A Data Driven Exploration of Kung Fu Films by Jim Vallandingham.
From the post:
Recently, I’ve been a bit caught up in old Kung Fu movies. Shorting any technical explorations, I have instead been diving head-first into any and all Netflix accessible martial arts masterpieces from the 70’s and 80’s.
While I’ve definitely been enjoying the films, I realized recently that I had little context for the movies I was watching. I wondered if some films, like our latest favorite, Executioners from Shaolin, could be enjoyed even more, with better understanding of the context in which these films exist in the Kung Fu universe.
So, I began a data driven quest for truth and understanding (or at least a semi-interesting dataset to explore) of all Shaw Brothers Kung Fu movies ever made!
…
If you’re not familiar with the genre, here is a three-minute final fight collage from YouTube:
When I saw the title, I was hopeful that Jim had captured the choreography of the movies for comparison.
No such luck! 😉
That would be an extremely difficult and labor intensive task.
Just in case you are curious, there is a Dance Notation Bureau with extensive resources should you decide to capture one or more Kung Fu films in notation.
Or try Notation Reloaded: eXtensible Dance Scripting Notation by Matthew Gough.
A search using “xml dance notation” produces a number of interesting resources.