post your favorite total badass moment in a fight scene, I dont care if its from tv/movies/books
I just watched Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon again last night and once again the fight between Michelle Yeoh and Ziyi Zhang shows how bad ass Yeoh really is, but the moment for me is when she picks up the brass table leg and commences to whoop some ass, its a great moment.
The movie Ladyhawke undoubtedly had much silliness in it, but there’s a scene where somebody shoots Rutger Hauer’s character with a crossbow. They’re both on horseback. Hauer reels in the saddle, but then gallops directly at the shooter, meanwhile pulling the crossbow bolt out of his own chest, and stabs the guy to death with the crossbow bolt. Badass.
The steam bath fight scene in Eastern Promises is jaw-dropping,and gives new meaning to “badass.” Seriously, though, it is quite a vicious, intense altercation.
I used to watch a lot of kung-fu films, I reckon Jet-Li in the legend of fong-sai-yuk takes some beating. There is a scene where he is fighting to win the hand in marriage of the king’s daughter - on a large tower where the loser is the guy who gets knocked off onto the ground. Much Wushu badness ensues, until they end up fighting whilst standing on the heads of the people in the crowd. Great, great fight scene.
Another seriously bad-ass scene is from Takeshi Kitano’s hana-bi, a masterful film that is basically a montage of quiet, contemplative pieces punctuated by Kitano dishing out some righteous ass-kickings. There is a scene in a bar where he is being taunted by a couple of gangsters, they’re saying he’s a failed cop. Chopsticks, meet eyeball. Eyeball, chopsticks.
Billy Jack pretty much sucked the whole way through, except for that fight scene in the park where Billy takes out half a dozen townies before being overwhelmed. Just a great scene. Then the movie went right back to sucking.
But man, what a fight scene!
“bad assed”, can you really say that? It just sounds as if something is wrong with some butt.
The hallway fight scene from Oldboy, linked here. The title character starts the scene at one end of a hallway. His first line is “AB blood types raise your hands.” He shoves a bloodied, semi-conscious man into the crowd and tells them, “Go. He’s lost a lot of blood.” Then he wades in like a cornered rat.
Between him and the elevator are ~20 gang members with clubs and knives who are intent on killing him. He has some sort of hammer, and that’s it. The fight scene is brutal and realistic – everyone gets hurt, everyone gets tired, and the fight seems to drag on and on after the first minute, because people keep getting up and trying to soldier on, despite their obvious wounds. This is not your typical “He hits twenty guys, each with one punch, and walks away” type of fight. This is ugly. Watch to the end for a sinister giggle or two.
Also, I can’t mention fight scenes and elevators and not link to the elevator lobby shootout from The Matrix.
The fight between Dan Dority and Captain Turner in Deadwood, which includes Captain Turner’s eye being pulled out. That was a hardcore fight.
I don’t remember the name of the movie. Maybe it was one of the Smoky and the Bandit movies. Anyway, what I remember is a bar fight, and Burt Reynolds taking on all comers and then looking around and yelling “Gimme somebody!” I thought that was badass.
There’s a two second bit in Firefly that I’ve watched a dozen times straight, marveling at how well a stunt man takes a fall. He runs around a corner, gets shot in the knee, collapses and smashes his face into a piece of scenery. The Foley work and the stunt work combine to give a sickening crunch. Top-notch work.
In Return of the Dragon, during the climactic fight between Bruce Lee and Chuck Norris, there is a brief pause in the fighting. Neither actor says a word, but you can tell exactly what both characters are thinking.
Sometimes the truly badass move is one of restraint. In one of the “Blind Swordsman” movies, Zatoichi is escorting a widow and her child to a shrine. An arrogant young samurai takes offense somehow, and is prepared to use his authority to summarily execute all three of them. Zatoichi politely asks the samurai for a piece of paper. The samurai holds out a piece of paper, and Zatoichi, the humble, blind masseur, pulls the sword out of his cane, slices the paper into three parts with two strokes, and resheaths the sword, all in about a second. He then asks the samurai to write the names of himself, the woman and child on the three pieces of paper and burn them at the shrine once he’s executed them.
This lets the samurai know that Zatoichi can slice him open anytime he wants, and also gives him an out – he lets them go, using the excuse that it is an act of piety, since they’re at a shrine.
Just one of those moments that happen in each of the “Blind Swordsman” movies that make you say, “This is the coolest guy in Japan.”
The scene in Bourne Supremacy where he fights the other super-agent guy in the hotel room in Spain s really intense and gruesome.
Also, in any episode of 24, pick any random point, and there’s a good chance that Jack Baur is doing something completely badass. The one in particular that I’m thinking of is when he corners the terrorists in the industrial warehouse place, takes like 3 bullets while advancing on them, kills all of them, and hangs the leader from a chain. When the backup finally arrives, the good guys are trying to find him, and one of them takes a look at all the carnage all over the place and says “Jesus, Jack…” in a slightly awed, slightly disgusted tone.
I actually think the fight scene from Bourne Ultimatum feels more badass. Perhaps it’s the fact that there’s this long chase on the rooftops first with this great crescendo of music in the background, and then when he finally catches up to the guy and starts fighting him, the music stops and it’s just Bourne vs. Other Guy. I guess that’s more cinematic effect than anything else, though.
One of my favorite movie fights of all time is Achilles vs. Hector in Troy. While I don’t like the entire rest of the movie, that one battle has to be in my top five favorite fight scenes ever.
I don’t know if the OP was just asking for film medium, but the shower fight in Ender’s Game is also pretty badass.
Several scenes from Uncommon Valor
The fight between Tex Cobb and Patrick Swayze.
The training scene, in which we learn that Fred Ward’s character is not merely an artist and sculptor, but also a really stealthy SOB.
The sequence where they are beginning the attack on the camp. Every time Fred Ward’s character kills a sentry, he drops a small sculpture next to the body. (Because a good artist always signs his work.)
The first “fight” in Ong Bak… we’re all ready to see Tony Jaa do his thing, after hearing about how badass he is… He’s on his way through a fight club when a scrapper challenges him. You settle down to watch a lengthy chop-socky sequence, but instead you get a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it kick from Tony Jaa which floors the bad dude in one go. Jaa doesn’t even break his stride.
I always liked Furio’s first assignment on The Sopranos. It was when he had to get the owner of the massage parlor to pay him, when the owner’s wife didn’t want him to.
It was a job very well done.
ETA: It also doesn’t get much more bad ass than watching Jules do his work in Pulp Fiction.
I think the fight scenes in The Transporter are really well done. I like it because they seem somewhat realistic, the same for the Bourne movies. I am sure they used very few if any cables in the shots
The final fight between Christian Bale’s character and the evil dictator dude in Equillibrium is one my favorites. That gunfight/martial art style thing they do was awesome!
I thought the duel between Keanu Reeves and John Malkovich at the end of Dangerous Liasons was awesome. It just kept on going, and they were getting more and more tired and sloppy. Seemed very realistic to me.
OldBoy was a must-see, but I’ll admit when I got to the end that I wished they’d killed ME in that hallway! And another thing- how many times can you show somebody’s tongue getting ripped out? 