Top 10 best fighting scenes ever

10 - 卧虎藏龙 (2000)

Ang Lee's 'Titanic' set in the martial arts world was an international phenomenon that rekindled the appetite for wuxia movie once again. A lush epic love story with a unique take that also propelled *gasp* Zhang Ziyi to become who she is today. But I guess Ang Lee knew that audience expects jaw dropping fight scenes in an martial arts movie, and so who better than to get 袁和平 to choreograph it for him. The night duel was a fight to the death by two bitter rivals longing for revenge and Ang Lee needs it to scream blood. Under less concerning directors, fight scenes often get reduced to become over-choreographed and over-rehearsed (refer to The Matrix trilogy) combination of dance steps and hand exchanges. but honestly this fight scene would have fared better were it not for the unnecessary comic factor and the deadly weapon sticking out of the guy's head.

9 - 刀 (1995)

Any director can make martial action movies but only Tsui Hark makes martial action movies. And speaking of blood feud and death matches, this 1995 film is all about that. A remake of the oldie 独臂刀, Tsui Hark got all indie and experimental in his version. Apparently it backfired and was not well-received in the box office, but the raw energy and intense final battle is still a force to behold and reckon with.

8 - Never Back Down (2008)

So you think White Boys cant fight? Not in this movie, a Top Gun meets Mixed Martial Arts movie. It holds all the cliche about a guy searching for inner strength to defeat his arch rival / school bully / inner demons and wins the girl, such a movie gets made once every few year. However the writers seems to take their job seriously for a change and managed to flesh out decent characters that makes the film stands out. So if it's good why take the credit away from it. Add in some serious MMA fight scenes and look what you get: made with a modest $20 million budget, debuted at #3 in it's opening weekend and grossed a total of $41 million after running 84 days in North America. The film also won Best Fight Scene in the 2008 MTV Awards.

7 - 笑傲江湖II 之 东方不败 (1992)


There will be quite a few Tsui Hark movies featuring Jet Li in my top 10 lists. This fight scene admittedly is one of the shortest and least engaging of all. But it is here purely for it's creativity and technical achievement. Remember it was made in 1992 when CGI was almost non-existent. In 笑傲江湖 Tsui Hark introduced us to the concept of ‘剑气’ or sword energy, where the wielder of the sword can kill without having to strike the opponent with his sword, but rather by the force unleashed from the stroke of his sword energy. In part two they took it further by having Jet Li to wield the sword in motion without even so much as touching it while engaging the opponent in sword fight. The result is an elegant and masterful crafted swordplay as the sword swirls around Li's body in attack and defence. It is just the stuff of oriental legend. The seamless motion crafted without any computer manipulation together with the background music simply leaves one in awe of it's screen magic.

6 - 杀波浪 (2005)


Donnie Yen the current action superstar of asian cinema shows how it's done. Although the final battle was to be between Donnie and Samo Hung, it is this duel against Wu Jing who plays a cold blooded assassin that really steals the thunder. This scene possess all the ingredients of a worthy fight scene. Two lone men with nothing but a weapon in their hands and the surging desire to take the opponent down. The fight is not going to be pretty, it will get brutal and it will be bloody. Alone in an alley with no audience, no assistance, no interruption and no ‘废话’, only one will leave the alley alive! It doesn't get any simpler than this.

5 - 叶问2（2010）


Another of Donnie's more commercially successful film as the master Ip Man, he is up against Samo Hung (again) in a duel to determine his worthiness to set up a martial arts school. When we are watching an action movie, we tend to take for granted that every action sequence undergoes grueling planning followed by painful rehearsals. And more importantly the camerawork has to capture the action in it's full glory, lest also not forgetting the painstaking editing work to put it all together for you on the screen. This fight scene if you watch it again carefully is made of numerous cuts from different camera angles, all put in nicely together by excellent and also tedious editing work. Seriously that to me is real kungfu!

4 - 黄飞鸿（1991）


黄飞鸿 is without any doubt THE quintessential kungfu movie of modern times. As far as I'm concerned it is still an unchallenged and unsurpassed production of it's genre. Definitely one of Tsui Harks triumphant works, it set the kungfu mania for the early 90s with a string of wannabes and copycats. This film alone revived Jet Li back to stardom and set the platform for him in becoming the international action icon that he is today. That popularity allowed him to make THE breakthrough into Hollywood, paving the way for other Asian action stars to join him in Tinseltown, spreading kungfu mania to the West.
This scene itself embodies the epitome of good versus evil, ground breaking action sequences and graceful choreography. Plus the theme music in the background absolutely makes this movie a timeless classic!

