Comments on: She is more than just a cute high school girl! She is a master of Karate!

She is more than just a cute high school girl! She is a master of Karate!

grounded — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 00:10:22 -0800

High-Kick Girl! That says it all but there's more to the story than just a kick to the head. Meet the star, teen karate girl Rina Takeda. Watch her take on a guy in a baseball uniform.

By: gen

gen — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 00:23:11 -0800

Well, her father is a master. She's the student. That said, she'd school any of us I'm sure.

By: ooga_booga

ooga_booga — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 00:28:08 -0800

Obviously, she's a student of Tai Kwan Leep, not Karate! boottothehead

By: tkchrist

tkchrist — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 00:39:11 -0800

Karate is so adorable.

By: bardic

bardic — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 00:39:15 -0800

If she's so tough, why isn't High-Kick Girl allowed to wear pants? Evar?

By: PostIronyIsNotaMyth

PostIronyIsNotaMyth — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 01:05:00 -0800

Oh look, an advertisement.

By: dirty lies

dirty lies — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 01:06:33 -0800

She is wearing pants. She is wearing pants so fast the normal eye can not see them.

By: Ambrosia Voyeur

Ambrosia Voyeur — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 01:07:16 -0800

1. That second video link is bollocks. 2. She doesn't take on the baseball guy, like, at all. 3. Her father huh? Is that spoken in the third video link or what? From the movie synopsis, no father mentioned. 4. Not allowed to wear pants? Pants aren't for tough people, miniskirts are. Bare knees, chilly calves, faster kicks, maybe. Clearly none of you understand High Kick Girl like I do.

By: dirty lies

dirty lies — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 01:08:56 -0800

Hey tkchrist, if one practices shin kicks long enough to be able to break baseball bats, does it still hurts when you hit the corner of the bed with your shin in the dark?

By: tkchrist

tkchrist — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 01:36:18 -0800

Hey tkchrist, if one practices shin kicks long enough to be able to break baseball bats, does it still hurts when you hit the corner of the bed with your shin in the dark?. All the Enshin Karate guys used to do those Louisville Slugger breaks. I was there when Sensei Vernon Owens broke three (or four?) at the same time for one his dan (second or third?) testings. When he missed the third one and had to psych himself back up you could tell when he finally went through it that that fucker hurt. Even Koncho (the grand master) harrumphed slightly. But Vernon being a tank just went on with the rest of test. I used to do breaks back in the day. It's pretty silly. It's ALL a psychological thing. To answer you. My shins got pretty tough when I was doing the Thai boxing three or four times per week hitting Thai pads and hard heavy bags for three of four years. You don't need to do any of that ridiculous "iron shirt" hitting your shins with sticks and rubbing dit-da-jow hardening crap. All you need to do is hit bags and pads allot with your shins and they will harden up. After a while you forget. And yeah. You clack shins with a noobie during a drill. You're not even wearing shin guards. And still this poor new kid is on the floor clutching their shins and you think "Did I hit something? What?". Unfortunately it wears off when you don't train as much (at least you HOPE it does - you don't want to kill those nerves permanently). And you get a painful reminder. When those nerves and blood vessels get deadened you can take real damage and not know it. I've seen guys with severe staph infections on their shins - the tissue rotting - and they didn't feel it.

By: gen

gen — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 01:45:11 -0800

3. Her father huh? Is that spoken in the third video link or what? In the profile of her in her dojo (the TV show one) her father is mentioned as her teacher. The 30-year old assistant director that she beats up on was promised "anything" from her if he were to beat her, with her father's verbal permission. That of course did not happen.

By: Gordion Knott

Gordion Knott — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 02:15:06 -0800

The punches look like standard karate fare. Slow, with tensed muscles, useless in a boxing match or MMA brawl. Punches effective for breaking boards, but little else. As Bruce Lee says in "Enter the Dragon," "Boards don't hit back." But the shin kicks--definitely Muay Thai potential here. I hope she dumps the showy karate stuff and learns some kick boxing and Muay Thai.

