The way it was filmed?


Can anyone explain to me why the footage looks "fast" in this movie and many other martial arts films? I don't know how to describe what I mean very well. Are there more frames per second?

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Sometimes they speed up the film. Other times - especially in bright daylight action scenes they shoot it with a narrow camera shutter which makes the images ultra sharp in the way it moves on screen - like the battle scenes in Saving Private Ryan. Also most of Robocop 1987 was shot with a narrow camera shutter giving it a fast & sharp look.

A normal camera shutter is open 180 degrees and rotates as the film passes through the camera. When you close down the shutter so that it's only open 90, 45, 30 or 15 degrees the image requires more light to be exposed yet the outcome is that the image is exposed in the camera quicker which reduces the amount of regular motion blur - hence the sharper look which can also give it an unnatural fast appearance.

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