3 - 导火线 (2007)


Personally I much prefer this 2007 action movie than 叶问 (say what you want). It's less pretentious and also reminiscing of the action movies of the 80's. If Jackie Chan is the 'Action Comedian', Jet Li the 'Grand Master' than Donnie is without a doubt the 'Bad Boy' of action movies.
He does all his fight scenes, no body double. You can see from this scene every kick and every punch he throws is serious bad ass shit that can knock out a lesser being to Armageddon. He uses the film medium to showcase his MMA fighting style and at the end credits, you even catch a glimpse of his training footage. A worthy torch holder of the kungfu genre and this scene shows you why!

2 - 黄飞鸿II之男儿当自强 (1992)


This scene alone lasting only three minutes is to be carved in stone as the scene that made history...literally! Let me tell you why - two action icons of modern times, both men in their prime, in the same scene battling it out. Before this movie, Jet was a measly trainer in the US, Donnie is just another action actor with forgettable roles. Both men had real talent and raw skills, when this scene erupted onscreen in 1992, so was the birth of two action superstars. Though Donnie had to wait after Jet moved to Hollywood to finally get the attention he was denied, I'd say it was worth the wait.
Beautifully shot and choreographed, this fight scene is without a doubt, the high point for the entire movie. The action is an almost flawless and absorbing piece of action sequence one gets to witness in a lifetime. Both men won't meet again until a decade later in Zhang Yimou's 英雄, but I would rather forget that pussy piece of trash if I could have it my way.

1 - 黄飞鸿（1991）


My number one pick is going to surprise disagreed upon by many because it does not have any of the big action stars mentioned above. In fact the two men featured in the scene are not enough close to good looking. It is a scene taken from the 1991 original which features a duel between two martial arts master. One is the founder from a reputable school, the other a wandering vagrant down on his luck. It turns out they were to settle a 'dispute' in the traditional way. Both men only exchanged blows three times or commonly known in Chinese terms '三招'. But immediately after the first exchange, the tide shifted and it is the manner in which it was captured that I felt deserved the top spot. The whispering thoughts running through both men as they fought was cleverly laid out to the audience. The expressions of ferocity and disbelief among both men amplified the tensions and emotions as well as showcasing the superb editing and camerawork of the production crew. Add in the somber background music and a truly ingenious way of displacing an enemy that will leave you covering your throat, it is one of  the most intense three minutes of fighting I ever seen.

'一个都不能少' movie review

This Zhang Yimou's masterpiece (before he started making craps like 'The curse of the golden flower') was released back in 1999, and I had the privileged of watching it during it's theatrical release then. It was recently shown on SCV and watching it again after so many years still made me awe at it's profound magic. Make no mistake this movie is a true gem and classic in every sense, if only that many people have watched it.

The story is simple, a substitute teacher, Ms Wei Ming Zhi from a poor rural mountain village was tasked to look after a class of students for one month. The original teacher, Mr Gao promised her that if she were to prevent any of the students from dropping out of school, he would pay her an extra RMB$10. Now we are talking about the poorest village you can imagine with it's children having to sleep in the school building itself because they have nowhere else to go. Every piece of chalk is a treasure as precious as the knowledge it can spare to teach. Ms Wei, herself only a few years older than her students, displays little interest or experience to handle a class of kids initially. But what she lacks for in passion she makes it up in perseverance. When one of her student, a young boy named Zhang Hui Ke, was forced to leave home and school to work in the city due to her family's increasing debts, Ms Wei is determined to fulfill her promise to Mr Gao and earn her RMB$10.

There are many areas that make '一个都不能少' so unique. For one all the actors and locations are real, you will not find one familiar actor or big name in it's casting. All the actors go by their actual name as verified in the closing credits. If Zhang is trying to invoke as much realism as he could then he certainly achieved that. The actors I believe, are also not reciting from any script. They are simply told to react as naturally as they could in the given scene. But '一个都不能少' achievements are not just layered to it's level of realism, this is an unpretentious movie that does not try to become grander than it's source material. There is no parallel social message or emotional tankering forced to the audience. The true beauty and lure of this movie lies in it's simplicity in delivering the story in it's purest form that enables audiences to 'ride along' with Ms Wei's journey. Given that, you know whatever hardships she comes to endure in her journey is all true and plausible and before long, you will feel yourself sweating to the heat she's under and wished you could spare your seat to her.