By: mattoxic

mattoxic — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 02:59:52 -0800

Years ago my first job was as a store-person for a Sheraton Hotel. The loading dock where I worked was off a city back lane, and a rather dingy spot. During the late shift, a Vietnamese hotel steward (kitchen hand) used to come down to empty the trash into the larger garbage compacter on the dock and take the opportunity for a smoke. I used to join him for a cigarette and a chat. One night we were leaning against the loading dock smoking and chatting away as one does, when a couple of large skinheads turned into the alleyway. They spied my friend, and yelled "FUCKING SLOPE" and ran to attack. My friend stood his ground and- I shit you not- waited for the first attacker to be in range then jumped backwards, flat footed onto the loading dock and kicked the skinhead HARD in the head with his steal capped boots. The guy went down, my friend jumped off the dock and gave him another good kick before letting him get up and run away with his mate. I was left standing there, cigarette in mouth - gobsmacked. My friend turned to me and said calmly 'Soccer practice.' That's my one brush with marshal arts.

By: fearfulsymmetry

fearfulsymmetry — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 04:09:39 -0800

Female Japanese schoolgirl martial artists have to wear their school uniform in combat, it's the law.

By: zengargoyle

zengargoyle — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 04:17:51 -0800

Pinkku!

By: DU

DU — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 04:43:33 -0800

Oh good, another completely sexism-free post and thread on MetaFilter!

By: MegoSteve

MegoSteve — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 05:08:44 -0800

I like JeeJa Yanin better.

By: Joe Beese

Joe Beese — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 05:28:06 -0800

I hope she dumps the showy karate stuff and learns some kick boxing and Muay Thai. I hope she becomes a crimefighter. While still wearing the skirt, of course.

By: From Bklyn

From Bklyn — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 06:11:52 -0800

MegoSteve, that is a fantastic trailer; Granted, she's not in a school-girl uniform but - It looks like a movie you would watch for the stunts, not that it's a girl in a school-girl uniform kicking people. (Like those mid-career Jackie Chan movies or Jet-Li in "Once Upon a Time in China" that are as much about fighting as they are the spectacle of people doing extraordinary things.) I'll totally look for it - as an added bonus, there's the title!

By: Pastabagel

Pastabagel — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 06:34:10 -0800

Well, her father is a master. She's the student. That said, she'd school any of us I'm sure. posted by gen at 3:23 AM on January 8 No. she wouldn't. Some of us prefer to do our best work at 3:00am with an amp of sodium pentothal and a length of rope. Others prefer to work from 2000 yards away with quality German optics and higher quality Austrian iron. Winning is in the planning.

By: mrmojoflying

mrmojoflying — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 06:45:39 -0800

at least you HOPE it does - you don't want to kill those nerves permanently Unfortunately, in my case it didn't.

By: LordSludge

LordSludge — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 07:32:02 -0800

The 30-year old assistant director that she beats up on was promised "anything" from her if he were to beat her, with her father's verbal permission. Okay, that's damn creepy right there. I'd love to take this challenge, win, and then be like "um, yeah, I could really use some help folding all these socks..."

By: bonobothegreat

bonobothegreat — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 07:45:53 -0800

From the colour inside the break, that baseball bat looked like it was made of red cedar.

By: storybored

storybored — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 08:34:59 -0800

I would like to see her fight Hello Kitty.

By: PsychoKick

PsychoKick — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 09:08:46 -0800

But the shin kicks--definitely Muay Thai potential here. Her kicking is more likely based on Kyoukushin karate than Muay Thai. Doubly so given the "high kick" angle they're working with in the movie, which is something of a Kyoukushin trademark (novice sparring forbids punches to the head, so any fighters who reach high-level have likely ended up getting very good at delivering quick kicks to the head). I hope she dumps the showy karate stuff and learns some kick boxing and Muay Thai. Oh, let's drop the whole pretentious "style A is crap, style B RULES" internet tough-guy stuff. Kickboxing has its own share of impractical showy stuff as well (look up Muay Thai pre-fight rites and training forms; the movie Ong Bak has a decent demonstration of the latter), but no-one seems to mistake those for the techniques that are actually used in the ring. Likewise with karate; those "standard karate" punches and stances are for training and demonstration, not full contact competition. Heck, the first link even displays one of the more common full-contact competition karate stances.

By: aftermarketradio

aftermarketradio — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 09:21:41 -0800

Chun-Li?!!

