I had to take a moment to say “thank you” to an author who truly inspired me to start writing when I was a teenager. Until I read “Kill the Shogun” by Dale Furutani…I never thought it was possible to write fight choreography.
When most people think of books, they usually think of the typical school classics. Hemingway, Dickens, Harper Lee, and Shakespeare. I remember having to read “Old Yeller” and “Charlotte’s Web” and “Moby Dick” and honestly…I didn’t enjoy them.
I liked the premise of the stories, but to actually have to read through the pages, it felt like work more so than entertainment. But when I was fifteen, a freshman in high school…I don’t remember how I stumbled onto “Kill the Shogun” by Dale Furutani. But I can tell you it definitely changed my life.
You see, ever since I was a kid, it’s like I was born for combat. Don’t get me wrong, I never liked hurting people. But martial arts and all skilled systems of fighting just spoke to me. From the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, to the Power Rangers, and Street Fighter…when I saw the moves, I was captivated and entranced.
I wasn’t a fan of gore and blood, but the choreography of it. I thought it was amazing, no different from a synchronized dance from Michael Jackson or crew of break dancers.
In my daydreams as a child, I envisioned my own choreography and martial arts while fighting off bad guys and saving the damsel in distress. And I’m telling you, they were amazing. Sometimes I wished I could put on some kind of projector device so I could show my brothers what I dreamed. And it wasn’t until I read “Kill the Shogun” that my mind was blown.
“Kill the Shogun” by Dale Furutani is a story about a lone samurai in the aftermath of the pivotal Battle of Sekigahara around the early 1600s. This samurai, “Matsuyama Kaze” is hunted by rival clans and has to defend himself from enemies while fulfilling the dying wish of his lord’s wife to rescue a girl who was sold into prostitution.
In that book, I saw a samurai take on multiple foes with the sword. I saw choreography in the form of words. Dale Furutani taught me how to show off my dreams. To reveal an action sequence that maintained a flow and kept you in the heat of the moment while allowing you to see a well-structured, plausible, blow for blow fight.
I’m sure there are other classics that have good choreography. Like the “Three Musketeers” or “Treasure Island.” I even pored through King Arthur books and Greek Mythology in 6th grade, reading “The Odyssey” and “The Iliad” but none really detailed a well-choreographed fight quite like Dale Furutani did in “Kill the Shogun”.
I even e-mailed Furutani after I finished reading his book. I didn’t think he’d respond to this here high school freshman, but he did. He encouraged me to start writing and man…if you knew what kind of childhood I had, it really meant the world to have someone believe in me, to instill me with the confidence to go for what I wanted to do.
As I currently finish polishing my next novel, “The Perennial War of Paramours” that I wrote back in 2017, I can’t help but pat myself on the back a little. I’m just past the climax where my main character “Gladys” is finally confronting her evil older sister “Clarice” for killing their father.
It takes place on the 32nd floor of an executive building in Manhattan in the middle of the night after Gladys, a well-trained gun-toting killer, already took out a group of mercenaries who were pursuing her. This is that fight between Gladys and Clarice:
“The Perennial War of Paramours” – Excerpt from 09. Gladys Vandelay: A Daughter’s Rage
As soon as I stood up and peered down the hall, I locked eyes with her. We had the same blue eyes and blonde hair. However, in the peach-colored emergency lights, Clarice looked like a demon the way she wore that malicious grin with a Javelin anti-tank missile mounted on her shoulders.
She fired and I swear my entire life flashed before eyes. Like a deer caught in the headlights, I stood frozen in place almost as if I had accepted my death.
Elliot tackled me through the glass walls of a conference room as an explosion, the likes of which I never felt, ripped through the building. It wasn’t a direct impact, but I felt the heat. It burned, searing my pants into my calves. We were thrown across tables and chairs before rolling against a perimeter wall.
A section of the floor had collapsed. It was a twenty-foot drop into the next floor down. The building was on fire. Sparks flew from exposed wires. Debris, glass, and chunks of marble were scattered everywhere. And Elliot, Elliot had shielded me. His arms were wrapped around my head. The sprinkler system showered over us, but I knew it wouldn’t stop the blaze.
“We can make it. It’ll hurt but we can make it.” Elliot said, almost out of breath. He was referring to the twenty-foot drop down to the 31st floor.
“El…”
“Come on!” He said as he tried to lift me up. I wouldn’t let him.
