Wednesday, March 12, 2008

Chuck Norris Counted To Infinity - Twice

For me, the martial arts action star ranking goes Jean-Claude Van Damme - Chuck Norris - Stephen Seagal. I don't like Seagal at all; even when people make fun of him I don't find it particularly amusing. Chuck Norris is good in theory, and the Chuck Norris Facts, when they first came out, were hilarious. I respected Norris' reaction to them, and he seems like a pretty alright guy. I just don't enjoy his movies that much. He's does well at being the "tough good-guy", but doesn't have the personality to pull off some of the silliness of his roles. Van Damme, on the other hand, is just a ridiculous character. His movies are all entertaining because they are all pretty much the same - some even have the same actor playing different bad-guys. It seems like in every Jean Clause Van Damme movie three things occur: (1) he does a split - he has the ability and he's damn sure going to make sure that the audience knows it; (2) he does a spinning jump kick - same reason as (1), plus, if you're lucky, they'll show two or three slow motion replays; and (3) there is a convoluted explanation for his accent - he can't just be from Europe, he has to be raised by his French uncle in New Orleans or in a French monastery in Japan. It also helps that he's a bad actor but still pretends like he's not. Anyway, this is all actually a lead up to a story about Mr. Norris.

"Hollywood action star Chuck Norris has become a cult figure among the U.S. military in Iraq and an unlikely hero for some in Iraq's security forces."
An Iraqi policeman has been nick-named after the Norris.
"At an Iraqi police graduation ceremony in Fallujah, graduates called out for their "Chuck Norris" to pose with them for photos.

"Truthfully, I didn't know who he was. I asked the Americans, and they said he was a great fighter, and that's why they named me after him. They showed me a video, and it's true, he's a great fighter" said police trainer Mohammed Rasheed.

With his handle-bar moustache, Rasheed has a vague resemblance to Norris."

""I've seen his videos, he's a hero. He saves the city, he protects women and children and he fights crime wherever it is. We should all be like Chuck Norris," Khaled Hussein said."

Just wait till they see Will Smith take on an entire alien attack, or Governor Arnold kill 80 men without being shot once (even when the bad-guys are hiding behind stuff and he's just standing out in the open). Then who's going to mess with us?

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