The Way of the Warrior

The Way of the Warrior is a British documentary series on Asian martial arts, broadcast by the BBC in 1983. It consists of a single series of eight episodes, aired weekly from 11 May to 29 June 1983. Each episode is devoted to one martial art, in one case to a pair of arts, and carries a subtitle describing its "way". The opening episode, The New Way, belongs to Shorinji kempo, the second, The Indian Way, to the Indian kalaripayattu, shortened to Kalari in the title. The third episode, The Sporting Way, combines aikido and kendo, the fourth, The Soft Way, presents tai chi, and the fifth, The Filipino Way, eskrima. The sixth, The Way of the Empty Hand, deals with karate, the seventh, The Hard Way, with kung-fu, and the final one, The Samurai Way, aired on 29 June 1983, with iaijutsu. The series thus covers the martial arts of Japan, India, China and the Philippines and gives each of them its own episode, with only aikido and kendo sharing one. We have not been able to document in our sources the director's name or the names of the schools and teachers who appear in the episodes.

Martial arts in this work

Fact and fiction

Although Japan has the largest share in the series, it is not a programme only about Japanese martial arts. Of the nine arts to which the eight episodes are devoted, five are Japanese: Shorinji kempo, aikido, kendo, karate and iaijutsu. The remaining episodes belong to the Indian kalaripayattu, the Chinese tai chi and kung-fu and the Filipino eskrima. The episode subtitles work with the motif of the way and give each art its own designation: tai chi is the soft way, kung-fu the hard way, karate the way of the empty hand and iaijutsu the way of the samurai.

Details

Status

Completed

Seasons

1

Episodes

8

First published / aired

BBC