“Lost Martial Art” documentary available from Amazon

The documentary Bartitsu: The Lost Martial Art of Sherlock Holmes is now available via Amazon.com. You can read an interview about the documentary and its production here and watch the trailer right here:

Early reviews for “Bartitsu: The Lost Martial Art of Sherlock Holmes”

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.

“Bartitsu: The Lost Martial Art of Sherlock Holmes”

Announcing the long-awaited DVD release of the first feature documentary on Bartitsu, the “gentlemanly art of self defence”!

At the end of the Victorian era, E.W. Barton-Wright founded Bartitsu as a pioneering “mixed martial art” combining jiujitsu, kickboxing and self defence with a walking stick. It was also the means by which Sherlock Holmes was said to have defeated his arch-nemesis, the evil Professor Moriarty, in their famous battle at Reichenbach Waterfall.

This groundbreaking documentary was shot on location in Italy, Switzerland, England and the USA. Through numerous interviews, animations, re-enactment sequences, rare archival film footage and historical images, it explores the history, rediscovery and modern revival of Bartitsu.

Please visit the Freelance Academy Press website to view a new preview trailer and photo gallery, read an article about Bartitsu and the documentary production, and to place your DVD order!

Bartitsu: The Lost Martial Art of Sherlock Holmes update

After over a year of development, the new Bartitsu documentary (watch the trailer here) is now in the final stages of post-production. Hosted by Tony Wolf, Bartitsu: The Lost Martial Art of Sherlock Holmes traces the history, loss, rediscovery and modern revival of E.W. Barton-Wright’s “New Art of Self Defence”. The documentary was shot in Italy, Switzerland, the UK and the USA and features interviews with martial arts historians Harry Cook and Graham Noble, authors and Bartitsu enthusiasts Mark Donnelly, Will Thomas and Neal Stephenson, and self defence historian Dr. Emelyne Godfrey.

The 55-minute documentary is an international co-production between the Cletarte cultural association, Broken Art, Ran Arthur Braun and Tony Wolf and will be distributed by the Freelance Academy Press.

Stay tuned for more updates over the coming weeks!

More from “Bartitsu: the Lost Martial Art of Sherlock Holmes”

Screen captures from the upcoming feature documentary “Bartitsu: the Lost Martial Art of Sherlock Holmes”, currently in post-production.

Presenter Tony Wolf in London

Tony on his way up to Reichenbach Falls in the Swiss Alps

Sherlock Holmes struggles with Professor Moriarty

Unarmed combat: Ran A. Braun and Rocco M. Franco re-enact a private lesson at the Bartitsu Club

Close-quarters play with the walking stick

Historian Emelyne Godfrey explains women’s self defence in Edwardian London

A still from an animatic of Yukio Tani throwing an English wrestler