The film fight is a staple of all the great action movies. It can be subtle, like a dance, artistic or just contain two characters knocking seven bells out of each other. All of the good ones get our adrenaline pumping. But what are our favourite fight scenes?

Rules is rules.

1.Gunfights don’t count. In film-land they are entirely different to “The Fight Scene”.

2. It has to be a fair fight. No Arnie vs Army here. No One Man vs The World. No Army vs Army (although honourable mention to the hospital scene in Hard Boiled).

Warning:- Some of these fight clips have some violence in them. Ok, all of them have some violence in them. So if you don’t like fightin’, best miss this one out. There are a few instances of bad language as well.

Yoda vs Count Dooko (Star Wars: Attack of the Clones - 2002)

We had heard that Yoda was pretty much the greatest Jedi ever, but we hadn’t seen any evidence to back this up until this. This is probably the best part of any of the prequels.

Ting vs Illegal Boxing Champ 1 and 2 (Ong Bak - 2003)

Tony Jaa’s breakthrough film has the works, and there are any number of good fight scenes to choose from. These two, back to back, have just the right mix of action and humour, and some perfect slow motion shots. The fact that there was no special effects, and no wire work in this film make the stunts all the more amazing.

Yu Shu Lien vs Jen Yu (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon - 2000)

Yuen Woo Ping has been the master of fight choreography for over 30 years, and it was in Crouching Tiger… that he showed his finest work. Yes, even better than The Matrix, which he had done fight choreography for a year earlier. Ang Lee’s “Eastern”, was basically a retelling of the cowboy myth, but set in the far east, and was the first foreign language film to take $100m at the US box office. For the shooting of this scene Michelle Yeoh’s background in martial is obvious, but Ziyi Zhang (Jen) had no previous martial arts training, and relied on her background as a dancer.

Nada vs Frank (They Live - 1988)

The fight that was famously parodied on South Park. There are brawls, big brawls, and then this one, from John Carpenter’s underrated classic They Live. For those of you who haven’t seen this (and I recommend that you do) this fight is over a pair of sunglasses…

Wong Fei Hung vs Hwang Jang Lee (Drunken Master - 1978)

Jackie Chan plays a man who can only tap into his inner strength when he is drunk. I’m sure many can relate. Drunken Master was one of the first films to showcase Chan’s talents as the Buster Keaton of Kung Fu Movies, mixing comedy, slapstick and amazing martial arts to create a genre all on his own.

Dragon vs Colt (Way of the Dragon - 1972)

It is Bruce Lee against Chuck Norris. In fighting terms that is like having the 1958 Real Madrid Team play the 1990 AC Milan team.

Optimus Prime vs Megatron (Transformers: The Movie - 1986)

“One shall stand, one shall fall”. Indeed. And one film shall traumatise millions of kids by killing their hero. Michael Bay should take note, as this is how you get an audience to actually care whether your robot characters live or die. I still blame Hot Rod.

Martin Blank vs Felix La PuBelle (Grosse Point Blank - 1997)

If you can assasinate the president of Paraguay with a fork, then you can definitely take out a rival with a ball point pen.

Hin Hung vs Iron Monkey and Kei Ying (Iron Monkey - 1993)

Another Yuen Woo Ping film, and why not. So, we have a final battle, fought on top of poles, which are on fire. The film took eight years (and pressure from Quentin Tarantino) to see a US release, but in the wake of Crouching Tiger…’s success, studio execs were more willing to take a chance. Yuen Woo Ping is the man responsible for wirework in fight scenes, and revolutionised the Kung Fu film with his work on Snake and the Eagle’s Shadow and Born Invincible. His work has been seen recently in both Kill Bill films and Danny the Dog with Jet Li and Bob Hoskins.

Sugar Ray Robinson vs Jake LaMotta (Raging Bull 1980)

Raging Bull is arguably Martin Scorsese’s finest work, and it is never more artistic than in his depictions of the battles between Robinson and La Motta. The fights are both beautiful and horrific, and aren’t short of religious imagery. They are also hugely claustrophobic, and as perfectly shot and soundtracked as you will find in any other film. About as close to a real fight as you will ever feel from watching a film.

Luke vs Dragline (Cool Hand Luke - 1967)

One of the few included here where our hero gets the beating. Luke refuses to lie down, despite being repeatedly knocked about by Dragline. By refusing to stay down, Luke wins the respect of his fellow inmates.

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 4th, 2008 by Thom Watt and is filed under Community, Film Texpertise. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.