12. BLOOD AND BONE (2008)
Blood And Bone was a
straight to dvd fight flick that impressed me greatly, not with it's
plot but it's well choreographed and shot fight scenes. The film was
directed by Ben Ramsey (Love And A Bullet) and stars Michael Jai
White (Black Dynamite) as Bone. The film followed an ex-con who
enters the world of underground unlicensed fights, in a mission to
fulfil a promise to a friend. It's extremely thin on plot but is made
up for by some blisteringly brutal fight scenes including one where
he takes on MMA fighter Bob Sapp, but the reason I've included it on
this countdown if because of the final fight between Bone and Matt
Mullins who plays the #1 ranked fighter in the world, Price. It's
technically well staged and almost seems effortless on Jai White's
side, it's two men going one on one with no weapons, just fists and
feet. The film comes across like a spaghetti western in how Bone is
the drifiter caught in the middle of some real bad shit and ends up
becoming the victor. Below is the final fight.
11. ROAD HOUSE (1989)
What can I say about
Road House that I didn't already say in my review (here), this is an
example of awesome 80s film making, a film that delights it's
audience with a barrage of bar room brawls, all set to a fantastic
soundtrack thanks to the Jeff Healy Band. Patrick Swayze plays
Dalton, the best 'cooler' in the business (basically head doorman)
and he's hired to go and clean up a bar called the Double Deuce.
Anyway he gets tangled up with a local villain and Dalton ends up
fighting the villain's right hand man. It's not the best fight ever
but it's quick, brutal and even has the line ' I used to fuck guys
like you in prison', now what's not to love about a film that uses
that line, anyway it's Swayze vs Marshal Teague who plays Jimmy and
it's one on one as a barn burns down in the background. The fight
ends with Dalton ripping out Jimmy's throat and pushing him into a
lake. It's all very very and very very 80s. Check out the fight scene
below.
10. HARD TIMES (1975)
This Depression era set
film follows a bare knuckle boxer played by Charles Bronson who hooks
up with fight promoter James Coburn. Bronson plays Chaney, a tough,
quiet street fighter while Coburn plays Speed, a fight promoter with
a gambling problem who travel to New Orleans to borrow money to set
up fights. Speed gambles away the money and is hounded by some
gangsters, forcing Chaney to fight a champion to wipe out Speed's
debt. The film was written and directed by Walter Hill, making his
directing debut, and it's a tough movie. There are some brilliant,
gritty fights in this film including one in a steel cage but the best
fight is the final knuckle dust up between Chaney and the champion
fighter, a few men in a warehouse, fighting for cash with no rules or
gloves. It's brutal and well shot. Apparently Charles Bronson was
53/54 years of age during the making of this film but the man's
physique was insane. This film has influenced all those straight to
dvd fight flicks that we've been inundated with in the last few
years, but this is the best. I couldn't find the final fight on
Youtube so here's the cage fight with the skin head.
9. ROCKY 4 (1985)
OK, now this film is in
my top five films of all time, I love it, so why am I putting it at 9 instead of at #1? well the reason is,
and although I love this film to death, there are better fight
scenes. Anyway the reason for this film landing on this countdown is
because of the final boxing match between Ivan Drago and Rocky
Balboa, a 10 minute montage of punch after punch after punch, It's a
brutal boxing match and one that you would never ever in a million
years see happen in a real match. But that's what adds to the
excitement of the film, Drago is like the fucking Terminator, he's
unstoppable, his punches are epic and it's up to the little man to
prove he's just as tough. I'm not going to go through the plot
because lets face it, you've already seen the film. Anyway for ten
minutes we get to watch Drago and Balboa go toe to toe in a grudge
match of epic proportions after two almighty training montages. Who
wins? Well guess, it's pretty fucking obvious. But it's a great film
with a stonking fight that's topped off with not only a huge dollop
of cheese but one of the best film soundtracks of the 1980s. Enjoy
the fight in full below. 8. CHOCOLATE (2008)
This film comes from
the director of Ong Back and Tom Yung Goong (Aka The Warrior King)
and follows the exploits of an autistic girl who has mastered the
martial arts through watching Bruce Lee movies. I was going to
include either Ong Back or The Warrior King but I decided on
Chocolate due to the fact that the star, Jeeja Yanin, had no previous
martial arts training until this film and because of the way she
fights and how well she does it, this is the reason I chose this
film, that's not to say that either of those two films are rubbish,
but because of the zero training Yanin had before, I feel obliged to
choose this. Anyway, the fight choreography in Chocolate is
astonishing and a lot of praise should be given to Yanin who out
performs a lot of professional martial arts actors. I could select
any scene from Chocolate as an example of this young lady's new found
skills but I've chosen a scene in a warehouse, in which Yanin takes
on a bum load of bad guys and dispatches them in some brutally
efficient ways. Keep an eye out this woman as she's going places,
just check out Raging Phoenix if you don't believe me. Any way the
warehouse fight can be seen below.
