- Inspiration can come from many places: from traditions developed thousands of miles away and thousands of years ago; from movies with dialogue we don't understand; and it can come from within. But what's important is where inspiration takes us. Whether it's community centers, world-class competitions, music, or kung fu cinema, the martial arts have been a tremendous influence on the culture and aspirations of black and urban Americans for decades. Blvd. Warriors tells the little-known story of how Asian fighting arts and the movies that feature them, pierced the lives of those in communities struggling with parallel issues.—Anonymous
- Inspiration can come from many places: from traditions developed thousands of miles away and thousands of years ago; from movies with dialogue we don't understand; and it can come from within. But what's important is where inspiration takes us.
Whether it's community centers, world-class competitions, music, or kung fu cinema, the martial arts have been a tremendous influence on the culture and aspirations of black and urban Americans for decades. Blvd. Warriors tells the little-known story of how Asian fighting arts and the movies that feature them, pierced the lives of those in communities struggling with parallel issues.
Through a series of interviews, movie clips, rare photographs, and historical documents, Blvd. Warriors tracks a history that evolved from a combination of natural ability, the desire for change, societal exclusion, and basic human instinct. The search for power, hope, identity, haphazard entertainment, reflective heroes and respect, triggered a confluence of events that have lead to a standard in American culture. That standard has transcended race, politics, cultural stereotypes and in some cases the very limits of human endurance. Blvd. Warriors shines a light on experts of the martial arts, trailblazing entertainers, pop culture references, and everyday people whose lives have been permanently impacted through their exposure to, and ultimately their respect of, this unique way of life and its cultural origins.
Some of the many interviews conducted for the film include: Ron Van Clief, one of the first non-Asian martial arts film stars; Vivica A. Fox, who trained with the legendary Woo Ping for the 2003 Quentin Tarantino film Kill Bill Volume 1; Gloria Hendry, co-star of the 1974 film Black Belt Jones as well as the 1978 James Bond film Live and Let Die, who grew up on the rough streets of Newark, New Jersey, learning to street fight at an early age; Martial artist and actor Michael Jai White, who has appeared in numerous action films, including Undisputed II: Last Man Standing, The Dark Knight, and Black Dynamite; House Party and Boomerang film director and martial arts practitioner Reginald Hudlin, who grew up in a dangerous part of East Saint Louis, forcing him and his older brother Warrington to take up martial arts, or take up arms.... they chose martial arts; Legendary ground fighter Soke 'Little' John Davis, grandmaster of Kumite Ryu Jujitsu, who fought many early full-contact fights, including many organized by Grandmaster Aaron Banks (creator of the 1970's-era Oriental World of Self-Defense exhibitions in Madison Square Garden); Grandmaster Aaron Banks is also interviewed; Ninjitsu Grandmaster Ronald Duncan, who introduced the true art of the Ninja to the United States, and caught flaming arrows on television years before the TV show That's Incredible; Oliver 'Power' Grant, a founding member of The Wu-Tang Clan, the hip hop group that popularized the merging of rap music and Asian martial arts film culture; Hector Martinez, who was born on the rough, gang-infested streets of the Lower East Side of New York City during a very tumultuous time of gang violence, who found inspiration and hope in the characters of Asian martial arts films, spawning a collection of materials that has brought him friends and colleagues from around the globe; Master Carl Scott, who appeared in the films Soul Brothers of Kung Fu"(1977), A Hard Way to Die (1979), and Kung Fu Executioner (1981), who left his California home as a teenager to study martial arts in Hong Kong and star in a series of movies that have become cult classics; Martial artist, hip hop dancer, and deejay King Uprock, who witnessed the birth of hip hop in New York City, who describes the close ties between the rising popularity of martial arts films and hip hop culture in the 1970s; Asian film historian Grady Hendrix, co-founder of The New York Asian Film Festival; Martial artists Eric Neff and Nathan Chukueke, both of whom appeared in the 1988 cult film Bloodsport; Hanshi Charles Martin, who was profiled in the 1976 documentary The Fighting Black Kings, which traced the beginning of open-hand full-contact karate tournaments, the pre-cursor of today's Mixed Martial Arts competitions; as well as many-many more.
These compelling stories are examples of the tens of thousands of men and women in major cities across the United States, who turned to martial arts in one way or another, in order to improve their lives.
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