always, Shalen. And, as a matter of fact, I did get hung up on that bit of grammar towards the start of the review, and couldn't move on until I had determined that it was actually proper.

So just know that your putting forth the extra effort of explaining yourself in the first footnote is much appreciated by the obsessive-compulsive wannabe English major demographic. All one-in-twenty of us.

And now for a repeat of history!

Back when you reviewed Ong Bak, I, for reasons that apparently weren't interesting enough to remember, brought up The Quest, a movie in which Jean-Claude Van Damme utilizes a martial art that purports to be Muay Thai, but is in fact the same generic Van Damme Do that features in all of his films.

Now I'm bringing up The Quest again, for the sake of drawing attention to the Chinese fighter therein, who uses a discipline based around shifting creature-based stances (Monkey, Snake, Meerkat, Dung Beetle*, etc.). This is either explicitly stated as being Kung Fu, or I just assumed it was for some reason.

Wu Shu, which you mentioned in your review, has always existed in my mind as the almost obnoxiously floaty and graceful martial art that Steven Seagal tends to hang out with. It seems to generally involve swatting opponents gently with a relaxed-fingered backhand, which causes the middle third of their body to separate cleanly from the rest.

Anyway, I was under the assumption that Kung Fu and Wu Shu were two completely different beasts, but now my gut--which is considerable and jiggly--is indicating a distinct possibility that Fu and Shu are both the floaty art, and that the somewhat ridiculous but nonetheless entertaining exhibition of woodland creature pugilism featured in The Quest has no basis in reality. Say it ain't so!


*The more I think about this, the more I think it might actually be effective. Especially with an appropriately scaled-up ball of poop.