USA Today has a big gallery of new images from Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes; there’s a lot of great pictures (including a shot of Robert Downey Jr and Jude Law that looks like some kind of Gangs of New York prequel to me), but my favorite is a shot of Holmes doing some karate chopping.
According to the newspaper, Holmes is using a period and geographically appropriate form of martial arts – one that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle even mentioned in his stories:
The form of fighting is called bartitsu, which sounds like what you say when you get beaten up by the buxom girl at the pub, but is actually a form of Japanese street fighting. “It uses walking sticks, bowler hats, choke holds to put people to sleep – any practical means possible,” explains Ritchie. According to USA Today bartitsu (which Doyle called baristu, which sounds like what you say when you get beat up by a Starbucks employee) was invented in England in the late 1800s.
For more pictures and more behind the scenes info, head to USA Today.