“Go.” I told him.
“Gladys! This whole place is gonna come down!”
“THEN GO!”
“Not without you!”
I drew one of my P99s and aimed it at his forehead. “I’m not leaving!” I was deadly serious.
A loud pop came from an electrical unit, but Elliot didn’t flinch. He just stared at me with this growing fervor. Even with the gun aimed at him, he leaned over and grabbed me by the straps of my vest.
“Alright, you listen to me! I’m not leaving without you! I know you want to kill her! I understand! I really do. But you’re better than them! You’re better than you think you are! That’s why I believe in the Paramours! UNDERSTAND? GET UP!” He shouted as he yanked me to a stand.
“I won’t let you go down that path, Gladys. Now we’re gonna get the fuck out of here! And you and me, we’ll have each other. I love you and I know you love me even though you’re too stupid to admit it. That’s what separates us from them. They live for a cause. We live for the sake of each other. For people! For life!”
At that moment, I grabbed this stupid, idealistic man and kissed him with all the passion and affection he showed me. I really did love Elliot Chan.
I just hated Clarice even more.
It was slow motion the way I shoved him back. He fell into the open 31st floor with his arms spread out like a sparrow trying to catch the wind. I wish I was as great as he seemed to think I was. But I just couldn’t do it. I couldn’t forgive her.
With a pistol in both hands and tears stinging my eyes, I emerged into the hallway and sprinted as fast as I could for my father’s office. I was screaming some horrific war cry, fully aware that at any time I could drop dead from that TAC-50 I knew she still had in her possession.
Suddenly, something hard and metal battered the front of my shins. I tripped and hit the floor, knocking the wind out of me as I went sliding. Clarice had just thrown the Javelin launcher at me and I screamed from the pain.
“Shut up.” She said. “All that screaming and for what?”
I pushed up to my knees and aimed one of my pistols. She kicked it out of my hand. I spun with the momentum of her kick and aimed the second. Before I knew it, she caught my arm and slammed me to the floor in a brutal hip toss with half her weight landing down on me. She tried to break my wrist, but I let go of the pistol and wiggled free. Just as I got back up, she hit me with a spinning back heel kick that sent me sprawling over a desk.
Clarice leaped over the toppled desk and whipped out a blade, the same French dagger she used to kill my father, a misericord. All I had on me was a field knife. The exhaustion was setting in. My body was overheated and the flames had spread to the ceilings above. So, what happened next made no sense to anyone with a tactical mind. Goes to show, I didn’t plan on surviving. But if I was going down, I for damn sure was gonna take her with me.
I flung my field knife. She deflected it with her blade. And in that split second, I did this crazy mad dash to jump on her back like a velociraptor. And like a velociraptor, I sank my teeth into her neck, biting as hard as I could. She screamed and flailed her dagger. Finally, she had the wherewithal to smash back me into the wall, ramming me twice before I let go.
She turned and tried to drive to dagger into my stomach. I sidestepped and the blade got stuck in the wall. From there, we went at it.
It wasn’t a catfight. It was an all-out, bare-knuckle brawl. She clobbered me with blows that might as well have come from a bat. I used my tai chi to redirect her strikes. And whenever I could, I’d grab the back of her head and send her face-first into a desk or some hard surface.
Our fight spilled from conference rooms, to the bathroom, and back out into the hallways. The hatred was mutual. I saw it in her eyes and I know she saw it in mine. The scorching heat didn’t faze us for an instant. Every time we separated, we’d pounce at each other regardless of the crackling wires or collapsing walls. Hair was pulled. Ears were torn. Two of my molars were dislodged and I managed to dislocate her left elbow.
It wasn’t until I took her to the ground and held her in a triangle choke that the tide of the battle turned. She used her superior strength, shouting with all her might as she picked up my entire body. She meant to slam me back down, but before she could, I slipped out of the hold, hooked my arm around her head, and smashed her face-first into the tile floor in a devastating DDT.
Clarice’s forehead was busted open and the blood spilled from her bangs like syrup. She started to stagger off, but I grabbed her ankle. She retaliated with a stomp to my face that ended up breaking my nose. I remember whimpering something fierce as my eyes welled with tears.
I watched as she staggered towards the elevator doors and willed them open with her bare hands. The lift wasn’t there, but she jumped onto the cable wires and slid down. I cracked my nose back into place and followed.
Stage In The Sky 