Wax on, wax off my tuchus, I always remained wholly unimpressed.
In every single fight scene he is in in the Karate Kid movies, I am always left wondering: “Why not just get up and beat the shit out of the little twerp.”
The worst though is in the fourth. (Yes they made four of them.)
It’s the climactic scene and Mr. Miagi takes on yet another evil sen-say.
In this last one though, every blow is telegraphed from a mile away, there are pitter-patter punches and kicks and he still is able to beat the stuffing out of the bad guy.
Actually thinking back on it now, Hillary Swank’s final fight scene with the obligatory bad-ass character was pretty weak too.
O.K., not the tightest of posts, but who can come up with a lamer fight scene?
If we’re talking lack-of-realism, every bit of “wire-fu” done in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Chinese martial artists can’t move as if they can cancel out their own body weight at will. Chinese acrobats can’t do that. The Chinese Olympic gymnastics team can’t do that.
To expand on BrainGlutton’s movie, ANY wire-fu. It may look like magical floating to some, but it always looks like they’re being pulled in the air by wires to me.
To be fair, I think the notion of “warriors with superhuman powers” is a regular theme in wuxia movies. Complaining about its presence in CTHD is like complaining about epic space battles in a Star Wars movie.
As rjung says, CTHD is supposed to be a fairy tale, and in fairy tales, Chinese martial artists really could fly. Chinese fairy tales have much different morals and lessons than American, and it’s fascinating to see the differences.
For the OP: Karate Kid should never have been made.
As for worst fight scenes, I can’t think of any off the top of my head. But I do want to repeatedly bitch-slap every female who stood there and screamed while her man was either getting his head chewed off or fighting the bad guy. Pick up a stick and DO something, you twat!
I had to watch All Quiet on the Western Front for a history class in high school, and the fight scenes were laughably bad. Of course, we’re talking about a different era in cinema here, but I mean, punches obviously whiffed a good half-foot from people’s heads, and the whole thing just looked so faked-up. I’ve seen stage actors do better fight scenes than the ones in that movie.
Oh, if we’re talking guns, then how come a Storm Trooper can’t even hit the goddamn Milennium Falcon, let alone the people right in front of it, yet Luke can shoot a small panel from like 40 feet away?
I know, the Force. But that still doesn’t explain the inept Storm Troopers. Grrr!
I’ve been watching the BBC Sharpe series and A&E’s Hornblower series, and they both have some painfully bad low budget fighting. Particularly noticeable is the way one cannon ball (say) will hit the ground, exploding into a mildly impressive fireball (since, you know, those iron balls are really flammable), and killing everyone within thirty feet by causing them to stop walking and fall over.
Oh, you guys haven’t seen bad fighting until you’ve seen Bollywood fighting. Jaw-cracking uppercuts, fist-breaking roundhouses, and wild kicks. Not to mention the hero defeating 20 or more assailants, all of whom come at him 1 (or maybe 2) at a time.
A couple weeks ago, I saw a movie on cable in which Bill Freaking Cosby was playing a tough guy and punched someone. This must be, by far, cinema’s worst fight scene.
One of the worst was the Black Dude’s fight scenes in Enter The Dragon. Especially his fight against Han’s goons, when he throws the elbow. Bad choreographer, BAD.
That would be a shell, not a ball. Oh, look, here’s a Straight Dope article on that very subject.
Bridget Jones’s Diary had an amazingly inept fight between the characters played by Colin Firth and Hugh Grant; but that was deliberate, for comedic effect.