Watching '一个都不能少' will inevitably make you think about yourself and our society of grotesque excesses in general. There is a scene towards the end of the movie when Ms Wei speaks to the TV camera, her tears trickling uncontrollably about her search for her missing student. You would have to be stone-made to not feel anything to that scene! For a movie that tries so hard to not be a movie, '一个都不能少' has achieved more than any other Hollywood blockbusters colored in special effects hankered over a pretentious plot emotions. Zhang Yi Mou demonstrated that he knows about his source material enough to deliver a true image of life in rural China. It is however regrettable that he chose to follow a more profitable but nonetheless shallower path now. But if there is any message '一个都不能少' has taught us, it is to cherish the simple joys life has to offer us before they are gone. This film, however is available for rental, and I do recommend you go watch it!!!

Why 大世界 will be a flop

Trying something different for a change, an offbeat attempt to find constructive ways to waste time. So instead of writing another movie reviw, I shall be a smart-aleck and do a movie prediction of our homemade production '大世界'.

Naturally since the movie is yet to be released, there's really nothing I can write about in terms of it's story or the cast acting and directing. So based on what am I making this prediction? Am I giving another biased judgement simply because '大世界' is a local production? As much as I like to admit that I am fair and impartial to movies, I like to evidently confess that there are some, though very few, local movies which I do find to be mildly entertaining. And that's saying alot! Such as 'Must Follow Law' (say what you want); 'Money No Enough 1' are just a few examples of local movies hitting the right mainstream note to garner the consensus of our local varied demographics. And that is no easy feat to achieve.

The first and biggest problem about '大世界' is their movie trailer. The first time I watched it is during the movie 'Tron'. It lasted about 2 - 2.5 mins but in the small time frame alone, I have never felt so utterly bewildered to the point of irritation about 'what the F* is going on?' Even looking at the poster has the potential of giving me a chronic headache. Trailers are supposed to give a glimpse of what to expect or anticipate in the movie. But in the '大世界' trailer, all I see are a massive barrage local TV actors and actresses appearing with an average screen time of 2.39 seconds per actor, in selective acts of 'comedic absurdness'. It conjures up so much random scenes it seems like a last ditched desperate attempt by the producers to force sell the film with as much visualizations as possible. At the end of the trailer, I haven't got a clue what this movie is all about, who the lead actor is and what is it's bloody story? The only thing I am certain of is the movie is based on the old popular hangout that my parents would fondly think of. And that is it's next biggest problem.

I do not know much about the history of 大世界 except it used to be the most 'happening' place in Singapore during my parent's times. Conservatively speaking, that is almost 40-50 years ago. Dosen't that summarize where the problem lies? Nobody in our current movie going generation even heard of 大世界 let alone be interested to pay money to watch a movie about it. I don't know about you but last time I checked I failed to spot any 60 - 70 year old entourages visiting the cinema I went to, and NO I do not know about the audiences at Yang Tze cinema! Thus by setting '大世界' as the name of the film, Raintree already committed marketing suicide by natural selection, when it omitted the youthful but nevertheless dedicated audiences that is the economic backbone of the film industry.

Traditionally it is expected to have several blockbuster movies lined up for the CNY release, and this year the main stiff competition will be from Andy Lau's 'Shaolin' and Jay Chou's 'The Green Hornet' which I can bet my last dollar is the one audiences flock to watch. Just the combined efforts of Andy Lau and Jay Chou alone will massacre every single Mediacorp artists. And that's not even including competition from overnight mahjongs!

There is also a huge taboo in the film industry not to name their films after a location, it's been proven to almost always come true. The only thing it lacked is scientific evidence for it to be properly researched. Don't believe me, there's 'Barbershop' and 'Daddy Day Care'. These are real examples of actual hollywood movies that flopped and the only reason you never heard of them is because it stank so badly the producers just want everybody to develop selective amnesia over them so they can save themselves from further embarressment. With the only exception of 'Titanic' and it can't even be applied here because of a few facts:

1) It is directed by James Cameron, who at that time already has a few impressive films under his CV (T2, Aliens, True Lies).

