What is it that makes up a typical martial arts movie? I joined a team of researchers who have gone to great lengths to identify each of the mandatory components.

When I say I went to great lengths, I mean to say that I actually sat through about 15 minutes of Mortal Kombat, the ‘block buster’ movie. Most writers won’t make this kind of sacrifice for their readers, but then this is the high level of integrity that you’ve come to expect from The Doll Sweating Hour.

Even though I was fortunate enough to avoid the first 90 minutes of the movie, I was still able to capture the essence of the plot in about two minutes (bottled, this essence would be called Le Ode de Scotch Whiskey). The screen play for this movie was adopted from a computer video game which is marketed toward pre-teenage kids who have a severe substance abuse problem. The movie follows the video game very closely.

So what are these elusive ingredients which, when combined, spell martial arts movie perfection.

1). Guttural growls and deep feral roars. As the villain enters the combat arena, he must thrust his muscle bound arms firmly into the air and roar. This is done in the braggadocio fashion of scripted "professional" wrestling. All show and no go. Little known to most members of western culture, each of the fighting shouts actually has an oriental translation. I have taken the time to translate these sacred oriental messages:

2). A token babe. Every martial arts movie must have an attractive young female who is abducted and verbally abused by the villain. The abuse is always heaped on just before the hero dispatches the villain, so that we in the audience can rationalize why the villain needed to be dispatched so violently.

"Gee, I don’t know. The villain just seems a little misguided. Must come from a broken family. Perhaps with a little guidance and counseling he could . . . Did you see that?!? That villain just made fun of her!!! Kill the heretic! That villain really deserves to have each eye burned out with a soldering iron! I can’t wait till the hero kills him dramatically!"

The criteria for selecting the actress is that she must be young, strong willed, ineffectual, sexually mature, have exaggerated breasts, an 11 inch waist, and possess an IQ equivalent to that of a broken table lamp. She will quarrel with the our heroic martial arts stud constantly before the surprise abduction. In Mortal Kombat, our token babe is abducted in a designer action bicycle suit with combat boots, but when we see her tied up in the following scene, she is wearing a leather miniskirt.

Congress has funded a Babe Oversight Committee to determine why this is. A meager $200 billion dollars was the appropriation. After much debate and several tons of alcohol were consumed, several theories emerged. One theory which is popular with several senators in the committee is that the villain already had the miniskirt in his own wardrobe.

3). Fast paced music. During the fight scenes, the sound track must consist of very fast paced industrial music. It always seems mixed just a little too loud so as to induce grievous mental confusion which adds excitement to the otherwise mundane violent actions of the kombatants.

I'm sorry, but I must digress at this point. Since when does the word 'combat' contain the letter "K"? About three miles from my home, there is a gas station called ‘Kountry Korner’. At first, I thought that the station was owned by someone whose mother and father were conveniently brother and sister as well. This is a common assumption where I live. The zip code is E-I-E-I-O. Many of the people in this area have worked very hard all of their life just to make a dollar, and today they are very close to getting one. I asked the marketing genius Gimpy Snotpuppy why anyone would intentionally replace the letter "C" with the letter "K" when spelling common words.

Prof Fur: "Why would anyone intentionally replace the letter "C" with the letter "K" when spelling common words?"

Snotpuppy: "This is a marketing ploy designed to 'imprint' your subconscious mind with the title of the movie. When you read this, your subconscious mind will correct the spelling and firmly impress the title in your subconscious mind. This makes the title familiar, or comfortable, when your conscious mind sees it in the future. The technique was spawned during mid 50's American government studies on unsuspecting university botany undergrads."

Prof Fur: "I’ve heard more intelligent sounds coming from corduroy pants."

4). Trading Punches. When faced with a fight which will assuredly result in someone's death, perhaps even your own, you must still honor the unwritten rule of 'waiting for your opponent to recover from your last assault before you can strike again'. This is a requirement of the actors guild, and exists in the fine print of every Hollywood contract. Once you've struck your opponent to the ground, or knocked them off balance, you cannot strike again until they have fully recovered or you might win the battle decisively at that very moment.

This rule holds true with all Hollywood fight scenes and is proven consistently. It actually follows the rule that says "a villain who is shot with a firearm, no matter how superficially, must fall to the ground immediately as if dead. The protagonist must then leave the scene as if the fallen villain is no longer any threat". Hollywood does not allow a "confirmed kill".

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The Lessons We've Learned: Armed with this knowledge, you too can now go forward into the world and weave a martial arts best seller. Perhaps Phists of Phury, Just for CICS, or Kreative Ciller in the Clondike. In a future Doll Sweating Hour essay, we’ll write the screenplay for just this sort of action adventure. To guarantee a best seller, we will want to combine this plot with something else very vogue. Perhaps the Internet, cellular phones, or politics.

MODEM MADNESS. The martial arts thriller where renegade Internet Service Providers attack the honor of one hard disks file integrity. The computers owner, Sheila Sexkitten, is abducted and it’s up to our hero Chang to save her, restore order to the universe, and destroy the corrupted files.

WHERE CELL PHONES COLLIDE. The gripping story of a rogue paging service which attacks the lunch line of a local McDonald’s, The perky cashier, Candy Cleavage, is abducted and must be saved by the accountant in the blue Mercedes before his order of fries are up. She swoons in his arms as the sun slowly sets over the crows eating garbage in the western parking lot.

WOMB WITH A VIEW. The dramatic story of three Pro-Life activists who attack the wombat cage of Seattle's Woodland Park Zoo. They abduct the pregnant tour guide, Valerie Venereal, who was considering her options of abortion or Welfare. Our hero Chung crashes through the Thrush exhibit to spank the naughty Pro-Lifers repeatedly. Unfortunately, the United States Government arrives with a writ decreeing that Valerie’s body is actually the Property of The State, so she is not entitled to make this determination about her own future. Chung abandons the Pro-Lifers and races forward armed with nothing more than an open roll of breath mints to combat the hypocritical legislators.

KOMINSKY PARK. This is the chilling tale of an American League baseball team whose members eat blueberry yogurt with a fork just before . . . .