By: happyroach

happyroach — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 09:25:34 -0800

Somehow I think we have the making of a new internet fetish; japanese schoolgirls booting people in the head. And I for one think it's less creepy than 99.999% of the other internet fetishes out there.

By: Mister_A

Mister_A — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 09:31:21 -0800

That kick wasn't that high...

By: Durn Bronzefist

Durn Bronzefist — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 09:36:31 -0800

No. she wouldn't. Some of us prefer to do our best work at 3:00am with an amp of sodium pentothal and a length of rope. Others prefer to work from 2000 yards away with quality German optics and higher quality Austrian iron. Winning is in the planning. posted by Pastabagel at 6:34 AM on January 8 [1 favorite +] [!] 1 user marked this as a favorite: ntartifex January 8, 2009 8:05 AM *adds ntartifex to "do not piss off" list*

By: grounded

grounded — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 09:57:24 -0800

Head-Kick Guy! No one called this sexist when it made the ether rounds last summer.

By: FritoKAL

FritoKAL — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 10:10:54 -0800

*sigh* I can kick that high. At 32, with a bad knee. So she's really -not- that special, just above-average flexible with a lot of stretching. Form-based martial arts like karate and TKD are -oodles- of fun, if you're the kind of person who enjoys them. So is board breaking, or any of the other breaking stunts that get done in tournaments and demonstrations. They're great cardio, they can give a lot of mental discipline, and most of all, like I said - oodles of fun. Useful in a fight? It depends. I've heard many times that what you really need in a fight more than anything else is the willingness to hurt another human being, and the willingness to ignore being hurt yourself. Everything else is just getting -better- at it. In that realm, sparring and the like does help - you learn to hit people, you learn to take punches, you sort of get numb to it - emotionally. Not physically. Could I take her in a fight? I have no idea, because I've never fought her. Sparring, probably not, I'm 32, with a bad knee. On the street, I'd really wonder why a cute asian girl is beating up random white chicks in America - but in a hypothetical dark future where I or she is some kind of evil bad guy and the other is some kind of costumed superhero (no skirts for me, thanks, we'll go with some cool cargo pants and a t-shirt and gloves, a la Captain Hammer) - it's really a different sort of fight. You fight dirty in a 'real' fight. You punch to the groin (it hurts on girls too), you bite, you pull hair (Because it hurts). You can't look at someone's martial arts and say if you could or could not take them in a fight any more than you can look at a dancer* and say it. It isn't enough information, and you're not really seeing how they fight, you're seeing how they dance. I can't dance worth a damn, I'm so-so- at forms/kata, but I'll be damned if I can't hold my own in a fight. They are three totally diferent things, with some skills that overlap.

By: Mister_A

Mister_A — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 11:08:04 -0800

A good dancer will really fuck you up, BTW.

By: mrmojoflying

mrmojoflying — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 11:13:46 -0800

A good dancer will really fuck you up, BTW. Yeaaahhhhh....

By: Durn Bronzefist

Durn Bronzefist — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 11:34:20 -0800

a cute asian girl is beating up random white chicks in America See, reality television shows are not intrinsically bad. They're just not written by FritoKAL.

By: LordSludge

LordSludge — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 11:36:28 -0800

A good dancer will really fuck you up, BTW. Yeaaahhhhh.... Or, rather...

By: grapefruitmoon

grapefruitmoon — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 12:01:44 -0800

MeTa.

By: Brandon Blatcher

Brandon Blatcher — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 12:41:25 -0800

Okay, that's damn creepy right there. Why? She clearly was toying with him and knew she could kick his ass and did.

By: owtytrof

owtytrof — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 12:55:17 -0800

Ed Gruberman has gone into hiding. Ok, so ooga_ booga already used the reference... I really wanted to type "Gruberman".

By: LordSludge

LordSludge — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 13:49:48 -0800

Why? She clearly was toying with him and knew she could kick his ass and did. It's not really about the risk of losing. The wager itself is creepy, for roughly the same reason that it would be if your dad offered your own teenaged sexuality up as a friggin *prize*.