2) Titanic is 'famous' enough in the annals of great disasters for it to be a marketing campaign alone.

3) Leonardo Di Caprio ............. enough said!

Sadly '大世界' has not shown any sign that it is a promising and watchable movie worthy of the audience's time. But it possesses all the signs it is doomed from the beginning. Even the synopsis of the movie in the Golden Village website is obscure and brief, describing to us what we already knew but can't be bothered to delve deeper. However this is my first prediction and in all fairness to Raintree and for it's sake I hope I am wrong. If I am at least they are answerable to their investors and I shall stop making baseless predictions. But if I am right, I hope someone from Mediacorp higher management reads my blog and I will gladly accept any freelance consultative jobs to their future productions.

Inception

To say Inception is a good movie is not doing it any justice at all. In a summer of shameless remakes and sequels, this the best movie of the year if not the decade! Just when you thought Christopher Nolan cannot outdo his 2007 Batman sequel The Dark Knight, he shows us why he is the prodigal saviour of Hollywood. Inception is clearly his smartest movie since Memento.

This movie reminds us again the reason why we should pay the ticket price to watch in theaters. I'm not going to discuss the plot in any detail here because that will just spoil the fun of watching it. All I can say is it is an exhilarating experience for me which I have not felt in a long long time. The story confounds you at first to get your attention, leaves you with a dozen questions then Nolan unveils the answers to you layer by layer. By the time you have most of the answers he hits you with a hammer of excitements and spectacular visual treats in the climatic ending that will surely astound you. Even towards the end you will be clamoring to know what is going to happen.

All the actors and actresses did a marvelous job playing their respective characters because Nolan does not believe in stereotypical pedestrain characters. Every actor has a key role to play and bring to the movie and all of them had their moments to shine. In fact I can hardly find any flaw with this movie, the cinematography gives the movie it's epic feel and the music score by Hans Zimmer propels the excitement and tension of the movie, especially towards the end, to an emphatic height. This movie would have been an editing nightmare but yet it was so elegantly cut that it laid out the depth of the story in simple fashion, but I wouldn't be surprised if there are people who requires a second viewing just to fully grasps the entire story.

In the opening weekend alone the box office takings in U.S has already reached $60.4 million, the movie was made on a budget of $160 million. That's not including overseas market earnings. Reviews all over have been exceptional and everyone agree that this is THE movie to watch. Judging by the unanimous applause at the end of the movie, it is very obvious the positive sentiments are felt and appreciated. Such a gem only comes once every few years, you would be kicking yourself if you missed it. I'm already planning to watch it again!

Kick Ass

Trailers have 2 very important purposes, studios use them to highlight the best parts of the movies before they are released in order to entice audiences. More often than not we get so overwhelmed by the bits and pieces that we saw in the trailer we tend to hold our hopes way too high only to crash in disappointment (think the remake of Clash of the Titans). Sometimes the trailers act like a covert agent, they only show you what they want you to think the movie is about, but upon seeing the actual movie you realize you gotten more than you bargained. And the surprise in store does make that particular experience lot more memorable.

Kick Ass is one of those movies that if you see it from the trailer, looks like another typical superhero / teen-coming of age / comedy spoof movie that moulds itself closely with the likes of Spiderman. The story tells how Dave, a high school teen who decides to take his superhero dreams to a new realistic level and become an actual masked crusader. The premise is almost like 2008's Superhero Movie, which happens to be an actual spoof of Spiderman. But director Matthew Vaughn took great pains to steer Kick Ass away from any cliched whirlpool and offered us a fresh take of how an actual teen would deal with the issues of becoming an actual masked vigilante, at the same time dealing with issues such as family, friends, love and sex. On Dave's first attempt at crime fighting for instance, he actually gets himself so badly beaten by the thugs that he ends up in hospital. Though it was a pathetic end for our crime fighter, it does set Kick Ass apart from the other superhero movies and does away with the concept of invincibility. It's almost like watching a teenage version of Watchmen.

