THE ART OF SELF-DEFENSE

Name: THE ART OF SELF-DEFENSE
Item: THE ART OF SELF-DEFENSE
Author: Aaron Minguez

"Self Defense Turns Sinister"

Family Content: -3 Excessive sex, violence, immorality, and/or worldview problems. (Sometimes excessive content such as violence is in otherwise redemptive movies.)

Entertainment Quality:

	None	Light	Moderate	Heavy
Language
Violence
Sex
Nudity

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What You Need To Know:

THE ART OF SELF-DEFENSE tells the story of Casey Davies, an articulate, nerdy accountant who struggles with fear and timidity. After he’s mugged by a motorcycle gang, he sets out on a mission to overcome his fears and learn to protect himself. He starts the process of buying a gun, but during the waiting period, he discovers a karate dojo nearby. After Casey observes a class, the Sensei welcomes Casey into the dojo and invites him to a free class the following day. Casey takes advantage of the Sensei’s offer and embarks on a journey to conquer his fears and bolster his strength. Casey blossoms under the Sensei’s firm, even-handed teaching style, and his confidence builds. As Casey become more entangled with the dojo, he realizes things are not what they seem. Casey’s self-defense journey takes a sinister turn from which he can never return.

THE ART OF SELF-DEFENSE operates from a humanist perspective where the ends justify the means. The movie includes foul language, violence, explicit nudity, some lewd content, and homosexual innuendo. THE ART OF SELF-DEFENSE is excessively immoral and unacceptable.

Content:

(HH, Ho, L, VV, SS, NNN, AA, MMM):

Dominant Worldview and Other Worldview Content/Elements:

Strong humanist worldview with the ends just the means plus some homosexual references and implications

Foul Language:

Seven obscenities (mostly “f” words), two strong profanities, and man urinates in parking garage with back turned from camera

Violence:

Strong violence includes a mugging scene, man breaks another man’s elbow with some blood, a man kicks another man’s face, and blood and a tooth comes out, man shoots gun at girl, man beats another man to death, man beats up a drunk man, man shoots a man, man sends dog to kill a man with some blood, and a character commits suicide by hanging

Sex:

Man begins to abuse himself with nude magazine photo, and some verbal sexual references

Nudity:

Quick image of full frontal male nudity, magazine page shows several sets of bare female breasts, full back male nudity when man takes off his clothes after sparring in dojo

Alcohol Use:

Man drinks hard liquor straight out of the bottle in one scene, and a drunken man is beaten up

Smoking and/or Drug Use and Abuse:

No smoking or drugs; and,

Miscellaneous Immorality:

Lying, revenge, moral relativism, and blackmail.

More Detail:

THE ART OF SELF-DEFENSE portrays the story of Casey Davies, an articulate, nerdy account auditor, who struggles with fear and timidity in general. After he is mugged by a motorcycle gang and ends up in the hospital, he sets out on a mission to overcome his fears and learn to protect himself. He starts the process of buying a gun, but during the waiting period, he discovers a karate dojo nearby.

After observing a class, the Sensei welcomes Casey into the dojo and invites him to a free class the following day. Casey takes advantage of the Sensei’s offer and embarks on a journey to conquer his fears and bolster his strength. Casey blossoms under the Sensei’s firm yet even-handed teaching style, and his confidence builds. The Sensei invites Casey to go further by encouraging him to come to the night class where the fighting is more intense. When the Sensei discovers that Casey has accounting skills, he invites him to work for him part-time. As Casey become more entangled with the Sensei and his dojo, he realizes that the Sensei is not all that he appears and discovers his dark, hidden secrets in the bowels of the off-limits equipment room. Casey’s focus on self-defense takes a sinister turn from which he can never return.

THE ART OF SELF-DEFENSE operates from a humanist perspective where the ends justify the means. The characters tend to be flat during conversational interaction as opposed to when sparring in the dojo. The movie contains some strong foul language in French and English. It also has some intense violence, including a mugging scene, bones being broken, gunshots, blood in several scenes, murder, and suicide. In addition, there are several scenes of explicit nudity along with some sexual content. Another scene in the dojo shows a seated female adult instructor wrapping her legs around a seated male child student demonstrating a martial arts technique that appears inappropriate. There were a few scenes that were implicitly favorable to homosexual tendencies, such as two men with underwear only practicing a hold with one man holding another on his back in the locker room, and men massaging each other after a practice session. Finally, there’s a disturbing scene of a deceased man being burned in a secret crematorium. THE ART OF SELF-DEFENSE is excessively immoral and unacceptable.

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Quality:

- Content: +2

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