"Jump London", pah! Did you see "Rumble in the Bronx"?
Those French blokes who like to re-interpret the enclosed suppressive qualities of modern architecture by redefining the boundaries according to a new synthesis of athleticism and adventure (translation: they like to run around climbing lamp-posts and jumping over walls). They had their TV documentary called "Jump London" and cited martial arts movies as some of their inspiration. They showed a clip of Bruce Lee stretching before the showdown with Chuck Norris in "Way of the Dragon". Well they should have shown Jackie Chan from any number of movies, but then, it would have taken away some of the shine from the Le Parkour troupe. He's had that kind of action in his movies for years, just without the pretension at "Conceptual Art".
"Rumble in the Bronx", although far from a perfect movie, has better and more imaginitive jumps and wall climbs than the whole Jump London special, although it was from just one man. I guess you could have lost it amongst all the kicking, punching, falling, chaos of the rest of the movie. But any of you PK fans out there who are still trying to climb that lamp-post in one move, check out this movie and watch it in slow motion.
David Noble
Shorinji Kempo (1983 - 1988)
I'll think of a proper sig when I get a minute...
For now, I'm just waiting for the smack of the Bo against a hard wooden floor....