The Judo Worlds, the Bar in Grappling Events…
For quite some time, Fighting Films has produced the World, European, and Olympic championships for the sport of judo. Though all of the events have been incredibly well edited, shot, and produced, none can compare to the two most recent editions: The World Judo Championships 2007 from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and the 2006 Judo World Championships from Paris, France.
While previous events have included both the team, weight class, and open titles on a two DVD set, things changed in 2006 and 07 when the events were broken up and split onto three DVDs. The result was more than pleasing.
On a production level, these discs amaze. All three were shot using high definition cameras and for the first time, utilize a wide screen format. As indicated on the Fighting Films site, multiple cameras are used to not only capture the incredible action, but the feel of the event with reactions from both coaches and audience. The result is a set of films that do incredibly well at telling stories through editing while capturing the action better than ever - the widescreen format works incredibly well with the intensity and action of high level judo.
On to the events themselves - first, I’ll focus on the 2006 Judo World Team Championships. Whenever I watch this DVD, I get pumped. For those that have never seen these events, they are incredibly hard fought and exciting to see. Countries submit teams of players to compete against each other in an pyramid style tournament. Losers have a chance to fight for bronze in the repercharge and the focus is placed directly on teams - even though judo is largely an individual sport. Paris, France was the perfect choice for this event and the crowd is LOUD as the French team beats Japan and makes a strong push for Gold. Besides the electric feel, this is a great DVD to use to analyze the different styles from other countries. Russians v Georgians, French v Japanese, this DVD has it all.
The World Judo Championships of 2007 builds and surpasses on the merits of the Hyundai World Judo Championships 2005. With the Cairo event, there were incredible ippons, with some great performances by Van der Geest, Bryant, Fallon, and Suzuki. However, my only complaint is that all of the individual weight classes were put on one DVD. The 2007 edition has just as many great fights with Riner’s debut against Inoue, Camillo, Ryoko Tani, Derly, and Muneta putting on great shows! Even more impressive was the story telling element of the DVD. I loved how the weight class would follow the “path” of the favorites and then would break to the new favorite if the previous one were eliminated. The result is incredible - a grappling event that gets the viewer attached to the competitors (even if they were previously unknown) as they progress through the tournament. I found myself rooting for people and feeling bad when they didn’t make it. I thought this was great!!!
Who should pick these up? Obviously anyone who is a fan of judo, throwing arts, grappling, or just seeing high level competition. These competitors are on such a high athletic level - they should be seen to be believed.
Happy Training,
Kevin Howell
Tags: Judo Events, Video
