David Mamet is a very busy writer, turning out plays and scripts by the carload, and despite holding firmly onto his own scripts, is willing to write the occasional screenplay for hire (“Hannibal,” for instance).  His own plays/screenplays are often intense and profane, with characters at the very edge of disaster.  But the conflicts are usually carried out vocally; it’s a bit of a surprise to find him the writer-director of “Redbelt,” about a courageous jiu-jitsu instructor who will not compromise his honor.  The movie includes several fights, some of which mix jiu-jitsu in the Brazilian style with other martial arts. Not surprising, since the story partly deals with the phenomenon of Mixed Martial Arts.  Some years ago, various experts in these fields began to wonder who was the better fighter, a boxer or a karate expert?  Someone skilled in savate ...

  When color movies first began to become common, they were mostly lavish period melodramas and outdoor adventures, eventually shading into Westerns. So it seems to be with high definition home video. Both HD DVD and Blu-Ray have so far mostly been applied to lavish effects movies, outdoor adventures and the like. This is entirely reasonable, as the process is high amenable to these sorts of things. Also, so far no one is rushing to issue black and white movies, however good, in high definition, probably because the format is immensely favorable to color, particularly blues, greens and yellows. We now are beginning to see more true reds; in the past, much of home video “red” was actually closer to a ruddy orange. But orange, too, is spectacular in home video. “House of Flying Daggers” is an entertaining martial arts romantic adventure, with more emphasis on romance and intrigue than on big, lively martial ...