Parkour - Popular Culture

Popular Culture

There have been a few documentaries about parkour on major television networks. Jump London is a 2003 documentary which explains some of the background to parkour and culminated with Sébastien Foucan, Johann Vigroux, and Jérôme Ben Aoues demonstrating their parkour skills. Jump London was followed by Jump Britain in 2005, which featured Foucan and Ben Aoeus. My Playground, a documentary film by Kaspar Astrup Schröder, explores the way parkour and freerunning are changing the perception of urban space and how the spaces and buildings they are moving on are changing them. The Australian TV program 60 Minutes broadcast a segment about parkour on 16 September 2007, which featured Foucan and Stephane Vigroux.

There have also been a number of films to feature elements of parkour; after including parkour practitioners in a chase sequence in the film Taxi 2, French director/producer Luc Besson produced a feature film, Yamakasi, featuring members of the original Yamakasi group. In 2004, Besson wrote Banlieue 13, another feature film involving advanced chase sequences, starring David Belle and Cyril Raffaelli; English-dubbed and -subtitled versions were released in 2006 as District B-13 in North America and the UK. The film Casino Royale features Sébastien Foucan in a chase taking place early in the movie. Casino Royale's release sparked a renewed media interest in parkour and related disciplines and a large amount of recent mainstream parkour coverage dates to around Casino Royale's release. Along with The Bourne Ultimatum, Casino Royale is credited with starting a new wave of parkour-inspired stunts in Western film and television. Parkour practitioners also feature prominently in the film Breaking and Entering, in which two of the characters climb buildings and run over rooftops to burgle an office in Kings Cross, London. Parkour was also involved in the film Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time. David Belle was hired as choreographer for some scenes in the film and appears in the DVD and Blu-ray featurettes. Most of Akshay Kumar's ads for 'Thums Up' brand feature him jumping and climbing around buildings and vehicles. Aamir Khan learned parkour for his role in the 2011 movie Dhoom 3. The Uncharted series allows Nate to jump, swim, grab and move along ledges, climb and swing from ropes, and perform other parkour actions that allow players to survive many challenges.

The webcomic Schlock Mercenary makes frequent reference to "Parkata Urbatsu" which is said to have grown "out of the ancient disciplines of parkour, urbobatics, and youtubing. It is a martial art that focuses on both pursuit and escape in developed environments, with an eye towards the aesthetic."

A number of video games include aspects of parkour as major gameplay elements. In the Assassin's Creed series of games, Altaïr, Ezio and Connor make heavy use of parkour-inspired movement, though it is named freerunning in the game. Crackdown and Crackdown 2 include an emphasis on gripping and vaulting from ledges and protruding objects, which are designed to make players feel fully in control of their own movement, and by extension fully in control of their environment. Tony Hawk's American Wasteland allows the character to use several movement techniques while not on the skateboard. In this game as well, parkour is referred to as freerunning. Mirror's Edge's core gameplay consists of moving around buildings and other obstacles, and made movement itself the goal. Tron Evolution's basic movements and combat were based on parkour and capoeira. Prince of Persia incorporated elements of parkour, which were important when creating the film.