Touch of Death - in Contemporary Western Pop Culture

In Contemporary Western Pop Culture

"Dim mak" has become a kind of "camp" pop culture item which is recognized also outside of the genre of Wuxia or kung fu films. For example, in Thomas Pynchon's Novel Vineland, one of the protagonists uses the "Quivering Palm Death Touch", which kills the opponent one year after it is used. In the 1977 series Quincy, M.E., an episode entitled Touch of Death features a martial arts movie star whose mysterious death is found to be a result of a dim mak attack against him, ten days earlier. Dan Brown's novel Inferno sees a character incapacitating a guard by putting pressure on his wrist, explaining the technique as "Dim Mak".

Quentin Tarantino referenced the "Five Point Palm Exploding Heart Technique" in his movie Kill Bill Vol. 2 (2004). The 2008 animated Wuxia parody Kung Fu Panda depicts a "Wuxi Finger Hold", in which holding an opponent by one finger produces an enormous shockwave of energy. In The Simpsons episode "When Flanders Failed", Bart repeatedly threatens Lisa with the 'touch of death' to get her to do things for him, after playing an arcade game of the same name and joining a Karate school.

Californian metal band Five Finger Death Punch is supposedly named after this technique.

Read more about this topic:  Touch Of Death

Famous quotes containing the words pop culture, contemporary, western, pop and/or culture:

    There is no comparing the brutality and cynicism of today’s pop culture with that of forty years ago: from High Noon to Robocop is a long descent.
    Charles Krauthammer (b. 1950)

    The shift from the perception of the child as innocent to the perception of the child as competent has greatly increased the demands on contemporary children for maturity, for participating in competitive sports, for early academic achievement, and for protecting themselves against adults who might do them harm. While children might be able to cope with any one of those demands taken singly, taken together they often exceed children’s adaptive capacity.
    David Elkind (20th century)

    Practically everyone now bemoans Western man’s sense of alienation, lack of community, and inability to find ways of organizing society for human ends. We have reached the end of the road that is built on the set of traits held out for male identity—advance at any cost, pay any price, drive out all competitors, and kill them if necessary.
    Jean Baker Miller (20th century)

    Every man has been brought up with the idea that decent women don’t pop in and out of bed; he has always been told by his mother that “nice girls don’t.” He finds, of course, when he gets older that this may be untrue—but only in a certain section of society.
    Barbara Cartland (b. 1901)

    The problem of culture is seldom grasped correctly. The goal of a culture is not the greatest possible happiness of a people, nor is it the unhindered development of all their talents; instead, culture shows itself in the correct proportion of these developments. Its aim points beyond earthly happiness: the production of great works is the aim of culture.
    Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)