Elderly Martial Arts Master - Relationship With The Protege

Relationship With The Protege

Though the master is always the benevolent father-figure, he can be very strict when it comes to the training. He does not give any false hope to the protégé when it comes to training. He makes it very clear that in order to trained by him, the young man has to be unquestioningly obedient and be ready to bear the pain.

In the movie Bloodsport the teenage Frank Dux is treated by the Japanese master Shitoshi Tanaka in a very fatherly and affectionate manner in general, but the training in rigorous and harsh, and the master never gives any relief or comfort zone to Frank Dux. In the movie Kickboxer the hero played by Jean Claude Van Damme is made to kick the palm tree trunk with his bare shins, until he fractures his shin and drops to the ground in agony.

In Karate Kid, Mr. Miyagi makes Daniel LaRusso (Ralph Macchio) paint the fences and walls, and wipe the floors and the cars, with two specific arm-movements day after day, and only when Mr. Miyagi tests (by mock attacks) and finds that those movements have become spontaneous and unconscious reactions from Daniel, does he give the boy respite from that toil. It was then that Daniel too realizes, why after all his master had made him do that for days—in spite of him becoming tired, aching and fed-up—for those are actually blocking and parrying techniques, which his master by his experience, had ingrained into him without his being aware of it.

In many movies, the hero, after being wronged in some way by the rival gang or fighter, or after having his martial artist brother, or friend, maimed for life (or even killed) by the formidable and vicious fighter, seeks the master out himself with a resolution to take revenge. In such cases, the master is often unwilling at first, and may appear to be so just to test the seriousness and commitment of the protégé. But finally after a few days, he agrees to start training, after he feels the protégé has passed his test. The training imparted is typically harsh and rigorous right from day-one, and the master does not care if the hero has bruised and bloodied himself all over. He often administers medicine and pain-relief techniques, which are in many cases seen to be complimentary and associated skills that such masters possess along with fighting techniques—since oriental martial arts are also closely related and complimentary to traditional physio-therapy and healing systems. Yet, in other movies, the protégé does not really have to persuade or coax the master. The master is seen right from the beginning. He and the protégé get to know each other often by a random event.

In Bloodsport the teenage Frank Dux sees a Katana sword through the window of Shitoshi Tanaka's house, and in his teenage immaturity, decides to steal it with two of his friends. He is caught in the act, by the master and his son who was of the same age as Frank. But the master in gentle and kind to Frank, and instead of seeing that Frank is punished, decides to teach him a long term moral lesson—that such a sword can only be earned through merit, one cannot be a fighter by stealing it. He talks to Frank's parents about the benefits of martial training and expresses and wish to make Frank his student. That became the beginning of a lasting and close father-son like relationship between Frank and Tanaka, and when Tanaka's son died as an young adult, it was Frank—by then grown into a mature young man, a soldier in the army and a worthy disciple—whom Tanaka saw as his deserving successor and inheritor of his martial legacy. The training phase of the movie thus ended with a quite ceremony in which tanaka was seen handing over his katana to Frank, signifying Frank's success in earning that sword, which he had tried to steal as a young boy, by merit and qualification. Frank, too shows the place his master occupies in his life by dedicating his victory in the underground Kumite to him.

In the second Karate Kid movie, there is a touching scene where Daniel Larusso is seen coming up to the bereaved and tearful Mr. Miyagi who was sitting alone facing the sea and grieving for his father who had just died. Daniel sits besides him and comforts the old Mr. Miyagi both with words and an arm on his shoulder.

In some movies, the ability of the master to make his protégé rise above the thought of "revenge", and to acquire the moral strength and fortitude to hold himself back from doing to the rival/ villain the same thing that the latter once had done to his brother or friend, even in the face of the strongest provocation, is shown very movingly and dramatically. In the Taekwondo classic Best of the Best, featuring some world-renowned martial-artists and a renowned martial arts grandmaster (Hee Il Cho, the coach of the American team Frank Couzo (James Earl Jones, prevents the American fighter in the last face-off of the competition, Tommy Lee Philip Rhee, to deal a fatal blow to his Korean opponent Dae Han Park (played by Philip's real-life brother Simon Rhee). Tommy had maimed his opponent and rendered him helpless by disabling his arms and legs, and the Korean could barely keep standing and taking a fighting stance. This was the same man who had cruelly killed his brother in sport combat years ago with excessive brutality. All Tommy had to do was to deal the final maiming or death blow with a powerful kich he had already braced himself for, as the scene of his brother's death flashed through his mind. But Coach Couzo's gentle but strong "No!" "No!" call from the sidelines helped Tommy avoid repeating the same crime for the sake of revenge and come down to the level of Dae Han. By doing so, he own over Dae Han with moral strength instead of and eye-for-an-eye revenge, which made Dae Han repent and approach Tommy to hail him and give him his own medal after the fight was over.

Although it is not necessarily a rule or always true, the elder martial arts master is almost always depicted as being childless and unmarried, the character having either never having had a wife or child or having lost both at some point in his life (Mr Miyagi is a prime example of this). This is often contrasted by the hero having either a very strained relationship with his parents, or often depicted as having no parents at all in the picture. This common ground between the characters, as well as the hard training the hero must go through at the hands of his master, lead to a very close bonding experience between the two, with the master assuming a fatherly role to his young protege, who is turn becomes a son to his master. Their mutual enemy, as well as the battles and issues they face throughout the film, help bring them together as the film progesses making the hero ultimately realize that, although his master pushed him hard, he is beloved in the end, having become a son. In turn, when viewing the hero triumph and succeed in his battle, the master experiences a fathers pride in his protege.