I like movies where people kick each other in the head, and lately, that’s been a much more peaceful fanboy experience compared to movies where people have capes and superpowers. Like many youngsters, I was familiar with superheroes from a very young age. Superman and Batman brought me into the DC Universe around the age of four, and while Spider-Man was the only Marvel character I was really enamored with at that age, the Wed-Head eventually brought me into the Marvel Universe at about age seven. As you can imagine, the explosion in popularity of superheroes in the 21st century, especially in movies and TV, was a dream come true for me. And yet, I find the culture around superhero fandom (not the characters and the universes themselves, mind you) increasingly exhausting and just not fun.
I also discovered martial arts around the age of six, and I’ve had an equally strong love for it in all its forms ever since, from martial arts on film to martial arts as an actual practice. I bring this up because, frankly, the martial arts nerd in me has spent the last year or so looking at the superhero nerd in me with a mix of emotions, but envy is most certainly not one of them. In fact, relief might be the feeling to top that list, for one simple reason – these days, it’s a LOT more enjoyable, fun, and fulfilling to be a martial arts fanboy than a superhero fanboy.
I must once again emphasize that the output of either genre itself is not the reason for that. It’s the experience of being a member of either fan community that makes me feel that way, and I’d be lying if I said that superhero fandom of late has felt like a welcoming community of like-minded nerds who all share a common interest. Instead, it feels more and more like one overtaken with conflict, mud-slinging, wars on social media among perfect strangers, and a level of snide, smug sneering over which corner of fandom has “won” that I seriously doubt the Justice League, the Avengers, or the X-Men would approve of. I must also gratefully admit that I’ve never seen anything of the sort in martial arts fandom, a community where our shared interests bond us in a way that I truthfully don’t know that any other fandom can lay claim to. I think there might be few reasons that help explain why it’s so much more peaceful to be a martial arts fan than a superhero fan lately.
Martial Arts Fandom Has The Benefit Of Simplicity
What makes martial arts fandom perhaps the most peaceful fandom in existence is the fact that, by and large, we’re easy to please. And that’s because martial arts fandom is predicated on some very basic criteria. Simply put, we like seeing people kick each other in the head for two hours. Obviously, that’s an oversimplification, but when all’s said and done, to be a devotee of the martial arts genre is to be someone who craves action and adventure involving fists and feet of fury. What makes that even better is that meeting the criteria for martial arts fans is incredibly easy for 99.99% of filmmakers to pull off. Grab a camera, get some talented stunt people, fight coordinators, and martial arts-trained actors, press the button labeled “record”, and you’ve got a money maker on your hands within a month or two.
That isn’t to say that martial arts fans don’t want to see strong characters and good writing with a compelling story to properly frame the action they seek. Indeed, the lack of any of the above basically leaves you with nothing but a cool demo reel on your hands, rather than an action-packed masterpiece of human determination, drive, and perseverance that will live on forever next to likes of Enter the Dragon, Ip Man, or The Raid. Nonetheless, the beating heart of martial arts fandom lies in the action. Deliver on that in the right quality and quantity, and it’s hard for martial arts aficionados not to walk away happy campers.
What also really adds to the fun of martial arts fandom is seeing stars, filmmakers, and fight choreographers always trying to outdo themselves and each other. That’s how you see a real evolution of action unfold in front of your eyes that compels others to step up their game to try the next big innovation in fight choreography and stunt work. I can demarcate such leaps forward in martial arts filmmaking that have happened in my own lifetime – Tony Jaa’s wild love letter to Muay Thai in Ong Bak: Muay Thai Warrior, Donnie Yen pioneering both MMA and Wing Chun kung fu as new trends with Flash Point and the Ip Man movies, Scott Adkins soaring through gymnastically infused MMA and ninja battles in Isaac Florentine’s Undisputed and Ninja movies Gareth Evans making Indonesia the new cool kids table of martial arts films with The Raid movies, the John Wick movies delivering everything action fans dream of and then some. To see the makers of martial arts films watch each other’s work, say “That’s cool, let me see if I can push that further!”, and repeated the process ad infinitum, that’s makes martial arts fandom a ride that just never, ever gets old.
The cherry on top is just how harmonious martial arts fans are amongst each other. If a new martial arts flick is a letdown, no harm, no foul. We just shrug and move on to the next one, and there’s always a next one to move to. Because we’re all in it to see warriors trade roundhouse kicks with each other, there’s also way less sneering, bullying, and hazing than in any other fandom, no fans telling each other they’re stupid or not “real fans” for liking the wrong thing. Really, what is there in martial arts movie fandom for one fan to mock another for? Saying that they thought the last Steven Seagal movie wasn’t half bad?
I love being a martial arts movie aficionado for all of the reasons above, but that also only relates to experiences the movies themselves. The flipside is the impact it can and frequently does have in one’s real life.
