A well-choreographed fight is a thing of beauty. You can throw all the blazing explosions and towering robots you want at me, but they’ll never match the visceral and personal nature of hand-to-hand combat. But what makes a good fight? Well I’m about to tell you. In honour of international fight week I’m bringing you some of my favourite movie fight scenes of all time. Now the obvious disclaimer is I can only list fights from films I’ve actually seen. So apologies if your favourite scrap isn’t present it doesn’t mean it sucks.
Ip Man – Black Belts, Black Eyes
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x9ZRjIiNzhM
Of course Donnie Yen was going to be here! I struggled between picking this fight and the one between Ip Man and Mike Tyson in Ip Man 3. Ultimately the quality of this 10-on-1 match won out over the goofy novelty of watching Mike Tyson try to speak Chinese (but I would still definitely recommend it!). Plus there’s also a goofy novelty in watching one guy speedbag another guy’s face.
Shanghai Knights – Chaos is a Clocktower
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HvBybU5FRSQ
Why yes that IS Littlefinger fencing with Jackie Chan, thanks for asking. Chan obviously has as extensive and impressive resume of impressive martial theatrics but I’m using this opportunity to talk about one that hardly ever gets any love. The final sword fight in Shanghai Knights is one of my favourites in cinema, full of incredulous flurries, spinning and Aidan Gillan.
Oldboy – Hallway Hammering
Recently payed homage to by the Daredevil Netflix series, Oldboy is one of the greatest Korean films ever. Directed by the masterful Park Chan-wook and in a film stuffed with iconic moments this one sticks out. Not for its choreography, but that the brawl is one continuous shot. Choi Min-sik faces off against an entire gang of thugs in an brutal war of attrition. If you haven’t seen Oldboy yet I recommend it as one of my favourite films of all time, but be prepared for some horrific stuff (especially if you watch the awful 2013 Spike Lee remake).
Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows – Chess Match
A scene so cool it almost made me forget how much I hated the preceding 2 hours. Back in the first film Robert Downjey Jr. beat up some dude by giving us a slow motion play-by-play of what he was going to do before enacting it was full speed and it was badass. But to have Moriarty do it back to him during the final confrontation? Gave me goosbumps. Such a great little sequence here in a film that immediately squandered the good will it garnered with it. Cool fight though.
The Raid 1 & 2 – All of them
An Indonesian film directed by a Welshman, The Raid was the best Martial Arts film I’d ever seen. Until The Raid 2 made it impossible to choose. They are so incredibly tense with fights that build into violent crescendos they’ve spoiled other films for me. Every fight in these films are spectacular, but the stand outs are any Yayan Ruhian (who made a cameo appearance in The Force Awakens) is involved in.
Riki-Oh: The Story of Ricky – The Warden is the best in Kung Fu
AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH -wheeze- HAHGHAHAAHAHAH. Yeah if you haven’t seen Riki-Oh you definitely need to. I won’t say too much but just image that scene and extrapolate it to an entire film with gore galore. What’s not to love?
Comment(1)
Comments are closed.
I absolutely loved that the Raid 2’s climax was essentially a final boss fight in a kitchen with everything great about Pencak Silat on show, right down to the karambit knife traditionally used as the weapon. Fantastic practitioners used in both movies that could have had a fight in the Force Awakens to add to the awesomeness.