- "Fair warning. I have mastered the lethal Japanese hand-to-hand combat art of Kara-te."
- ―Emmerich Voss[src]
Karate is a Japanese martial art.
History[]
Both Short Round and Wu Han knew karate.[1]
Nazi archaeologist Emmerich Voss was proficient in karate and warned his American counterpart Indiana Jones of such skill when they faced each other one-one-one in November 1937 in Iraq. Voss' excavation at the Ziggurat of Ur even had a dojo planned at the site but the idea was dropped when the budget couldn't sustain such an indulgence. The pair eventually came to blows on board Noah's Ark over Lake Hammar but Voss' discipline ultimately wasn't able to overcome Jones' typical reliance on his fists in such circumstances.[2]
Behind the scenes[]
Although Short Round and Wu Han, both Chinese, are stated to know karate in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom Sourcebook,[1] it may more likely have been intended to be a form of kung fu (from which karate was developed), which Short Round displays in the movie, the product being of an era where Japanese and Chinese cultural elements were commonly confused with each other.[3]
When performing Emmerich Voss for Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, Marios Gavrilis was relieved over finding out that he didn't need to be a "karate expert" like his character is, jokingly admitting that if such been the case, MachineGames wouldn't have been able to finish the video game, as he has a black belt in "trash talk", not karate. During production, there was a discussion among the creatives over how to correctly pronounce the martial art's name, with a Japanese art director advising them that the correct way was to stress the last syllable, which Gavrilis did as Voss.[4]
Appearances[]
Sources[]
- Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom: The Illustrated Screenplay
- Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom Sourcebook
