TV: Into Character

Back in 2004, when the reality TV craze was in full swing, I saw an episode of the short-lived AMC series "Into Character." The premise of the show was to turn ordinary people into the characters (not the actors) portrayed in their favorite films. For example, this one guy is a huge "Rocky" fan and wants to go the distance in the ring, but has never boxed before. The show trains him for a couple weeks and then films him fighting with a professional boxer.

For obvious reasons, this kind of crash course doesn't work too well most of the time. It takes hard work and dedication even just to learn how to fake boxing convincingly, much less participate in the real thing. That's probably why the series ended so fast - unlike most of these makeover reality shows, it's easy to see how little two weeks of training actually is.

The one episode of the show I watched, however, pitted two fans of "The Karate Kid" against each other: one was taught by a Mr. Miyagi-like Japanese sensei, and the other by a rough and tumble American sensei in New York. The final fight looked a lot like the final fight in the movie, and the "good" Japanese-trained fan actually won, too. That was pretty interesting.