Tai chi zong shi (2003– )
10/10
Out of All The Tai Chi and Pakua (Bagua) Movies Out There The Most Authentic In terms of Real World Applications of Technique
27 September 2015
The DVD movie version of this is a little bit incoherent as one person mentioned, this is due to the fact that it actually was not originally a movie but a TV series in china. They did the best they could editing it down into a movie format. The fight scenes they left in the movie are very well done. The lighting as the one bad reviewer mentioned is weird but it's basically a Soap opera style lighting format made for TV series and not movie lighting. This is basically an imaginative version of the story of how Yang Lu Chang spied on The Chen Family village to learn their Tai Chi and was later accepted as the first non family member student of Chen Style Tai Chi then later modified it and refined certain techniques to make them his own and eventually created the Yang Style of Tai Chi and decided to teach it to many which is why it is now the most well known form of Tai Chi in the world. He was also known as Yang the Invincible supposedly taking on over 20,000 matches with zero losses. This particular movie / TV series depicts his development as he increases in ability and technique, which veers a little from the reality that he was already a very accomplished martial artist before learning tai chi and perhaps a bit older as well. But as with all films they take a few liberties. The techniques in this series and the fight philosophies and principles of tai chi are more authentic in this series than in any other I've seen so far and a few of the scenes are very entertaining as well making this an instant favorite Kung Fu movie for me. One particular concept of Tai Chi that they mentioned in the movie is a very important concept that will help any martial artist... "Light on Top... heavy on the bottom" which to me translates as be yielding but rooted... like a tree which sways in the wind if it's too rigid on the top or it's roots aren't deep enough into the ground it will be knocked over in the wind. The same goes for a martial artist if you are too unwilling to yield to an attack and would rather fight force with force you will eventually run into something too powerful for you to meet head on. It's real world concepts that they mention throughout the movie and watching stuff I have personally used before as well as a few things I never thought to use in sparring that really make this even more worthwhile for true martial artists.
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