For some reason I was thinking about my favourite movie fights today and I was sort of interested in what other people's were as well as sharing mine. Thanks to youtube this is easy although grainly livestreamed flash video technology doesn't really do the majesty or smoothness of some of these justice. The Carrey vs Broderick one is pretty well represented though.
Uhm originally I wanted to restrain this to weapon fights only, but then I found myself breaking that rule pretty quick as a lot of my favs are just hand to hand. One stipulation I still wanna keep though is that it has to be one on one or at least one vs many situations. That basically means no big battle scenes, save that for an other thread. However if it is a specific one on one fight that happens in the middle of a battle, then fine. But it better have some length to it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2sQ27R4rICIIt`s not the longest fight ever, but the presentation of this fight in the actual movie is just awesome. I love how it`s story boarded too, the way they cut to Tigrus and Maximus looking over their shoulders to make sure a Tiger isn`t about to jump them every few seconds really gives you a feel of the tension in this fight. On top of this you have the cool match up of a big strong guy with a sword and an axe fighting a smaller crafty guy with a sword and a shield. I also like how you can sort of see their different styles and strengths. Maximus is military trained but used to real combat, not a duel with tigers at the perimeter. Tigrus is a veteran of the arena, used to killing single opponents to entertain making him unrefined, but brutal and dirty. Plus his face plate just looks awesome for some reason, especially whenever you get a view of him just running at Maximus, slashing away.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9OxQ-2gR1DUOf course if you want the most beautiful weapon combat ever seen, train two chinese ballerinas and then give them every melee weapon in chinese history. I often don`t like chinese martial arts and especially weapons combat, because I find it overly twirly and containing too much unnecessary motion. This often makes it look fake and ineffective to me, too over the top. But in this fight, Ziyi and especially Yeoh really sell it. Without a doubt, this is the best scene in that whole movie and way better than anything Chow Yun-Fat does in it. How hard they seem to go at it, the well displayed emotions of both characters surrounding the fight and the events around it, plus the little bit of humor here and there make it probably one of the best concieved and executed fights of all time. It really deserves to be a part of some movie that`s part of a larger epic trilogy or something.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wqKFadyJxwgAlright, alright, I`m pretty sure that everyone knows this was the inspiration for the Jimmy vs Timmy cripple fight in Southpark (which is hilariously almost a frame for frame imitation in both action and dialouge) but the reason for that is because it`s just a really good fight. There`s really no martial arts on display here, and really there`s hardly any props either. What it is is just a really
real looking street fight between two guys who don`t want to kill eachother but just won`t see eye to eye on something. The fact that both fighters don`t really want any trouble means that this fight can go on for quite some time where as if they meant to really hurt eachother, it would be over pretty quickly. I guess this is thanks to having someone like Piper there in it, but this fight looks very real. When they wail on eachother they look hurt afterwards and the result of them getting hurt so much in the fight translates into it getting perfectly sloppy and desperate as it goes on. Anyone who`s ever been in a real fist fight, even just fighting some kid at recess knows this is how it is. When two guys who are a match for eachother get into a fight and neither of you is really a trained fighter, the result is not a boxing match, it`s the fight from They Live.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HVsigkUmvy8&feature=relatedJacky Chan said this was his favourite fight of all the ones he`s ever filmed, and I agree whole heartedly. Billy the Jet looks so uncool in this fight in terms of hairstyle and clothing, but his fighting looks so good, he comes out of this fight seeming like the coolest guy on the planet. I love when he starts taking off his coat as a fake out, and then kicks Jacky as he finishes taking it off. Chan`s use of props is flawless as always and even though it`s a pretty typical chop socky fight, they manage to make it look decently realistic. They definately look like they get hurt during it, they just don`t have much time to dwell on it. Also, James Rolfe included this one in his top 10 Chan fights video he did a while back and he pointed out that Billy`s kick that puts out the candles was actually legit, he really kicked them out when they filmed it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UbpX0r1995UI haven`t linked the original Star Trek fight that this is a parody of because it`s the first related video that comes up in the side bar if you watch this on youtube. Cableguy was an amazingly bad movie and displayed pretty much everything that I hate about Ben Stiller`s sense of humour, but funnily enough, even though many people attribute this as the movie that ended Jim Carrey`s career (the first time), he`s actually the funnest thing about the movie. Broderick`s character is terrible due to being poorly written and the whole plot line is really underdeveloped and boring as fuck when isn`t just plain painful to watch, but the way Jim Carrey imitates the stock Star Trek arena duel music by shrieking like Xena in this scene makes me laugh every time. It really is the only part of that movie worth watching and it`s pretty short... yeah.
