Lorena Abreu, a professional parkour athlete and stuntwoman, judges how real parkour stunts for film and TV are. She thinks that the ninja space guys are doing mostly safety vaults and speed vaults and that Fennec is doing mostly kong vaults.
Summary – Parkour Scenes From Movies And TV
I would not recommend swan-diving off of a building chest-first unless you were competing in a belly-flop competition and landing in a pool, on some water. Instead, I would do a turn vault and climb down.
Nobody likes getting yelled at, “hardcore parkour!” in the streets while we’re training, but we go one at a time and plan a run by connecting movements that we want to do.
In terms of parkour realism, I’d rate this scene from “Alice in Borderland” a 2. The technique was super legit in her takeoff, but the distance she jumped was not.
Parkour jumps are done by hanging onto the top of the wall or grabbing onto the sides and crimping it, and you always want to go feetfirst. Craig’s run-up for the jump was excellent, and he didn’t take stutter steps.
Sébastien’s character has a more tight, compact air form in the middle of his jumps, whereas Craig’s body is more extended and a little bit less in control. In parkour, you tuck into a ball and extend your feet forwards for the landing.
Beautiful parkour roll. You can take some gnarly height drops if you can roll correctly.
In parkour, you want to jump off the ball of your foot, and send your arms in the direction of what you’re jumping at. You can practice parkour on grass, and walls that are more or less near other walls.
In terms of the skills he’s practicing in this montage, it’s realistic and expected of someone who is just starting to do parkour. He did a lazy vault over the car, and a full-speed running jump from one level of a parking garage.
Without the last scene, I would rate this a 9 out of 10 for realism. The shoes aren’t very detailed, but you can do parkour in any shoes, and you should train barefoot frequently to refine your technique.
Parkour is efficient and power movements, whereas freerunning is nonefficient and style-oriented. The Yamakasi use their legs a lot when scaling buildings, and their arms are mostly lax when taking height drops.
In what films has parkour been featured?
Jackie Chan’s moves in these old movies could be considered parkour, because he was technically doing it before anyone coined the term parkour. He did plyos, wall runs, speed vaults and laches, which are all moves that fit into the modern toolbox of parkour moves.
David Belle did a move that you don’t usually see in real life, where he ran on the wall to get to the other side or around some bad guys.
I love the chase-down-the-stairway scene, where David Belle does a lot of parkour in a closed and cramped space. His speed vault and turn vault to bound and plyo down the stairs is 100% realistic, and his roof gap is classic Yamakasi.
My favorite parkour scene from film or TV is the underbar in District B13.