#bashers

What are good movie examples of both?

Haiku of the day: Love your Bashers

Bashing is deadly

Take courage and pray to God

Fight back with kind love

Photo credits to Roger Coles of YouVersion Bible app

❤💙💚💛💜❤💙💚💛💜❤💙💚💛

This haiku is dedicated to @filosofodebrigadeiro-blog

Can you explain the whole Shapes/Bashers thing again? Are people that do shapes called...shapers?

forgive my lack of knowledge on this.

Good to be back!

And you've just asked me one of my favourite questions, so thank you so much for that. Now, lets get into it... Kung fu movies prior to 1980 were split into two different "types" by genre fans: bashers and shapes. Bashers are pretty simple. "Basher" refers to the blocky, non-complex, kick-and-punch choreography you typically find in films from the early 70's. If you're looking for a Basher, watch something like King Boxer or Jimmy Wang Yu's The Chinese Boxer. They're excellent films and feature a less complicated fight style. Shapes is what really came after 1976, though there are examples of early shapes. So what does "shapes" mean? Well, if "bashers" are blocky, non-complex fights, shapes is the opposite. Shapes is the complex, patterned movements you find in many of your favorites. We call it "shapes" because it often involves the fighters striking fun and outlandish poses. You'll find shapes in films like Drunken Master, The 36th Chamber of Shaolin and countless others. Me? I'm ALL about shapes. I love Bashers too, but Shapes are what introduced me to the kung fu cinema genre. Now, there are outliers. For example, Bruce Lee. While he technically used a "Basher" style choreography, it featured for more energy than typical Bashers. Bruce NEVER did Shapes. Not once. But I wouldn't really call his films Bashers either. Bruce was just his own thing. He elevated Bashers in a way no one else has been able to master. I'm the first person to say that Bruce Lee is somewhat overrated, but I can't argue his talents. That dude was on his own path. Alas, people that do shapes aren't called "shapers," though I wish they were. In the community, we don't really activaly talk bashers ve shapes. We just acknowledge that they exists hand in hand. With that said, I'd be truly shocked if someone said they preferred Bashers to Shapes. But that might just be me being pretentious.

Gather round children and I will tell you about shapes.

Basically, kung fu cinema fans have two categories that describe styles of fight choreography: bashers and shapes. There’s “wuxia” too but we’ll ignore that for now since that is swordplay and we’re talking empty hand action.

“Shapes” is used to describe those fight scenes that have exaggerated movements and styles. So, drunken boxing, animal styles...all shapes. Anything from Jackie Chan in the late 70′s...shapes. Sammo Hung? Mostly shapes. Here’s a lovely example of what I mean...

See the intricate movements and how both fighters are essentially posing? These are shapes.Me? I love shapes. It’s my favourite style of choreography.

Now...Bashers. Bashers are usually from the late 60′s and early 70′s and the style of choreography is less stylish. It’s clunkier, if you will. It involves straight punches and chops. No flare. No exaggeration. Here is a basher fight scene...

See the difference? There’s a strong argument that bashers are more realistic than shapes. Although neither are that realisitc.

Now, these two categories are usually only used for fight scenes between 1960 and let’s say 1982.After that, fight scenes started getting more kick boxing-based. Think Jackie Chan’s 80′s stuff: Dragons Forever, Wheels on Meals, Armour of God etc.

That doesn’t mean shapes don’t exist anymore. Donnie Yen’s Ip Man movies definitely feature some shapes.

As for “rare shapes,” I said that because the gifs I posted are from a rare tv show. So it’s a rarely seen shapes fight. That’s all.

#Brendan Kavanagh