If you haven't heard, Marvel's latest film 'Black Panther' is currently tearing up the box office, and we are proud to say we contributed a little bit to arguably the best Marvel movie ever.
If you've watched the movie, you'll agree that the fight scenes are phenomenal.That is because the cast of the film got a little inspiration from a style of martial arts that Malaysia is famous for.
Lead actor Chadwick Boseman, who plays the titular character, told Singapore's The Straits Times that while training for the film, they came across the silat harimau.
“A lot of thought went into the choreography, which incorporates capoeira (Brazil), Dambe boxing (West Africa), Senegalese wrestling, Zulu stick-fighting and mixtures of Asian styles like muay thai and harimau silat [sic], to create the fictional heritage of Wakanda,” he was quoted as saying.
In fact, the 41-year-old star posted a clip of him practicing a silat-style move on his Instagram page last May:
A native of the Malay Archipelago, silat harimau is just one among hundreds of silat syles.
The silat harimau, which is also known as the silat kucing, is said to mimic the movements of a tiger with its quick, ground hugging-stance.
According to legends, the style was specifically developed to gain advantage on wet and slippery surfaces where upright stances are impractical.
Not only that, the style is unbelievably deceptive and unsuspecting opponents are usually taken down pretty quickly if they weren't paying attention, making the silat harimau the most aggressive and dangerous style of Minang martial art.
Well, judging by how awesome the fight scenes are in 'Black Panther', we would say they made the right choice.