".. the gun Kata is a fun concept. "
When you consider old Martial Arts of the east, and realize they had similar movements for unarmed and armed modes, you can know this movie just switched swords and knives with guns - the most boring weapons in existence.
You press a button and someone dies. What kind of 'art' is that? At least with a blade, you have to know what you're doing and focus very intensely if you're even to survive, let alone kill the other guy. Or you have to be so good that you're in 'Zen mode' (which this movie doesn't even explore).
And it being based on probability makes it even worse.
Come on, think about it - with GUNS, you don't need any 'kata' - you can just shoot a lot, and it's going to be pretty much as effective. The only interesting part about it would be the ability to 'avoid a hail of bullets' from the enemy.
PROBABILITY?!?!?
Also, thinking what a KATA really is, you can realize it wouldn't be useful in battle. Look at any Karate or other Martial Arts Katas (I forgot what they call the equivalent in Korean when it comes to Taekwon do), it's just to perfect the form and the movements by being able to practice them in a smooth succession.
It's NOT useful in battle or combat. It's basically just performing a pre-scripted routine as flawlessly as you can, and that's it. A demanding skill in itself, but not useful.
So this movie doesn't even understand its own terminology.
However, I could forgive ALL this movie's flaws, nonsensical things, errors, plot holes, mistakes, stupidities, silliness and 'coolness', if it had an INTERESTING, unpredictable story.
But it doesn't. The story goes exactly as you expect it to go, and you can basically know the basic structure after a few minutes, if not earlier. The 'twists' serve no purpose, have no effect or function, and the ending leaves you just forgetting this movie immediately as it ends. It doesn't provoke thought, it doesn't make you question anything.
Watchable, not good.
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[deleted]
6 years ago
A similar concept to 'gun kata', that I find way more interesting (and I am not sure if it has ever been depicted in animated or movie form), is how Spider-Man can avoid being shot when half a dozen thugs are trying to kill him by shooting guns at him.
This kind of 'bullet-avoidance-ability' that is based on instinct, intuition or 'spider-sense', would be much more interesting thing to see, if it was shown visually in a nice way. As far as I know, even the Spider-Man games do not take advantage of this, although it could be implemented to a game relatively easily (at least concept-wise); just show where the bullet is going to hit, and then show a timer countdown to when it is going to hit that spot, and slow time for the player, so there's plenty of time to avoid it.
Then again, would've been interesting to play a properly done Bruce Lee-game (although I like the old C64 and Atari, Amstrad, Spectrum, etc.-game), where the enemies would all be incredibly slow, but you would move in normal speed - then you could see everything in 'normal speed' afterwards, where enemies move at normal speed, and you seem to move at the speed Bruce Lee was actually capable of.
But no one has made such a game as of yet. I guess it's the old "The Terminator" (1984)-problem; if you're unkillable and always 100% accurate, the game would become a bit dull. Without a sense of being able to die, such a game might not be interesting. But I wish they'd try it anyway, it'd be so neat.
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