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RE:WIRED 2021: John Cho on Cowboy Bebop and Martial Arts

Actor John Cho talks about his training as Spike in Netflix’s “Cowboy Bebop” and one particularly tricky sequence.

Released on 11/10/2021

Transcript

Was there a particular sort of martial arts trick

or move you had to learn that you had to do

like a thousand times?

Is there anything that was, like, a little tough for you to,

to wrap your head around?

It was all easy.

No.

The most difficult sequence for me was the wooden dummy

sequence in episode one,

partially because,

we couldn't really hide with a stunt man in that.

In that one. So-

Do you wanna explain it a little bit

so that people know what you're talking about?

It's Wing Chun and he's practicing his punches

and blocks on a dummy, a martial arts dummy,

which it's just like a, it looks like a tree trunk with,

with wooden branches sticking out

and they're meant to be arms and legs.

And so it's a practice mode

and so he's getting a workout on

and that was a tough sequence to memorize.

And it's an extremely intricate discipline. Yeah.

Very interesting. It looked like you were

working out the dummy, not the other way around.

Thank you, my man.

Yeah, you kicked some ass.

[upbeat electronic music]