Swat Fu.

I don't like it. Not a fan.

("Swat fu" was coined by the one, the only Joe Bob Briggs. No breasts. Gratuitous hilarity. Verbal fu. Joe Bob says check it out.)

Even though Crouching Tiger, Hidden Wombat was a decent, sometimes lyrical movie, it was still mostly about swat fu. So I didn't like it.

I saw Daredevil recently, which I did like a lot, but as the room darkened for the movie to start, I was dreading the swat fu moments in the movie. Through some spooky synchronicity, or just taking into account recent movie trends, many of the previews were about upcoming swat fu flicks. Many of the swat fu releases this summer seem to be a celebration of the newfound brotherhood between the Black and Asian communities resulting from the riots after the Rodney King trial. I noted swat fu fans are going to have a slaphappy summer.

But one was about a monk who must find a new keeper for the ancient scroll he guards (a scroll containing what or for which religion, they did not say), entitled, Bulletproof Monk. Evidently the new Golden Child scroll guardian is a California surfer dude. (I'll pause here to let you work through the myriad reactions I had to that bit of news. Originally, I was going to belabor some of them, but figured it would be more fun for you if you did it yourself. Ok, just one: "Enlightenment is bitchin'!") Anyway, after one of those flying maneuvers that senseis are evidently teaching these days, the Monk tells the Dude that there is no gravity if you really believe there's no gravity.

At that point, I wondered how many jackass-susceptible kids are going to face shattered shins sometime in their life if they really believe swat fu can make you defy gravity. My generation was stricken by many children jumping off the roof of their house with nothing but a sheet for a parachute. There was a brief respite from that as kids switched to umbrellas when Disney broadcast Mary Poppins on Wonderful World of Disney. But jumping without a sheet or an umbrella is just ... well, stupid.

I'm happy to report that Daredevil does not have too much gratuitous swat fu in it at all. It has only what's needed to move the plot along - a welcome welcome relief on my part, I'll tell ya. As a matter of fact, the whole movie is like that. No extra stuff, no filler, just story, stuff you need to know for later, things are tied up nicely. This movie is not for the very young, though - say 8 or 9 or under, depending on their maturity level for handling violence. A person is run through with a sword, pretty graphically, and hoisted up on it. It made me flinch. Little ones might barf or cry and need therapy later in life for a reason they cannot put their finger on. Older ones will go "COOOOOOOL" like the boys with their father behind me did. It joins the first Superman, the first Batman, and Spiderman as one of the few great comic book hero flicks. Go.