By: PsychoKick

PsychoKick — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 14:16:21 -0800

It's not really about the risk of losing. The wager itself is creepy, for roughly the same reason that it would be if your dad offered your own teenaged sexuality up as a friggin *prize*. Of course the wager was creepy. That was the whole point. Creepy wagers are excellent ways to toy with people, which is what she and her dad were obviously doing.

By: Durn Bronzefist

Durn Bronzefist — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 14:55:14 -0800

By: milinar

milinar — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 15:13:51 -0800

She's not really that good...

By: PsychoKick

PsychoKick — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 16:55:01 -0800

I can kind of see it in samurai-movie style. Warrior encounters master and daughter on the road. Warrior makes inappropriate comments about daughter. Instead of mopping the forest floor with him, master tells warrior that he can have his daughter -- if he can defeat her. Warrior grins and prepares himself, and the daughter kicks his ass nine ways from Nagoya. Cool idea, though this situation is a bit different. It's more like "Warrior and daughter are about to have a public demonstration/duel. Daughter and master set a ludicrous wager at the last second that makes clear that warrior is going to get his ass kicked. It's too late for him to back out though, and he cowers in abject fear the entire time while getting his ass kicked." / I kinda feel sorry for the assistant director; I don't think that he expected this sort of occupational hazard in this line of work.

By: P.o.B.

P.o.B. — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 17:46:29 -0800

Chun-Li?!! No, more like Sakura.

By: tkchrist

tkchrist — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 19:01:10 -0800

You can't look at someone's martial arts and say if you could or could not take them in a fight Can't let this go unanswered. About 75% (out of my ass number) of the time you sure as hell can. I say this as former karate instructor. If I see somebody shadowboxing or doing forms I can judge them pretty well. If I see them hitting a bag, sparring, or free rolling? Golly. Almost. 100%. Unless they are having me on. If I see somebody doing extravagant kata moves as a regular part of their training? I'm confident I can take them most of the time. Unless they are huge or crazy athletic. Karate is awesome for a number of things. Fighting isn't really one of them. Self defense? Yeah. It's fine for the most common kinds of encounters. Chiefly heart disease. But real open rules ring fighting? Not without some serious augmentation. No open rules fighter in the world does Karate Kata, forms, hip chambered punches, or horse stances and the like to train for a serious fight. (Neither does any military and damn few Police forces outside of Japan). Even the guys who ARE karateka. Air punches, deep stances, air kicks. The average karate school still spends most of its time doing this solo standing in line stuff. Not saying it wont get you in good shape. It surely will. But it will not prepare you for fighting as efficiently as other forms of training. Karate in 90% of the schools I have seen are day care or self development. It is about as far removed from fighting as... as dancing. Of course a lot of dancing HAS martial roots, too. How you train DOES matter. There for in most cases style does matter.

By: P.o.B.

P.o.B. — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 22:31:26 -0800

Speaking of JCVD, has anybody seen JCVD?

By: IAmBroom

IAmBroom — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 19:43:07 -0800

DU, get a grip. She's hyped as "Lovely fighting japanese girl", costumed in fetishy clothing, and clearly being marketed as a "sex kitten with a whip". What next? Are you going to be offended if we make "ooh-la-la" comments about strippers & supermodels? This isn't a noble amateur athlete, pursuing their lonely craft in the purest of Greek Olympian models. This is a cute girl with an athletic skill, who's gaming on edginess (sexiness + youth + fighting) to make her career. It's no more sexist than to comment on Daniel Craig's abs.

By: UbuRoivas

UbuRoivas — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 00:14:13 -0800

I hope she becomes a crimefighter. Her name is Yoshimi she's a black belt in karate working for the city she has to discipline her body 'Cause she knows that it's demanding to defeat those evil machines I know she can beat them Oh Yoshimi, they don't believe me but you won't let those robots eat me Yoshimi, they don't believe me but you won't let those robots defeat me Those evil-natured robots they're programmed to destroy us she's gotta be strong to fight them so she's taking lots of vitamins 'Cause she knows that it'd be tragic if those evil robots win I know she can beat them

By: gen

gen — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 22:52:12 -0800

Full trailer for High Kick Girl.

By: Xere

Xere — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 23:01:56 -0800

Hmm, I've already seen this movie. And it was called Chocolate.