Parkour in popular culture

Parkour has appeared in various television advertisements, news reports and entertainment pieces, sometimes combined with other forms of acrobatics also called free running, street stunts and tricking. Note that acrobatics are not part of parkour.

Films



 * After including parkour moves in a chase sequence in the film Taxi 2 (2000), in 2001 French filmmaker Luc Besson made a feature film, Yamakasi&mdash;Les samouraï des temps modernes (Yamakasi&mdash;the modern-day Samurai), featuring members of the original Yamakasi. The film tells the (fictional) tale of a group of young friends who use their parkour skills to evade capture, while stealing money to fund the healthcare of a child that was injured copying their parkour training. In 2004, Besson wrote Banlieue 13, another feature film involving parkour, starring David Belle and Cyril Raffaelli; English-dubbed and -subtitled versions were released in 2006 as District B-13 in North America, and the U.K.


 * The biggest interest surge to date was created by the documentary Jump London, which explained some of the background to parkour and culminated with Sébastien Foucan and two other French traceurs (Stephane Vigroux and Jérôme Ben Aoues) demonstrating their parkour skills at many famous London locations: HMS Belfast, Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre, Somerset House and the Tate Gallery and Saatchi galleries amongst them. It is perhaps worth noting that David Belle received no mention in Jump London, despite often being accredited as the most important founder of parkour. Jump London was followed up by the sequel Jump Britain, once again featuring Foucan and Ben Aoues.


 * An action sequence in the James Bond film, Casino Royale, is a construction site roof-top chase that implements many aspects of parkour. Sébastien Foucan, the founder of the similar art free running, plays a small-time terrorist after whom James Bond is chasing. The scene was filmed in the Bahamas (standing for Madagascar).


 * A lengthy chase sequence in the film Crimson Rivers II: Angels of the Apocalypse features parkour.


 * Parkour is featured prominently in the 2007 film Breaking and Entering, in which two of the characters employ parkour techniques to burgle an office in the Kings Cross, an area of London.


 * The werewolves in the movie Blood and Chocolate used (in their human form) what appeared to be parkour as a demonstration of their superhuman agility.

Television

 * The British public was widely exposed to parkour during 2002 via the BBC television trailer Rush Hour, which depicted David Belle leaping across London's rooftops from his office to home, in an attempt to catch his favourite BBC programme. The piece generated a great deal of discussion, particularly after it was revealed that no special effects or wires were used (although it was partly filmed in Newcastle upon Tyne, not completely in London, all Belle's moves were genuine and unassisted). It was later re-used for the BBC Children in Need appeal, with the face of Terry Wogan superimposed onto the body of Belle.


 * The CSI: NY episode "Tri-Borough" involves a murdered traceur.


 * A series of Nike commercials depicted traceurs clearing rooftop gaps and stairwells as part of an ad campaign for their Presto line of slip-on running shoes.


 * A Toyota Scion commercial had free runners Sébastien Foucan and Jerome Ben Aoues playing "tag" with two cars in a parking structure.


 * A Rogers Wireless mp3 phone commercial features a group of young adults running to meet another group via free running on a rooftop, with a slogan "Tippin' on the brink".


 * A Canon commercial with David Belle.


 * An episode of the popular BBC motoring programme Top Gear featured a race between James May in a Peugeot 207 against two traceurs — Daniel Ilabaca and Kerbie from Worldwide JAM's 'Street Team'—in the city of Liverpool on July 23 2006. The traceurs won the race to the Liver Building, if only because May, true to character, got lost on his way to the building.


 * 'Play Cops and Robbers' is an European advert for Microsoft's Xbox 360 which features a car chase and chases over roof tops and streets all influenced by parkour. One of its stars is Cyril Raffaelli, famous to many as Capt. Damien Tomaso in the 2004 French film Banlieue 13, also starring David Belle.


 * An Irish television advertisement for the shop "Lifestyle Sports" has a traceur jumping shelves in it.


 * Cirque Du Soleil's Solstrom featured in one of its episodes, a group of people doing various parkour moves in an airport.


 * A recent episode of Bones featured a criminal using parkour to escape from the police.


