(08-21-2015, 01:30 AM)Caspar Wrote: I think it's pretty crass to suggest fancy coreography is "dickwaving."
The fights in wuxia are beautiful and often heavily coreographed, more akin to dancing than real fighting, yet they can still feel dangerous or intensely serious. To suggest the exaggerated fantasy martial arts common to those shows lack any sort of compelling element is off-base.
I'd almost even argue it's faintly Eurocentric, as that emphasis on low fantasy realism seems to be really firmly rooted in European martial arts and popular Western fantasy more than anything else, but that's perhaps a long shot.
I'm not going to get into the meat of this argument, but I did want to say that I agree with this.
Indeed, there are real martial-arts with dance elements that are very flashy, and still see real use. Capoeira, in particular, comes to mind. One of my characters uses a Hydaelyn-ized version of it.
These things are real and out there. Perhaps not common, but out there.
