I suppose the use of a hammer disqualifies the hallway fight scene in Oldboy, but it shouldn’t; it’s an amazing scene (and directly inspired the Daredevil fight).
Other faves, mostly repeats:
Keith David and Roddy Piper, They Live
Jason Bourne and Desh, Bourne Ultimatum
Jackie Chan and Ken Lo, Drunken Master II
The entire shopping mall scene in Police Story
Different strokes. I find it an amazing scene. In a generally amazing series.
It’s a little obscure, but Rod Taylor and William Smith have an awesome brawl in a ship cabin in the 1970 Travis McGee movie, Darker Than Amber. It’s widely believed that one of them or the other failed to pull a punch, pissed the other one off, and the director just let them slug it out.
It certainly looks like it. One of them most brutal (realistic) fights in film history. Right over the dead girl, too.
Spencer Tracy vs. Ernest Borgnine, Bad Day at Black Rock. More of the whole scene than the actual fighting, which wasn’t all that even…
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This scene came immediately to my mind when reading the OP
That’s the one I was coming here to suggest.
Most of the fist-fight scenes in “The Prisoner” were pretty good. I think my favorite is the one in “Welcome to Harmony,” the “western” episode. Number Six vs. Zeke. Hell of a smack-down, but both guys suffer through it.
Rama and Andi vs. Mad Dog in “The Raid: Redemption”.
That whole movie is just hilariously insane. I got to see it in the local cinema-with-beer-and-food a few months ago as part of a B movie doubleheader with Dredd (the more recent one, not the Stallone Judge Dredd). Watching those fight scenes in a tipsy, rowdy theater was amazing.
I’ve been meaning to watch that movie.
Right you are!
I like a lot of the ones listed already, especially the Quiet Man. I didn’t see* Marlowe *mentioned where James Garner takes on Bruce Lee.
I hadn’t heard of that movie before. I watched a couple clips. It looks like a fun movie. I have a sneaking suspicion that Garner might have recycled some elements of that character in a role a few years later…
The Daredevil scene started out promisingly, but degenerated into literally a series of simple white-belt Karate drills. Not to sound like a fight scene hipster, but choreography went from awesome to terrible more quickly than any scene I can think of off the top of my head.
The scenes from Deadwood and They Live are both pretty fantastic.
One I just rewatched recently and really liked was the Batroc vs. Cap fight in the opening of Captain America: The Winter Soldier. It’s fast, well-shot, and very nice- looking. It’s flashy, but doesn’t have the “Hollywood choreography” vibe a lot of movie fights have.
I’m a big fan of Bruce Lee, Jet Li, and Jackie Chan. However…
Back at the turn of the century, there was a movie called Time and Tide (by Tsui Hark) out of China. The main character is a punk kid who hires on with a guy running a sketchy Bodyguard company. In the middle of the movie the main character finds himself in a small apartment with an airsoft gun (they’re made to look real), face-to-face with a real assassin. The fight choreographer’s DVD commentary was that he intentionally made sure the guys didn’t use any martial arts moves, just guts and desperation. That makes the ensuing fight scene seem a lot more intense and realistic than the stuff with trained fighters.
–G!
Ev’rybody was Kung Fu Fighting…
Oh, speaking of uncut fight scenes, I forgot to mention this gem of a thing with Tony Jaa.
there are so many how can you choose?
which scene is best gets all blurry when you’ve seen so many, just like the fight scenes.
Wow, that was fun! Must’ve taken quite a bit of planning and rehearsal.
Pretty cool! Paul Greengrass should be forced to watch this scene on repeat until he vows never to make another shaky-cam death-by-a-thousand-cuts fight scene again.
A couple of questions about it. The camera is briefly blocked by pillars a few times. Could they have done cuts there? Not that it takes away from the fun of the scene, just curious.
Also, at about 1:25, why is that guy standing there watching those two people having sex? And, is that supposed to be blood on the sheet, or just a reddish bed covering of some kind? Does anyone know what the woman says when Jaa leaves the room?
