The French and Jackie Chan

Jackie Chan's films became popular because he would do real stunts. Rather than mimic Bruce Lee style kung fu where martial arts would be taken somewhat seriously, Chan used a more Buster Keaton style, where martials were used as humor and cleverness rather than danger.

Chan has had few imitators, but now they are movies coming out. In 2003, a movie called Ong-Bak came out. Tony Jaa was the lead. The story was allegedly weak, though the stunts were exciting enough.

More recently, District B-13 has come out from Luc Besson, the director that brought you The Fifth Element (I think he produces, not directs). There's also been a video of this Russian guy running around that was in the top 100 Google videos.

The name of this new style of running and jumping is called le parkour whose English "translation" is "urban running". It typically features a guy running on rooftops jumping around. Here's one that was used in a BBC commercial.



By the name, you know it's French. (I keep think of "Le Tony Parkour", but this would only be modestly funny if you know about basketball, and the San Antonio Spurs in particular).