E-Mail This Article to a Friend Killing Bill? Experts critique Tarantino’s martial arts BY GERALD PEARY

I have the same problem with Kill Bill: Volume 2 that I did with Kill Bill: Volume 1: both are top-heavy with martial-arts moments and Tarantino nods to Asian genre movies. What do I honestly know about kung fu, or the intricacies of Hong Kong action programmers?

For coaching, I located Rich Thorne, a Cambridge fireman who in between our pick-up basketball games at the Cambridge Central Square Y had lots to say about martial-arts pictures and considered opinions about how to judge them. "There were days in the late 1970s when you could go to Chinatown and see the greatest kung fu movies ever made, by the Shaw Brothers from Hong Kong. Triple features! I’d spend the whole Saturday there. And that’s what Quentin Tarantino was doing also. For me, they were the motivation for learning kung fu."

Thorne is an avid attendee of Arlington’s Wing Chun Kung Fu Academy (wckfa.com), which has been operated since 1985 by Stanley Jue. When I met him at his fire station, he brought surprise guests: Jue and Jack Chang, an advanced student at the academy. Thorne wanted me to talk to them first. He felt uneasy, he said, "running off my mouth" about kung fu when there were people more knowledgeable.

So I asked Jue to tell me about kung fu. "It’s the way to keep the body, mind, and spirit in good health. It’s offense and defense at the same time. It’s a basic training in hand-foot-body movements, knowing several steps ahead the other’s way of fighting. My classes are easygoing. Physical shape doesn’t matter. Old or young is fine. You wear loose-fitting clothes, regular shoes. There is no uniform. People don’t have to bow to me. I don’t go for that. It’s common sense to be respectful of others. Brown and black belts? I go by what Bruce Lee said in an interview: ‘A belt is only to hold your pants up.’ "

And women? "As many as I can get in my class."

Indeed, Jue’s way of kung fu was begun 450 years ago in China by two females. A Buddhist nun, Ng Mui, took a woman who was supposed to marry a bully under her tutelage and taught her how to protect herself. The young woman who mastered martial arts was Yim Wing-chun, and her name spawned a movement.

Jue came to his calling through his appreciation of 1970s Bruce Lee movies and David Carradine’s 1972-’75 Kung Fu TV series. "They brought kung fu to the world. They both inspired a Chinese martial-arts movement."

Had he watched Bruce Lee movies recently, now with the eyes of a kung fu expert?

"I still like them!" Jue said, beaming. "You have to set the cameras at high speed to catch Bruce Lee’s movements. He’s the fastest man on earth!"

Among Jue’s martial-arts favorites are the Japanese Baby Cart series, and period dramas like Yojimbo and The Seven Samurai ("Kurosawa is the best filmmaker!"). And he’s a fan of Kill Bill. "Tarantino loves both types of martial arts, kung fu and Japanese samurai movies. Kill Bill was choreographed perfectly in the 1970s style." He endorsed the climactic episode with Uma Thurman fighting all the guys, and also two bloody, black-comedy scenes of heads being sliced from their torsos: "It was like those old Japanese movies!"

Jack Chang, on the other hand, expressed reservations about Bruce Lee. "What is missing is internal strength, the cultivation of the ‘chi.’ If your muscles are tightly wound like Lee’s, there’s no room for the flow of ‘chi’ between the muscles and the outer skin level. At least Kill Bill has the real flowing movements of kung fu. It was very entertaining in terms of martial arts."

"So Kill Bill is the real stuff?", I asked Rich Thorne when I finally got to talk to him. "Quentin paying homage to the kung fu genre, that’s a good thing. Uma was a pretty face to look at, and she did take classes. But you could tell she’s not a real martial-artist. Keanu Reaves fighting in The Matrix? Imagine Jet Li instead! I liked Tom Cruise as a regular-guy lawyer in The Firm. But in The Last Samurai, Cruise arriving into town on a horse swinging a samurai sword? Come on!"

I asked Thorne for kung fu film recommendations. "The Prodigal Son, because Sammo Hung is a great martial artist. His skill is second to none! Street Gangs of Hong Kong. Jackie Chan movies when he was young, doing the stunts, no strings attached. Five Fingers of Death: a classic! Bruce Lee in Enter the Dragon. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: that great battle between the older and younger woman. The beauty of kung fu!"