Superheroes Are Our Modern Myths – & That Makes Fanboys Extremely Protective Of Them
It’s been said many times that superheroes have become the modern equivalent of the Greek gods, accorded a consummate level of reverence and hero worship. I don’t disagree, and I think the popularity of superheroes is best contextualized as such to help explain why so many of us bow down to them even as we enter our senior years. But superhero fandom, like worshipping at the altar of deities, is also something that can definitely be taken too far.
Superman is often likened to, and portrayed as, the superhero equivalent of Jesus Christ Superman also has some undeniable Moses similarities, owing the influence of his Jewish creators Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, and like both Moses and Jesus, Superman has a sacred text of his own, that being his comic book lore. Some might also give that classification to Christopher Reeve’s portrayal of the Man of Steel in the original Superman movies, and we’ve all seen just how well some sections of Superman fandom react when anything that isn’t a modern re-introduction of Christoper Reeve’s Kal-El is presented to the public – or when other sections of Superman fandom actually end up embracing it.
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You Start To Feel The Heat When Superheroes & Martial Arts Overlap
While the general peace and serenity of martial arts fandom makes it a quieter place to geek out within, the heated nature of superhero fandom can still be felt on the occasion that the two meet. Look at Batman as an example – objectively speaking, there simply has never been a better Batman fight scene than his epic warehouse brawl in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, and yet while I had my jaw on the floor at seeing Batman in a fight scene worthy of The Raid movies, half the audience was still fixated on the Martha scene. Jumping from DC to Marvel, Iron Fist and Daredevil are both clearly martial arts heavy shows, but the blunders of Iron Fist season 1 (which admittedly included some subpar fight choreography) sunk its reception like a stone while Daredevil deservedly gets as much credit as a ninja show as it does for its superheroics. Even amid Iron Fist season 2 enjoying a far better reception (which partly owes to its far better fight scenes), you can still sense a subtle level of begrudging attitude in some of the commentary around it, almost as if raking Danny Rand over the coals in season one precludes him rising from the ashes in season two.
Or let’s move over to some other superhero-martial arts crossover properties. Remember when the 2014 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles reboot was on the way? The turtle’s design and originally proposed alien origins dominated the headlines leading up to it way more than any ninja heroics, while 2016’s much better received Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows completely tanked. That’s also quite a contrast indeed to 2021’s Shang-Chi & The Legend of the Ten Rings, which won deserved praise for its outstanding Hong Kong-esque fight scenes, but which already seems to have slipped through the cracks of MCU fandom, almost as if superhero movies need some level of controversy for the sake of their longevity. What about Blade? Two superb first installments with Hong Kong-worthy fight scenes, but Blade has had almost nothing but bad luck since with the ill-received Blade: Trinity, the all-but-forgotten single season Blade: The Series, and a Mahershala Ali-led MCU Blade reboot that just can get rolling, finally giving way to Wesley Snipes’ surprise return in Deadpool & Wolverine being the only real example of big-screen fun and excitement around the Daywalker in over twenty years. And looking back on the pre-release controversies and horrible reception to 2010’s The Last Airbender…okay, that 20-story backlash was actually warranted, but even still, image being a fan of Avatar: The Last Airbender, which has touch of superhero DNA in its fantastical martial arts theme, and watching the first live-action adaptation crash and burn so cataclysmically. At least Netflix’s Avatar reboot seems to have done what its 2010 predecessor couldn’t, but the pattern is still clear – wherever martial arts and superhero genres meet, what should be an inherently winning combination can easily have the well poisoned by the negative energy of how protective and overzealous superhero fandom can get.
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Every Fandom Could Learn A Lot From Martial Arts Fanboys
Having the benefit of being able to directly contrast martial arts and superhero movie fandom as a car-carrying member of both camps, I can safely say that the latter can really benefit from the example set by the former. In fact, every fandom in existence probably could learn from the peace and quiet that martial arts aficionados enjoy. Even with all the problems within superhero fandom laid out above, I can look right over at the Star Wars fandom sphere fraught with such conflict and anger towards the very universe it’s based upon and count my blessings. In all, that’s the problem that fandoms seem to constantly run into – DC, Marvel, Star Wars, Star Trek, Tolkien, Alien, Predator, Terminator, sci-fi, horror, you name it. Once a storyteller makes a controversial decision, fandoms split into the “love it” or “hate it” camps, and all hell breaks loose, until it all eventually snowballs into years of such conflict, anger, and general nastiness to such a degree, it’s easy to forget how and why we even fell in love with these characters and worlds in the first place.
Other than when it crosspollinates into other genres or fandom corners, I can never recall anything of the sort happening in the martial arts fandom world, and it’s a way more peaceful place because of it. I implore my fellow nerds the world over, heed the lessons that the peaceful, Zen experience of martial arts fandom can teach about how to love something without the experience of it being poisoned.
Because, sometimes, it’s just really fun to watch movies where people get kicked in the head.
