Can't remember a movie!

December 15, 2007 4:57 PM

Gah... I was just asked. There's a martial arts movie where one of the characters blocks a punch from an attacker and then walks his hands up the opponent's arm and body locking him in place (using pressure points). I can vaguely see the scenes (I'm pretty sure it happens more than once), but neither I nor my friends can remember the movie. Help me hive mind, you're my only help.
posted by Ikazuchi to media & arts (13 comments total)

Jet Li does something along those lines in the climactic scene of Kiss of the Dragon. The scene in question starts at about 5:00 in this clip (YT, probably NSFW).
posted by jedicus at 5:20 PM on December 15, 2007

Crouching tiger, yes?
posted by Foci for Analysis at 5:26 PM on December 15, 2007

Yeah, this happened in Crouching Tiger, but it was a she doing the paralysis attack.
posted by selfnoise at 5:27 PM on December 15, 2007

I seem to remember a scene like that in 'Fatal Flying Guillotine', maybe in 'Master of the Flying Guillotine", too. I think this might be a fairly common scene scenario in kung fu movies.
posted by Camel of Space at 5:47 PM on December 15, 2007

Kill Bill?
posted by softlord at 6:04 PM on December 15, 2007

Yes, Kill Bill, but that movie was a tribute to every other martial arts movie ever made, so the five finger exploding heart attack (or whatever it was called) was derivative of much that came before.
posted by lhauser at 6:56 PM on December 15, 2007

You'll probably find similar scenes in dozens of Asian martial arts films. Both using pressure points to lock up the body and that action of "walking" your hands up your opponents arm/body are pretty common. Having written that, I now can't think of a single one. Sorry.
posted by ErWenn at 7:05 PM on December 15, 2007

It's enough of a cliche that it was sent up in one of the episodes of Excel Saga, except of course they took it to ridiculous extremes. (Excel uses "pressure points" to make a man she's fighting transform into a cute bunny.)

If it shows up in Excel Saga you know it's long past being a trope.
posted by Steven C. Den Beste at 7:28 PM on December 15, 2007

Yeah, as an avid watcher of '80s USA Network "Kung Fu" theater... what you describe happens in dozens of cheezy Kung Fu movies... A variant even occurs in Nickelodeon's 'Avatar' series where there's a girl who can poke you in a few places and take away your powers.

Good luck, and maybe the hive-mind will find your movie by random guesswork, but what you describe is *so* common that there are scores of movies that fit your description.
posted by zengargoyle at 10:00 PM on December 15, 2007

Try wu xia films especially, which tend to have more of an emphasis on flying people, and fantastic elements like using pressure points to make people explode.

I think The Swordsman 2 had something like that.
posted by fnerg at 10:50 PM on December 15, 2007

Can you be more specific? What time period? Is this a 70's Shaw Bros film or was this more contemporary?
posted by cazoo at 10:57 PM on December 15, 2007

Chiun does this in the 80's movie Remo Williams to Fred Ward's character I'm pretty sure.
posted by clanger at 12:04 PM on December 16, 2007

THANK YOU clanger!

Yeah, I've seen it in several movies, but the bits that are in my head are from Remo Williams (I even own it on DVD - I got to watch that again)!

W00t! Thank you Hive Mind!
posted by Ikazuchi at 7:27 AM on December 18, 2007