The Asian-inspired segment had flying martial-arts tricks out of "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" and an averted samurai execution with a somersaulting swordsman.
From there, the tour's choreographed vignettes went globe-hopping, from flying martial-arts tricks out of "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon," to a cowboy-hatted number like a raunchier "Oklahoma," from an averted samurai execution (with a swordsman swinging wide over a kneeling Madonna) to tango choreography backed by an instrumental from "Evita".
Disdaining the profligate stylistics of later practitioners, Mr. Hu keeps his action focused and authentic, and relies less on the flying wire work of later martial arts movies to create a sense of uncanny skill than on the simple, ingenious device of showing only the beginning and end of an action.
Their influence is felt around the world, in the high-flying martial-arts wire work that has lately become a Hollywood cliché and, more interestingly, in the delicate urban anomie (a specialty of Mr. Wong's) that permeates Sofia Coppola's "Lost in Translation".
(Instead of a horse's head, for example, the knight is a silhouette of a martial-arts fighter flying through the air).
The husband, a martial-arts master, threatened to give flying lessons to any of the goons sent to intimidate him and employed whirling nunchucks to carve a spiraling stairway up to their front door.
On one level, the film represents Hou's first foray into the wuxia genre, replete with the traditional "martial chivalry" tropes of balletic fight scenes, flying wire-work, and a touch of dark magic.
Advanced martial artists can strike a loose or flying board so fast that it breaks before it has time to move; but as a beginner, you want a stationary target.
Knights that look like martial artists fly through the air, for starters.
What truly distinguishes Taekwondo from other martial arts systems are its varied and uniquely powerful kicking techniques, including jumping and flying kicks.