7. GORGEOUS (1999)
Jackie Chan bounds onto
this countdown with his 1999 comedy Gorgeous, co-starring Shu Qi (The
Transporter) and Tony Leung (Infernal Affairs). It's a film that
takes in many different genres including Romance, Comedy and Action
and follows Shu Qi's character as she travels to Hong Kong looking
for her one true love, instead she meets a kind hearted professional
fighter and finds she is falling for him. Gorgeous is a sweet film
and has some genuinely funny moments in it, but the film makes this
list because it has an awesome one on one fight between Jackie and
Australian action choreographer Bradley James Allen who has worked on
everything from Jackie's Mr Nice Guy to big Hollywood productions
such as Avatar and Scott Pilgrim. Anyways, this fight has Jackie
dressed in white and Bradley dressed in black and it's an epic
one-two of a punch up. Every kick and every punch is visible on
screen and throughout the fight it's littered with nice comic
touches. There's even a point where Bradley Allen changes gloves
because his hands aren't fast enough due to the weight of the
previous gloves. It's a brilliantly choreographed set piece and its
because of this that it's landing on this list.
6. DISTRCIT 13 (2004)
This insane action
picture from France comes from the pen of Luc Besson and the eye of
director Pierre Morel (Taken) and follows the exploits of a cop and a
criminal as they team up to find a nuclear device inside a walled off
Paris ghetto. Now this film is fucking mental, it's non stop action
from start to finish and incorporates martial arts and the art of
Parkour, free running. The film stars Martial artist Cyril Raffaelli
and free runner David Belle as the cop and the criminal. The reason
the film is on the list is because of one specific scene, a scene in
which undercover cop Raffaelli, must escape a casino and take down
the bad guys. This scene includes some awesome fights skills, a gun
battle and some insane wire free stunts. The action choreography is
done by Raffaelli and is masterful. Like I said this film is non stop
action from start to finish and shows you don't have to have $150
million dollars and a studio backing to create an adrenaline fuelled
action movie. Check out the casino scene below.
5. UNDISPUTED 3 (2010)
While the Undisputed 2
was a great example of straight to DVD martial arts film making, this
second sequel to Walter Hill's 2002 prison boxing drama, focuses on
the best character from the second, Yuri Boyka, the most complete
fighter in the world. In the second film Boyka is the villain but he
was such a popular character, they made him the hero in this film.
Transferred to a new eastern European prison, Boyka is forced to join
the first inter-prison fight tournament against 8 different fighters
from some of the toughest prisons in the world. It sure does sound
like a straight to DVD plot, but it's easy to look past that thanks
to some of the best, straight up one on one fight scenes commuted to
film in the last 20 years. This is in part thanks to director Isaac
Florentine, a martial artist himself, who has honed his craft over
the last twenty years on films like Savate, Bridge Of Dragons and as
Stunt co-ordinator on the Power Ranger's tv show between 1993 and
1994, the other reason for the brilliant choreography is thanks to
star and stunt co-ordinator Scott Adkins who is fast becoming a
rising star in the niche world of martial arts movies and will soon
be seem opposite Van Damme, Stallone, Statham, Li, Couture, Lundgren,
Norris, Willis and Schwarzenegger in this years The Expendables 2.
Any ways, the reason this film is on the list is due to the fantastic
fight between Boyka and Dolor (Chilean Martial arts star Marko
Zorror). It's fisticuffs at dawn for these two in a brutal, well
choreographed punch up.
4. FLASH POINT (2008)
Flash Point is a Hong
Kong action film from director Wilson Yip, the man who gave us Ip Man
and Sha Po Lang and stars Asian action superstar Donnie Yen as a cop
who takes on three brothers of a powerful Vietnam gang. The action
scenes in this a fucking mental, Yen choreographed the film using the
MMA style of fighting and weaving it into the traditional Wushu style
of martial arts choreography, essentially creating another entirely
new form of fighting. As with the usual Hong Kong action movie, the
fight scenes are insane, they're brutal and fast and each move is
consistent. The editing is also fluid and although it does employ a
smaller scale chaos camera style, every hit is visible. Yen learned
the style through pro MMA fighters and incorporates it effortlessly
into the film . It's not the strongest film, plotwise but action wise
it's pretty fucking close to the top end of the action scale. It's a
monumental fight scene as nothing is safe from the leg locks, hard
fast punches and powerful kicks. Bricks go flying, walls get smashed
and bones get broken. You can check out the entire 8 minute fight
below.
