Meditation on Violence (1949)

Audience Score
56
Meditation on Violence
StarringChao-Li Chi
DirectorMaya Deren
NR 12 minNov 27th, 1949Documentary
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Plot
Chao-Li Chi shadow boxes indoors and practices with a sword outdoors. Theoretically, the film describes in a single continuous movement three degrees of traditional Chinese boxing, Wu-tang, Shao-lin, and Shao-lin with a sword. A long sequence of the ballet-like, sinuous Wu-tang becomes the more erratic Shao-lin; in the middle, there is an abrupt change to leaping sword movements, in the center of which, at the apogee of the leap, there is a long held freeze-frame.