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 Post subject: Re: Your favorite hand-to-hand fight scene in film (spoilers

Posted: 2012-02-21 12:54am 

My favorite fight scene from Chocolate. They just had so much fun with the stunts and environment. The fly swatter thing makes sense in context.

 Post subject: Re: Your favorite hand-to-hand fight scene in film (spoilers

Posted: 2012-02-21 06:46am 

With weapons: Apache vs Gladiator or Pirate vs Knight from Deadliest Warrior just kidding

Liam Neeson vs Tim Roth in Rob Roy is probably the most realistic swordfight in a movie.
Less realisitic, but I found the sword fight at the end of Shanghai Knights loads of fun to watch.


Edit: oh god, as silly things go, I just came along this on youtube. Samurai vs knight.

 Post subject: Re: Your favorite hand-to-hand fight scene in film (spoilers

Posted: 2012-02-22 02:28am 

Well, I wouldn't call them the best ever or my personal favorite, the fights in the recent movie Haywire were pretty good and they're definitely worth mentioning.

Fight begins at 3:19. The movie starts off with a pretty good one.

 Post subject: Re: Your favorite hand-to-hand fight scene in film (spoilers

Posted: 2012-02-22 02:32am 

Because I'm a total moron and forgot about it. Good that you remembered.

 Post subject: Re: Your favorite hand-to-hand fight scene in film (spoilers

Posted: 2012-02-22 07:32pm 

Haywire I'm yet to see, but I'm hopeful. Gina Carano can legitimately kick arse, so it should look good.

 Post subject: Re: Your favorite hand-to-hand fight scene in film (spoilers

Posted: 2012-02-23 02:58am 

Donnie Yen (police baton) vs. Jacky Wu (dagger) in "Sha Po Lang"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZs48lJXhxM

Donnie Yen vs. Sammo Hong final fight in "Sha Po Lang" Earlier in the movie there was a short fight where Yen armbars Sammo and I was like "Wat? Armbar?" then after the aformentioned fight this came and I was like "Holy Fuck! MMA in an HK film!"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sr-eeNjvb1o

 Post subject: Re: Your favorite hand-to-hand fight scene in film (spoilers

Posted: 2012-02-23 08:33am 

No one mentioned Indiana Jones vs Random Arab Swordmaster yet?

Though, I do have to second final battle in Equilibrium, it was great.

 Post subject: Re: Your favorite hand-to-hand fight scene in film (spoilers

Posted: 2012-02-24 05:10am 

God. I might as well mention Vasily Zaitsev versus Ed Harris in Enemy At The Gates. People.

 Post subject: Re: Your favorite hand-to-hand fight scene in film (spoilers

Posted: 2012-02-24 08:36pm 

How fucking retarded does someone have to be in order to post swordfights in response to a thread titled "Your favourite hand to hand fight scenes in film"?

 Post subject: Re: Your favorite hand-to-hand fight scene in film (spoilers

Posted: 2012-02-24 09:03pm 

I would also have to say the fight between Bourne and Desh in the Bourne Ultimatum, and Bond vs the Ugandan General in Casino Royale.

 Post subject: Re: Your favorite hand-to-hand fight scene in film (spoilers

Posted: 2012-02-24 09:20pm 

For myself, it's the Bond/Grant fight to the death in From Russia With Love, which had to be the most brutal hand-to-hand combat in the whole Bond series.

 Post subject: Re: Your favorite hand-to-hand fight scene in film (spoilers

Posted: 2012-02-24 10:22pm 

Casino Royale has to take the cake here, simply for how short the fights were. No holding back there.

 Post subject: Re: Your favorite hand-to-hand fight scene in film (spoilers

Posted: 2012-02-25 01:54am 

I kinda have to poke at a few sacred cows.

Bruce Lee -- I was just watching Fist of Fury on G4 and man, this stuff might have been good for it's day, but it's pretty silly by modern standards and bears no resemblance to Lee's actual fighting style. Twenty guys go at him and all patiently wait their turn to be dispatched with high kicks to the face.

Rocky -- For serious movies dealing with a real-life sport, the fights are pretty silly. Defense is almost non-existant, and fighters give and receive ludicrous levels of punishment that would ruin their careers/lives in just a few rounds. Not only their own careers, but those of the officials who failed to stop the fight and call a TKO against the guy who just ate 40 unanswered power shots in a row.

Matrix -- The fights are slick but the choreography is frequently iffy. An awful lot of blows appear to have been thrown only to allow the opponent to counter in some creative way. Watch the punches and ask yourself if each one would have landed even if the opponent didn't do anything. Surprisingly often, the answer is no. Still, at least the army of Agent Smith clones remembered that ancient technique called the dogpile, a strategy that would have seen the end of countless dramatically outnumbered movie heroes and which forced even Superman Neo to flee.

 Post subject: Re: Your favorite hand-to-hand fight scene in film (spoilers

Posted: 2012-02-25 02:05am 

The term as I've always seen it applied includes melee weapons. Merriam-Webster's definition only refers to the range at which the fight takes place, not whether the combatants are armed or unarmed.

 Post subject: Re: Your favorite hand-to-hand fight scene in film (spoilers

Posted: 2012-02-25 04:07am 

If you got a sword, it is clearly outside usual hand-to-hand fighting range.