3. THEY LIVE (1988)
John Carpenter's
brilliant satirical sci-fi actioner contains one of cinema's,
longest, toughest and brutal punch ups. WWE superstar Rowdy Roddy
Piper stars as Nada, a drifter who stumbles into a conspiracy about
an alien invasion. The aliens have somehow managed to shield their
existence and they consumerist ideals from the unsuspecting humans.
Nada discovers that a special pair of sunglasses reveal their
existence and sets out on a mission to take the aliens down and
unveil their existence to the rest of humanity. But, to do this he
needs help and the only person he knows who can help is blissfully
unaware of the aliens and Nada has to persuade him to put the
sunglasses on. What follows is a 5 minute 20 second fight between
Roddy Piper and Keith David who plays Frank, that was done for real,
only faking hits to the face and groin. It took three weeks to
rehearse and was only supposed to last 20 seconds. It ranks up their
as one of longest fist fights in cinema history. The scene was
parodied almost blow by blow in the 'cripple fight' episode of South
Park, so if you're referenced in that show, then you know it made an
impact. Check out the full fight below.
2. THE QUIET MAN (1952)
The mother of all movie
fist fights seemingly has John Wayne fighting all of Ireland, it's a
punch up of royal proportions. John Fords 1952 comedy drama follows
Sean Flynn, retired American boxer who returns to the small Irish
village where he was born to claim his homestead and to forget his
past. He falls in love with a poor maiden played by Maureen O'Hara
but finds he comes up against her ill-tempered brother Will. The film
culminates in one of the longest continuous fist fights in movie
history as it last for 9 and a half minutes. The film was quite a
departure for Wayne who was more or less type cast in his signature
westerns and more action driven films, The Quiet Man gave Wayne a
chance to try his hand at comedy and it works as the film is a very
entertaining picture with some beautiful cinematography and Ford
signature framing. There are great performances throughout from
Wayne, Maureen O'Hara and Victor McLaglan all set to a wonderful
score by Victor Young (Johnny Guitar). You can watch the entire fight
below.
1. FIST OF LEGEND (1994)
Jet Li's remake of
Bruce Lee's Fist Of Fury is hailed by some people as the greatest
martial arts film ever made, and it's easy to see why. The scene that
has landed it in this list is a scene in which Li's character Chen
Zhen, takes on an entire dojo of ass kickers. It's a brilliantly
realised scene and moves at a tremendous pace as Li works his way
through near countless adversaries. It features some stunning fight
choreography from Cheung-Yan Yuen (Iron Monkey, Daredevil) and really
does show the speed of Li's skills. In fact the scene is almost
completely re-staged in Li's fantastic 2001 action thriller Kiss Of
The Dragon where Li takes on a room full of Taekwondo students.
Obviosuly Li doesn't have the speed and grace of Bruce Lee but he's
almost an equal match in this film. People have always compared the
like of Jackie Chan and Jet Li to Bruce Lee, but they couldn't be
more different in styles, Bruce was a student of a multitude of
different disciplines which led him to create Jeet Kun Do, Li is a
student of Wushu and a former champion of that style and Jackie Chan
has trained in Kung Fu and other disciplines as well as theatrical
studies which he did at a Peking Opera school, which is where is
comic timing and acrobatic fighting style comes from, so none of them
would be an equal match for each other. But if you want to see Li
strut his stuff and fuck people up, you can check out the incredible
dojo scene from Fist Of Legend below.
I know what you're
thinking, how can you have a countdown of best fight scenes and not
actually include any Bruce Lee fights. Well to answer that question,
the reason is, he is on everyone's list, his fight between himself
and Chuck Norris is legendary and I feel it already holds it's place
in the high up scale of action movie fight scenes, the same goes for
any fight in The Big Boss, Way Of The Dragon and even Game Of Death.
I think Bruce's legacy has been covered a lot and he was the best but
I've decided to chose these film as some may be little seen by
people. So there we go, that is Cine-Apocalypse.com's Top 12 Brutal
Movie Brawls.
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