 * A McDonald's ad featured a man using parkour to get to the local McDonald's restaurant in under 5 minutes in order to sleep in and still make the breakfast menu.


 * In a recent K-Swiss commercial, a man uses parkour/free running to get to Anna Kournikova's tennis match.


 * A short film made for British television in 2007 showed elderly people practising parkour.

Literature

 * Issue 6 of the limited series Global Frequency, written by noted comic book author Warren Ellis, tells the story of a young traceuse named Sita Patel who is tasked with the seemingly impossible task of crossing London in under twenty minutes to defuse a biological weapon. The issue, titled The Run, is a varied and detailed (and mostly believable) treatment of the topic. The series was published by Wildstorm Comics.


 * The hip-hop novel Kid B — written by Texan author Linden Dalecki — tells the story of a teenager named Kid B who's a b-boy in a four-man crew called the Krush Krew. A passage in the novel details an escape by the Krush Krew over rooftops, and another passage, where Kid B trains alone, reads like a free running sequence. The book was first published in 2006 by Houghton Mifflin.


 * In Tale of Two Summers by Brian Sloan, the story of a French traceur is relayed by Hal via blogging.


 * In Terry Pratchett's Discworld novel 'Pyramids', a junior Assassin takes an examination called the Run, which involves parkour-style navigation of the rooftops of Ankh-Morpork.

Video games

 * A forthcoming game for the PSP, "Free Running", is dedicated to Free Running (an alternative discipline of Parkour).


 * In Resistance: Fall of Man for the Playstation 3 a skill point by the name "le parkour" is awarded for completion of a rooftop level in a set amount of time.


 * Assassin's Creed, a game in development by Ubisoft Studios, has character movements inspired by parkour and free running.


 * Crackdown is an Xbox 360 action game and it has a parkour feature.


 * Rebellion Developments released a parkour based video game on the PSP and PS2 under the title "Free Running"


 * Marc Ecko's Getting Up: Contents Under Pressure: involves some parkour techniques.


 * The Splinter Cell series of games contain many parkour movements.


 * Tony Hawk's American Wasteland: one of the several techniques you can learn whilst not on your skateboard is freerunning, although it is called parkour in the game. Also, you can wall-run, wire-grab and other parkour movements.


 * The Tomb Raider series contains many parkour situations.


 * The Urban Dead browser game allows players to purchase the "free running" skill, which allows them to move between adjacent buildings without moving through the streets.


 * In NFL Street,NFL Street 2 and NFL Street 3 players run along/vault over objects, run up walls and other parkour/free running techniques.


 * Prince of Persia is an ubisoft game about a prince trying to escape from his fate, meanwhile he uses lots of parkour techniques such as cat leap and wallrun.


 * In Super Mario 64 Mario can do some Parkour and Free running like the Wall Kick.


 * In Gunz: the duel, players have to wall jump, wall run, and backflip off walls (Freerunning)

Music videos

 * David Guetta has released a new music video for his song Love Don't Let Me Go which features free running extensively throughout it, performed by the British Freerun crew named team Evolution.


 * Die Trying has a music video for their song Oxygen's Gone that features two or three traceurs.


 * Eric Prydz vs Floyd - Proper Education is about saving energy by using parkour in it to promote the facts of Global Warming.


 * German singer Liza Li chases after German traceur Moses Kallweit in both cartoon and real life scenes on her video for the song "Ich könnte dich erschießen".


 * Madonna featured free running extensively in the Jump music video. Madonna also featured free running on her world tour in 2006 The Confessions Tour as well as featuring it initially in her music video for Hung Up. All the free running sequences for Madonna were created and executed by Sebastian Foucan, Mike 'Frosti' Zernow, Levi 'Skynative' Meeuwenberg and others.


 * Paul Oakenfold released a song with Brittany Murphy called Faster Kill Pussycat which had some parkour in its music video performed by a few PKCali traceurs including Paul 'PD' Darnell and Cliff 'CAK010' Kravit.


 * Persian singer Mehran recently released a music video named Kaboutar (dove) featuring two Iranian traceurs of the Rahaa clan bringing a dove to him.