Best fight scenes ever filmed

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axordil
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Best fight scenes ever filmed

Post by axordil »

Rules: SF weapons ok if they replicate actual weapons (guns, swords).

No overt super-powers/magical powers.

No more than 3 dozen people fighting on screen in any one shot.

Boxing, wrestling et al don't count. Punching and wrassling do. Rocky is ineligible, The Quiet Man is fine.

No animation.

Now I have to go come up with my own list. :D
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Post by Alatar »

Kill Bill Vol 1 - Pretty Much every fight scene
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Post by Voronwë the Faithful »

All of Jackie Chan and Jet Li's movies.
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Post by Alys »

A few off the top of my head, that I hope are eligible? Scaramouche v some man I forget, the last fight, in the snow, of Flying Daggers, the Scarlet Pimpernel v Chauvelin, The Man in Black v Inigo Montoya, Indiana and his Gun v Man with Sword, Skywalker v Darth Vader and yes, definitely, John Wayne V Dannagher in the Quiet Man - I love that film!
Last edited by Alys on Mon Apr 07, 2008 7:42 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by axordil »

Skywalker v Dad
Which version, Empire or Jedi? :D
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Post by Alys »

Empire! :D
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Post by axordil »

Kill Bill Vol 1 - Pretty Much every fight scene
All of Jackie Chan and Jet Li's movies.
C'mon, narrow it down, people. Don't make me start subdividing into categories. :D
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Post by Holbytla »

Wayne's World 2.
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Post by axordil »

Where's a salmon when you need it...
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Post by Alatar »

axordil wrote:
Kill Bill Vol 1 - Pretty Much every fight scene
All of Jackie Chan and Jet Li's movies.
C'mon, narrow it down, people. Don't make me start subdividing into categories. :D
Hmm. Okay, I think for the sheer outrageous spectacle of it, the Crazy 88 in the House of Blue Leaves. I submit that this should be permissable as the Bride is only fighting dozens at one time :P

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UHTuJLOnVvA
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Post by axordil »

the Crazy 88 in the House of Blue Leaves. I submit that this should be permissible as the Bride is only fighting dozens at one time
Agreed. Definitely a fight scene and not a battle scene. :D
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Post by Jnyusa »

Yeah, House of Blue Leaves has got to be right there at the top. All three of the fight scenes in that location are superlative ... the sequence of all three together just blows you away. Relentless and other-wordly, mystical, all at the same time. And in KB VII, the Bride v. Elle Driver.

How Tarantino manages to send himself up without losing the momentum of those scenes ... you know, thinking about it, I guess lots of directors use humor to break the tension in tense scenes so that they can come back and lay on a little more without the audience feeling that it went over the top, but Tarantino's humor has so many layers, it's so self-referential you know ... he's really in a category by himself.

Another one of my personal favorites is in Mortal Kombat, Liu Kang v. Reptile. The guy who played Kang is a bit too obviously on wires, but the guys who played Reptile, Subzero and Scorpion are real-life martial artists, and their moves were just so elegant, I really love watching all those fight scenes.

Then there's Matrix ... the training sequence with Morpheus and Neo ... also elegant. Could watch that over and over again.

Oddly enough, I have never seen Enter the Dragon. But there's a Jet Li movie that was released in the US under the title "Twin Warriors" ... it had a different title in Hong Kong ... anyway, there's a scene where Jet Li is doing a fighting form all by himself in the middle of a field. Oh man, that is so beautiful. He's so graceful, all he has to do is walk across the 'stage' and you can see that he's a master.
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Post by yovargas »

I don't care about your rules, The Matrix pwns all. 8)
(The subway fight if I have to pick.)

(ps - there were no sequels to the original Matrix. If you heard otherwise, you were either mistaken or had a bad dream.)


I also nominate......Gandalf vs Saruman!!!!!!!!! :devil:
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Post by Faramond »

I also nominate......Gandalf vs Saruman!!!!!!!!!
ha ha, I thought of that when I read ax's rule about no sorcery. I did rather like their little fight on the upper floor, contrary to most people. Better than a bunch of lousy pyrotechnicals. Of course they could also have just gone the "My Dinner with Andre" route there and stuck to Gandalf describing it, as in the book. Ian McKellan is a good enough actor to make that work.

Speaking of ax, what the best ax fight in a movie ever? :P

I'm afraid I've seen almost none of the movies so far mentioned.
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Post by axordil »

It's kind of a hard call on both the Matrix and other patently wire-fu-centered fight flix--or for that matter, the Darth-Luke Empire fight with the flying whatnot in the air. The supernatural prowess in and of itself shouldn't disqualify them, I think: mere defying of physics isn't a cardinal sin in action movies. But when you introduce things like telekinesis, it takes away from the scene somehow. Or does it?

At any rate, here's my list in no particular order:

The Bride and Elle Driver, Kill Bill 2--Claustrophobia incarnate. Extra points for the ick factor at the end :twisted:

The Burning Mill, The Three Musketeers (1970s)--sleazy sword fighting at its best

Final Duel, Rob Roy--my hand still hurts thinking about it

Fistfight, The Quiet Man--some of Wayne's best acting here ;)

Robin and the Sheriff, Robin and Marian--you can tell the mail Robert Shaw wears is real from how he grunts when he gets up

Ripley vs the Alien Queen--Did I say no monsters? Monsters are OK. :D

Bruce Lee vs Everyone, Enter the Dragon--no wires, just a Fistful of Yen

John Cusack (no, really) vs. the guy at the reunion, Grosse Pointe Blank--hey, comedies have fights too

I'm stopping there until I see Viggo in the steam room in Eastern Promises, and a couple of others I hear are good. :blackeye:
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Post by yovargas »

You forgot The Matrix which, you may have heard, pwns all. 8)
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I wanna throw my body in the river and drown
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Post by axordil »

I love the Matrix fight scenes as the wire ballet they are. :D But a superpower is a superpower. :rage:
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Post by yovargas »

Oh sure, you can add aliens to your list but not only do you exclude the glorious Matrix but I bet you won't let me mention Spidey vs Doc Oc either. :nono:
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I wanna throw my body in the river and drown
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Post by Primula Baggins »

There's a difference, though, yov—we can be darn near sure that there really are aliens. Somewhere. :P
“There, peeping among the cloud-wrack above a dark tor high up in the mountains, Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while. The beauty of it smote his heart, as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him. For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach.”
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Post by axordil »

Prim is correct. I should have said "alien monsters" as opposed to say, orcs or dragons.

*ponders whether Agent Smith counts as a monster*
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