I was killing time tonight, and the movie *Rob Roy * popped into my head. I saw it in the theater back in 1995, and I remember liking the poetic dialogue and the great sword battles. The final battle between MacGregor and Cunningham (spoiler for a 22 year old movie: - YouTube) is pretty good. MacGregor’s brute strength and rage against Cunningham’s speed and skill. At the beginning of the duel, Cunningham takes off his wig, for the first time in the movie, IIRC. His fights up to this point have been easy. He barely broke a sweat. But this one is for real. And I love the little moment when MacGregor has to use two hands to hold up his heavy blade, and Cunningham smiles. I also like that there was no music in the scene until the very end. Nothing distracts from this scene of two men trying to kill each other.
Share your favorites. Don’t just drop a link or a movie title. Tell us what you like about the scene. Why does it stand out for you?
Rules for the thread: this is about sword fights. Not axes, not maces, not nunchucks, not pool cues. Swords. Metal blades with a handle. (Sorry, the lightsaber duel at the end of Star Wars Episode I is fucking awesome, but it doesn’t count.) And not switchblades, bayonets, daggers, chef’s knives, or ice picks. You know what a sword is.
The Great Race, sword fight between the Great Leslie (Tony Curtis) and Baron von Stuppe (Ross Martin). They go from rapiers to sabers - a great crashing fight.
I hadn’t seen that one before. I like how it steadily gets more serious, going from a sort of gentlemanly display of skill to “I’m going to fucking gut you.”
“This movie contains what is reported to be the longest fencing duel ever caught on film, a sequence lasting nearly eight minutes. The climactic fight ranges throughout the theater, from the balcony boxes, to the lobby, through the main seats, backstage, and finally on the stage itself. The actors spent eight weeks preparing for this sequence, having to memorize 87 different individual sword passes and 28 stunts.”
Zatoichi - Zatoichi's Dance of Death - YouTube
Elegant choreography, exquisite timing, and Shintarō Katsu’s fantastic agility with a sword. Swordsman II (1992)
How about James Bond in Die Another Day? The one I like is Chow Yun Fat owning Zhang Ziyi in Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon. He’s wielding a switch, she the Green Dragon sword.
But what do you mean by authentic? To paraphrase Sam Vines (I think) the purpose of a sword is to cut the other guy before he cuts you, not to clang swords against each other.
Every time two swords clang together, they do damage to each other’s edges and risk breaking. Nobody who is trusting his life to a sword is going to want it to hit anything that isn’t soft and fleshy.
The sword fight at the end between Robert Wagner and James Mason. They really go at it and there isn’t any music to mute the heavy breathing as they fight. The sound of the swords as they ring sounds real.
I watched Rob Roy 10 times, catching all the dialogue and nuances! I love LIAM!
He’s Irish though. Love the accent!!
The speech about “honor” to his boys up on the “hill” was one of 10 best quotes of his.
Rob Roy was beat out by Mel Gibson is that “other” sword wielding movie that year…( I didnt care for that one at all, especially the ripping out guts part!)
I came in to mention this one. It’s interesting and unique in constantly changing the kinds of swords they use, each of which has a very different style of swordplay and strategy. They could only get away with it by staging it at a fencing club, with all the different styles of sword on display and easily accessible. It was choreographed well.
Pretty much all of the sword fights in this movie and it’s other half are excellent to stellar. That’s what happens when you use actors who are experienced fencers and have a great fight choreographer.
Not one mention of, “The Adventures of Robin Hood”? The scene where Robin and Sir Guy battle off camera while their shadows duke it out on the wall is super. The fight never lets up. And when it’s over, it’s over; no multiple reaction shots–stab, fall, done.
It felt authentic to me because of its intensity, brutality, and the way MacGregor becomes so utterly exhausted by the end. Most sword fights are too “pretty.” Even if one participant has been injured, they are both dancing around at the end as vigorously as they were at the beginning with no hint of being winded. I can’t say anything about how accurate the technique was, but it seemed to me that’s what a real sword fight to the death would be like.
Oh yes, the whole Swordsman trilogy is amazing, in-depth review here.
The duel between Michelle Yeoh and Zhang Ziyi in Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon is my favorite. It starts sword-on-sword, so it meets the thread rules, even though it drifts into using many other weapons
Oh come on, nobody has mentioned the sword fight with the Black Knight in “Monty Python and the Holy Grail” yet? Sword fights don’t get much better than that.
