So often in films and TV, the fighter who displays the stereotypical “Eastern Martial Arts” type moves is depicted as markedly superior to run-of-the-mill brawlers, to the point where he /she can engage and defeat multiple opponents quite easily. I’m looking for the opposite – when the high-kickin’, fancy-movin’ guy or gal gets beaten by a regular thug (or group of thugs).
Can any one give some examples? I know that they are out there; I just can’t think of any one scene in particular, right now.
Both serious fights and those played for laughs can be included.
In a short-lived drama called Outlaws (it aired in the 80’s, IIRC), a group of Wild West outlaws from the 1800’s and the sheriff who was pursuing them wound up in the twentieth century somehow. (Magic lightning bolt?) With no way to return, they started a detective agency. (Y’know, like you do.)
Anyway, in one episode a martial artist attacked one of the gang doing a bunch of stereotypical high kicks and karate chops. Our hero knocked him out with a right cross.
The first Tim Burton Batman springs to mind; a couple of the Joker’s goons try to use martial arts on Batman, and get punched in the head for their trouble. Specifically this chap, and I’m sure there was another one during the climb up the tower. He does a kung-fu leap at Batman but falls straight through the rotten floorboards.
Lethal Weapon did this. Lethal Weapon 4 in particular had the climatic battle of Jet Li (as the bad guy) lose to Riggs (Gibson) & Murtaugh (Glover), who were more ‘brawlers’.
I seem to recall that in the movie * Born Losers *, Billy Jack gets the holy hell beaten out of him by the biker gang, despite his Green Beret training and awesome martial arts skills.
The pilot episode of THE ROCKFORD FILES goes a long way toward introducing our hero by having him note that he’s being tailed by a suspicious character – a guy the audience has seen practicing his kicks at the dojo, with the customary black belt around his gi and everything.
So everyone’s favorite private eye ducks into the men’s room, making for the sink and promptly emptying the big container of handsoap onto the floor; he reaches into his pocket for a roll of quarters just in time to amiably confront his pursuer – by which I mean (a) he calls the guy a queer, at which point (b) his would-be assailant gets halfway through attempting a fancy kick before awkwardly losing his balance, letting Jim end the fight with a solid left hook.
“You know what’s wrong with karate, Jerry? It’s based on the ridiculous assumption that the other guy will fight fair.”
Warning! Spoilers for a not-that-great B movie below!
In the the pulpy ( and not that good ) Abel Ferrara flick Fear City, retired boxer Tom Berenger beats up the wannabe white ninja that had been mutilating women in the aforementioned city full of fear. It’s the climactic scene and actually kinda entertaining because it appears to have been done explicitly to play out that kick-ass martial artist vs. professional boxer thought exercise.
Not a movie, but James Crumley wrote a nice bit in “The Mexican Tree Duck”.
“But I still remembered a few things from the old days: stay away from a knife fighter until you find a club or a gun; even with a gun, run from boxers because they are likely to knock you out of your socks before you can even think about pulling the trigger; and with karate guys, get inside as quick as you can and bite their nuts off, because they usually forget the countermove for that.”
Sure enough, he did forget the counter. No nuts were removed in the making of this post.
Umm, Jackie Chan’s entire career consisted of getting beaten up. Check out Project A, Project A 2, Police Story 1, Police Story 2, Legend of the Drunken Master, etc.
In the 1980 Michael Caine movie, “The Island”, a bunch of pirates (whom time had forgotten) would periodically board ships in the Devil’s Triangle, take their stuff, kill the passengers, and take any women they wanted back for breeding stock. On one of these ship (or boats, I’m not nautical), one man was a martial artist. While it was entertaining to watch him fight, the odds (and the weapons) were against him, and he didn’t make it.
When I read that back, it’s really a much stranger movie that I even remember it to be.