Blood and Bone screening/Q&A at the Museum of the Moving Image
June 13th, 2011 by Mr. C
Director: Ben Ramsey
Actor: Michael Jai White, Dante Basco, Julian Sands, and Eamonn Walker
Genre: Martial arts, action
Trailer of film courtesy of mmabigfan@youtube
The Museum of the Moving Image in Astoria, Queens plays host to an ongoing martial arts movie program called Fist and Sword. Last week they screened BLOOD AND BONE with the director, Ben Ramsey & actor, Michael Jai White in attendance for a Q & A session with Warrington Hudlin acting as the moderator! If martial arts action is your thing then you MUST hit up this movie! No wirework, no sped up camera shots, nor any CGI special effects on this caboose of an action film! It’s just pure old school martial art throwdowns with a hint of mixed martial art lockdowns! Michael Jai White is the sole reason why this film works because of his prowess in martial arts & his charisma on the screen! This dude is built like a freight train and can even move faster than THE LAST DRAGON! Some of you might know Jai White as Black Dynamite from the 2009 movie paying homage to the Blaxploitation films of the past! White has been around the movie & TV scene for quite a while now. I think the 1st time I’ve seen him in a major role was in TYSON (1995) playing the character of Mike Tyson in the made for TV movie.
Blood and Bone was a pure adrenaline rush full of fight scenes starting right from the get go of the film when Kimbo Slice decides to test out Mr. Bone (Michael Jai White) in prison! The story will progress further onto the streets of L.A. as underground fight clubs, a local mob boss, deceit, & a woman get in the mix of things! Bone will go on a personal vendetta to take care of an old prison matter as the story will unfold to the viewer after a slight twist and turn in the plot! With the likes of real life mixed martial art fighters such as Kimbo slice, Bob Sapp, Maurice Smith, and martial art extraordinaire, Matt Mullins in the movie, you can see why no special effects were needed! White laughs and describes Bob Sapp as a computer generated, cock diesel type of big dude in real life! Oh, did I mention that Bob Wall who played the character of O’hara in Bruce Lee’s Enter the Dragon also makes a cameo in this film playing O’hara, a bodyguard for the villain! Michael Jai White will display some of his heavy handed techniques along with some cobra like kicks as his foes drop like sacks of sweet potatoes! Jai White also demonstrates some killer jujitsu & submission holds that would make Gene Lebell proud! The jive talking character of Pinball played by Dante Basco adds a bit of comedic relief in between bones breaking! Eamonn Walker who plays the villain is very convincing in his urban evil role! Blood and Bones is very entertaining from a martial arts perspective, but there are a few flaws in my opinion. There definitely could of been more character development & background story to the protagonist/antagonist. Could it be that they wanted to leave out the origins of the characters in lieu of a sequel to this movie? Who knows, Ben Ramsey & Michael Jai White left that avenue open for a sequel to the Bones character!
The Q&A portion of this event with Ben Ramsey, the director of the film and Michael Jai White was just as entertaining! Ramsey’s mission statement about the making of Blood and Bones was to focus less on video editing & fancy camera work & let the action speak for itself! This holds true especially when you have talented martial artists like Michael Jai White and his stunt team working on your side! There is no need to mess with technology when you have highly skilled technicians performing these fight sequences! This is exactly my sentiment with HK modern fight films of today! There’s too much messing with software & effects with less emphasis on the pure action itself! Ramsey & Jai White also stated that NO injuries besides bruises happened on the fight set during filming which is amazing if you saw the film! It took 21 days to shoot the film with 3-4 fight scenes per day! As a contrast, Jai White said that it took 1 day for 1 fight scene when he filmed Universal Soldier with Jean Cleade Van Damm and there was only 1 technique executed per day! Definitely, nothing as intricate as Blood and Bones! Ben Ramsey & Michael Jai White also stated that Blood and Bones was heavily bootlegged in the domestic & international market! They said that at an international screening of this movie the theatre used a bootleg version of the film for the viewing!
As for Michael Jai White, he states that he still loves the mechanics, the sparring, & the chess match in the fight game! White’s biggest problem in fight choreography is finding a big, muscular guy to do fight scenes with him because really large guys don’t have the technique & martial art skills to make things look good behind the camera! UFC & mixed martial artists are tough guys & might be able to withstand punches, but the bigger guys rarely have the proper technique. It is always problematic to find someone as big or bigger than him in size to fight him on the screen because he usually moves too gracefully for his opponent which is not good for filming! On many occasions, his adversary in the fight scenes is a member of his stunt team such as Matt Mullins in Blood and Bone!
As a finale to this event, Michael Jai White showed a clip of his new movie coming out in the fall called “The Beatdown”. As a joke or maybe not?, Jai White dubbed the scene he showed as “Rodney’s Revenge” (reference to Rodney King). This movie promises to be another action packed treat! White also mentioned that he is working on Black Dynamite, the animated series! I can’t wait for this to materialize on the cartoon network! In the meantime, you can check out a few minutes of the Q&A session to get a taste of the energy that these two exude!
“I am the punishment of God…If you had not committed great sins, God would not have sent a punishment like me upon you.” – GHENGHIS KHAN
Tags: ben ramsey, black dynamite, blood and bones, michael jai white, musuem moving image
Posted in movies, mr. c | Comments (0)
