The 'Black Panther' Cast Turns To Malaysia's 'Silat Harimau' For Awesome Fight Scenes

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:

“The purpose of training is to tighten up the slack, toughen the body, and polish the spirit.” - Morihei Ueshiba #blackpanther #bts #fma #sanucesryu ?: @realaddison ??: @marresecrump

A post shared by Chadwick Boseman (@chadwickboseman) on May 3, 2017 at 6:25pm PDT

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.