By Jessica Zafra (The Philippine Star) Updated March 19, 2010 12:00 AM

Source: www.philstar.com

From one perspective, our great cultural moment may have occurred 11 minutes and 15 seconds into the Matt Damon action movie The Bourne Identity. Like many great cultural moments it passed without our noticing.

The amnesiac Jason Bourne is trying to get some sleep on a park bench when he is accosted by two guards. One of them pokes him with a nightstick. Even before he’s aware of what he’s doing, Bourne swiftly, efficiently dispatches the two men. Matt Damon has just demonstrated a fighting technique that is sometimes called Kali, sometimes Arnis, but is indubitably one of the Filipino Martial Arts (FMA).

Filipino martial arts had appeared in Hollywood movies before, but this was by far their biggest exposure. Before Jason Bourne went on to destroy scores of opponents in three global blockbusters, Filipino martial arts practitioners had commanded the respect of fighters from Hollywood to Russia. It’s in the Philippines that they get little recognition. You did know that Bruce Lee’s collaborator Dan Inosanto is Filipino, didn’t you? And that top Hollywood fight choreographer Jeff Imada, who trained Matt Damon in FMA, was a student of Inosanto? Or that the chief instructor of Spetsnaz, Russian special forces in Moscow, is a Filipino named Mumbakki Foronda?

You didn’t? Then you really need to see a documentary called The Bladed Hand. When it’s finished, that is. The Bladed Hand is a film by Jay Ignacio, whose former professions include guitarist of the band DaPulis, Music Production teacher at De La Salle-CSB, chef for a catering company, but never filmmaker, though he trained as a producer at Probe Productions in 1997.   “My background is in Okinawan Karate, but I’ve always been a fan of martial arts in general, thanks to the Bruce Lee movies that got me started,” Jay says. “I became aware that FMA had been in use in Hollywood action films, though they were not touted as FMA because they were mixed in with different styles like Karate, Kung Fu and Mande Muda. I also learned that the fight choreographers were Filipino or Asian-Americans who were trained by Dan Inosanto.”

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