Archive for August, 2009

I remember back to when the LA riots occurred after the Rodney King beating caught on film. That was a scary time in Los Angeles because all of societies rules and laws were seemingly suspended. The National Guard had to be deployed on the streets of an American city! This is not without precident starting back to the days of the American Revolution (or American Rebellion if you were educated in Great Britain).

The reason I have been thinking about this is because of the IFC movie “Beyond the Gates” I watched over the weekend. This film is about the Rwanda genocide that occurred in the mid-nineties. In this post I’ll examine what self-defense options people might have to consider if they are unlucky enough to live in a nation undergoing some civil unrest (or civil war as the case might be). If you get a chance – watch Beyond the Gates or Shooting Dogs, as it is known internationally. Here is a video clip.

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In something seemingly right out of the movie, “Taken,” my step-daughter’s friend and her girlfriend were the subject of some sort of scam yesterday in Paris!  You might remember my review of the move Taken here.

I found out about this late last night from my wife but before I speak about what happened to the girls, the movie plot and safety when traveling in Europe, I want to say this turned out ok – The girls lost guys in the train station and streets of Paris! Here is a clip of the movie Taken.

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I was flipping channels the other day and came across an old grainy black and white film on IFC where a martial artist was backed against a wharf and taking on his antagonists! The movie is called Sanshiro Sugata (the Judo Saga) and was filmed in 1943. What caught my eye was how he was dispatching his opponents – by throwing them over the side.

This was reminiscent of when I found the Seven Samurai movie on IFC. As the story unfolded it was apparently about the early days of Judo and its players being challenged by Jiu Jitsu combatants! In this post I will review the movie and speak about Judo’s beginnings as well as my views of Judo as an effective martial art. Here is a clip from the movie as the head of a Jiu Jitsu school faces one of the main Judo players (subtitled in French I think).

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