- Originally published on the Bartitsu.org site on Monday, 25th April 2011
Reviews are coming in for the new documentary (available here) and they are good …
Bartitsu: The Lost Martial Art of Sherlock Holmes reveals an exciting world of Victorian ruffians, garroting panics, militant suffragettes, and physical culture, as well as the colorful life of Bartitsu’s founder Edward Barton-Wright … music by the steampunk band Abney Park creates a moody atmosphere of Victorian danger, excitement, and heroics. Through interviews, re-enactment, archival images, and contemporary footage of neo-Bartitsu students, the “lost” martial art is brought to life.
– Rachel Klingberg: read the full review here.
Here’s the problem – what to do when you love a good punch up, but public brawling is incompatible with your image as an amenable, if damp-stained, man of letters? The answer is “Bartitsu,” a nineteenth-century martial art developed specifically to transform the upright classes into killing machines, and whose unusual history has been revealed in an excellent new documentary …
– Andrew McConnell Stott: read the full review here.
Sleek and engaging … fascinating … a superbly watchable piece of martial arts history …
– Bullshido.net martial arts movie reviews: read the full review here.