 Post subject: Re: Your favorite hand-to-hand fight scene in film (spoilers

Posted: 2012-02-25 04:21am 

That's simply not the common usage of the term. Papers on weapons development include clubs, swords, spears and daggers as "designed for hand to hand combat" (source (pp. 2-4)), and a book on riot control techniques includes use of riot batons in the hand to hand combat techniques section (source).

 Post subject: Re: Your favorite hand-to-hand fight scene in film (spoilers

Posted: 2012-02-25 04:26am 

Yes, but in this context one would expect swordfighters to not be classified as such.

 Post subject: Re: Your favorite hand-to-hand fight scene in film (spoilers

Posted: 2012-02-25 06:33am 

Maverick and Goose versus Michael Ironsides at DACT, and later on Maverick and Iceman in their F-14s versus those MiG-28s, were also great hand-to-hand fight scenes.

 Post subject: Re: Your favorite hand-to-hand fight scene in film (spoilers

Posted: 2012-02-25 08:55am 

I wanted to mention the T-800 and the T-1000 slugging it out in the steel mill in Terminator 2, but it's not so much hand-to-hand as much as hand to gelatinous shape-shifting cyborg mass. Still, it feels more appropriate than sword fights. When I saw that scene as a kid I just thought it was so creative when Arnie throws him face first against the wall and rather than turn around he morphs so that his back becomes his front, and then of course there's the bit where Arnie punches his fist straight through the T-1000's face but he then morphs his hands to where his head used to be and restrains him. Plus it was cool to see a skinny dude toss Arnold around the entire movie. It was a brawl quite unlike anything I had ever seen before.

And on that note, I also thought to mention Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. I love how stylishly silly the action sequences are while still retaining a certain coolness, much like Stephen Chow's films. While the Mathew Patel and Lucas Lee fist fights are both great, I got a real kick out of Gideon's DDR style beatdown.

 Post subject: Re: Your favorite hand-to-hand fight scene in film (spoilers

Posted: 2012-02-26 09:04am 

Not very... These threads usually derail off of the OP into "my favorite despite the OP".
I posted the TPM lightsaber fight as a laugh at this fact after I a few people already just couldn't resist... Just like I was about to post a Brog cube in the Beautiful ships thread in Sci-Fi, you know, because I think squares made out of space plumbing are beautiful.

The definition of hand to hand may give a technical loop hole, but anyone with two brain cells knew what the OP meant. Even with the mention of fighting with chairs and such in the Bourne fight scene, it was a "designed as a weapon" absent scenario.

 Post subject: Re: Your favorite hand-to-hand fight scene in film (spoilers

Posted: 2012-02-26 09:51am 

I'm gonna say that Ron Burgundy and Borat's race scene in Talladega Nights is one of my favorite fight scenes ever.



I'M ON FIRE I'M ON FIRE I'M ON FIRE

SEX PANTHER WORKS 60% OF THE TIME ALL THE TIME

STAY CLASSY SAN DIEGO

 Post subject: Re: Your favorite hand-to-hand fight scene in film (spoilers

Posted: 2012-02-26 03:50pm 

Oh Jesus, no. At first it's quite cool, but it goes on for way too long. I mean, imagine. You're running into this room, and there's this guy in the middle. Around him are two dozen of your buddies, on the floor, all screaming in pain. Ah, but there's Joey, and you know Joey. Guy's a stone cold killer. He's gonna fuck this gu... OH FUCK! KNEES ARE NOT SUPPOSED TO BEND LIKE THAT! HOLY SHIT JOEY WHATHEDO TOYOU!? And there's Mike, oh, thank God. Mike'll take care of OH GOD! HE JUST BROKE MIKE'S ELBOWS! AND NOW HE'S LOOKING AT ME!

You honestly cannot tell me that NONE of those guy made a runner for it. Movie mooks are supposed to be dumb, but these guys just lined up to be destroyed. I mean, what happened to a lot of those limbs and joints if it were real, it would cripple you for life. Anyone with half a brain, upon running into that room and seeing two dozen of his buddies on the floor, would NOT think "Ah, I can take him!". They'd think "Man, fuck this shit! I'm outta here!"

At least the staircase scene is a bit more believable. Most of the mooks simply don't see this guy wading through their buddies. Nor does the furniture break easily, which I loved. It looks REAL. It probably IS real furniture, instead of balsawood shit.

 Post subject: Re: Your favorite hand-to-hand fight scene in film (spoilers

Posted: 2012-02-26 04:09pm 

It was like one of those carnage scenes from a nature documentary about warfare in the insect realm. Hundreds of crippled and dying insects littering the floor, while more and more defenders keep rushing to their death, in the hopes of besting a superior adversary.

 Post subject: Re: Your favorite hand-to-hand fight scene in film (spoilers

Posted: 2012-02-26 06:02pm 

DP by atlan deleted upon request.

 Post subject: Re: Your favorite hand-to-hand fight scene in film (spoilers

Posted: 2012-02-27 03:54am 

Man these "lone hero versus twenty mooks" scenes always just make me roll my eyes. Twenty incompetent fattynerds would easily stomp all over the greatest martial artist of all time, provided the fattynerds were sufficiently commited to doing violence and were capable of working together in even the most basic animal-level ways. Form a circle and dogpile, unless the guy can fly he's fucked.