Once Were Warriors had some unpleasantly realistic fights. Like this one.
When people got beat up in Deadwood they stayed beat up for days and weeks. Refreshing!
Exactly what I came in to say and the one guy holding on to a leg.
??
Michael hauled that broken jaw to Sicily and still had signs of the damage when he got back to New York.
(It’s been a while, so I had to scratch my head over what I was thinking at the time.)
I’ve always liked the train compartment fight in From Russia With Love.
While the thread has stuck mostly to hand-to-hand and melee, I’ll nominate the post-heist running-gun-battle-in-the-streets-shootout from Heat.
Realistic gunfire sounds, weapons jams, reloading, people actually taking cover during reloading.
Absolutely marvelous.
It would be. But at some point during the fight, both fighters go crashing through a big screen window.
Do not try that at home.
Yes, but they don’t reload nearly enough. That’s what lets it down.
They’re more realistic than most others in films.
A couple of people have mentioned the fight from They Live. Here it is:
Second the fight between Bond and Grant in the train compartment in From Russia with Love. It really looked to me like the two were trying to kill each other.
That’s Benny Urquidez. If you want to see something pretty intense, check out the fight between Urquidez and Jackie Chan at the end of Wheels on Meals. Rumor has it that the two of them did not get along, and the fight between them has a real edge of anger and intensity.
Apparently Harrison Ford was sick during that day of filming and opted for a quick finish for the scene over the originally scripted whip vs. sword show down.
Neo-Nazi skinheads vs Vietnamese restaurant workers in Romper Stomper. Yes, that is Russell Crowe.
I know it’s an old thread but here’s my contribution.
Apparently the sword fights in Rob Roy were done in a very historically accurate manner.
Video contains spoilers, so if you haven’t seen Rob Roy, go watch the whole movie instead of this clip. It’s a good film.
One thing to look for in a realistic fight scene is exhaustion. I used to wrestle when I was a kid. A match had three two minute rounds for a total of six minutes. Even the guys who were in the best shape were completely gassed after going the distance. Even if you scored a first round pin you were still panting heavily at the end of it.
Depends on the skill-level of the participants and how evenly-matched they are – and, for that matter, the style of swordplay they’re doing. At evenly-matched low skill levels, mistakes are more common and would therefore lead to a short ending. At evenly-matched high skill levels, we could expect more attacks and blocks as well as more feints and other strategy. The quips are often part of the strategy; messing with an opponent’s mind and emotions.
I and another student were paired off using bokken against each other (with much protective armoring) and spent a good fifteen minutes making no progress against each other. I finally stepped back and joked a little bit, and the judges relaxed while my opponent took the opportunity to wipe away sweat. Then I suddenly launched into a flechette and jammed the tip of my weapon into my opponent’s belly. Since nobody had called time-out, the solid hit was considered fair, though rather unconventional.
In a battle (teams versus teams) this would be more likely. One-on-one, outside of a duel, things could go on longer.
Duelling, of course, has its own formal set of ‘fair play’ restrictions and such interruptions as were noted in the mini-analysis of the Duellist’s encounters.
In Analyze This, when two hit men attack gangster Jelly and Dr. Sobol in a junkyard, Ben grabs Jelly’s gun and blindly shoots back - then he straightens up and sees two dead men…
Dr. Ben Sobel: J-Jelly? Did I do that?
Jelly: No, Doc. That one’s mine. You got the '72 Chevy and the Amana side-by-side refrigerator-freezer.
Nobody has yet mentioned it, but Tsui Hark did a movie called Time and Tide back in 2000. Although he’s done a lot of work with Jet Li, he stated that he wanted the fight choreography to look less stylized because the main character and his opponents weren’t supposed to be trained martial artists. So there’s a lot of scrambling on the floor, dashing for the door and getting tackled, reaching for silly ineffective weapons, etc.
–G!
Every moment of your lifetime
Every minute,
Every day
Fight the good fight every moment
Make it worth
the price we pay
. --Rik Emmett (Triumph)
. Fight the Good Fight
. Allied Forces
My favorite.
And what does Bond first do after winning the life or death struggle?
He straightens his tie!
Okay, it’s technically not “fighting” per se, but the executions in Schindler’s List were incredibly realistic. From time to time I forgot it was a movie and starting thinking it was documentary footage.
Considering the number of movies where no one relaods at all, or where people needlessly “racks” a gun (and ejects a perfectly functional shell or bullet) for menacing emphasis, Heat stands out for what they get right, which is a lot more realistic than 99% of anything else out there.