What worked for Kick Ass is how the director was able to skillfully project the anxiety of Dave's secret identity and his teenage desires altogether, yet never trapping itself to over indulgence at the expense of the story. Instead he led the different characters drive the plot ahead and in the proceed of that propelled the story to different heights, that in the second half began to take on a darker tone. Young Chloe Moretz gave a stellar performance as Hitgirl, who was trained from childhood by his father to become a masked vigilante. She is the martial arts expert who slices and shoots her enemies without any moral hesitation. It's an unexplainable feeling when you watch her cut her enemy down with lullaby music playing in the background. Or the way Nicholas Cage shoots his own daughter to make her overcome her fear of bullets. Kick Ass not only steers clear of the stereotypical gags, it dives head down to show us what we long wanted to expect out of real superheros.....real danger!

Nothing is atypical as far as Kick Ass is concerned, the performance by the cast sublimely fits the childish tone at once and then subtly switches gear as it gets darker. Mark Strong who plays the drug kingpin finally seems to be having fun with his character. He does away with his usual stoic performance this time, instead his villain is a father figure who struggles with the upbringing of his adolescent child, managing his ineffective thugs and dealing with the superhero threats. His muddled, confused expression is simply a joy to watch. Kick Ass is a refreshing and entertaining take on a popular movie theme that we felt may have seen it all. But the way the story unfolds and how the characters are written does make it seem like we are here for the first time and it is definitely enjoyable to be surprised like that. So don't always believe the trailers, sometimes the movie may turn out to be good afterall!

Robin Hood

The thing you have to know when your watching Robin Hood is that your not just watching a remake of a classic favorite, but your also watching a Ridley Scott movie. And I happen to be one of Scott's biggest movie fan, hence I will try my best to be as unbiased in my review as I could. Ridley Scott's movies are always bursting with details and details and details, the production values of any of Scott's movies are always immaculate and no expenses are evidently spared. From the historical characters to the last piece of thread found in the costumes, watching a Ridley Scott period production is like attending a crash course in history lesson.

Ridley Scott burst into Hollywood with a successive string of classic movies such as Alien, Bladerunner and Thelma & Louise. But he quickly descended into the 'style over substance' curse with flops like White Squall and G.I. Jane. However, he found new life in year 2000 when he won a deserving Oscar for Gladiator, but at the expense of us getting stuck with Russel Crowe. Maybe Scott wanted a more rugged battle hardened Robin Hood, but could he at least settle for someone younger?

So we all know the story of Robin Hood, the master archer who robs the rich and gives to the poor. How is Scott able refresh a seasoned plot story is something that needs to be seen to be believed. Like the old saying, if it isn't broken don't change it. Scott tried dabbling his strokes to give a fresh take on Robin Hood, but personally I feel he ended up with an incoherent storyline that could neither satisfy the old school audience nor win over the new. There is simply too much subplots involving too many characters that dredged the attention and focus of an audience already robbed with the ingenuity a familiar story. The political inclination of the French invasion was thrown into the background to make way for Robin and Lady Marion's romance. And seeing Crowe and Cate Blanchette (who plays lady Marion) flirting onscreen just seems wrong to me.

Robin Hood is decidedly one of Scott's least action packed, action period movie because of the development of an overly contrived story. But the fact the story still made sense in the end shows how much credit has to go to the editing team. One of Scott's biggest flaw in most of his movies are the villains are, well simply put, plain evil. Here the villain Godfrey, (played by Mark Strong, who seems to be making a career playing villains) is just a one dimensional bad guy without any moral ambiguity. That make's it an easier job for Scott to put Crowe's Robin Hood in favorable light with little effort, which without a doubt lost the good versus evil dynamics that was so well played between Crowe's Maximus and Joaqiun Pheonix's Emperor Commodus in Gladiator. Crowe did well to play out the character of Robin Hood, but added nothing new to a character we saw acted by so many predecessors in similar fashion.

But being a Ridley Scott's production, one is guaranteed of sweeping and breath taking cinematography that is signature of the veteran director. The CGI is merged seamlessly with the actual scenery to give us a sense that we are actually in medieval England. However there is too little engagement in the development of the character and story of Robin Hood to offer any fresh outtake that is supposed to be offered in an origins story. So far the best origins story I've seen still goes to Christopher Nolan's Batman Begins. Robin Hood is at best still a modern take of the swash buckling hero who does nothing much than repeat the formula of kill the bad guys and save the damsel in distress. I can only hope and pray that Scott's next project which is the prequel to his own 1979 mega classic hit Alien will render much better results.

Ip Man 2

Personally when I watched Ip Man 1, I felt the story was way too cheesy and over the top. It took itself too seriously when it is at best a well crafted action flick. But of course the collaboration of Donnie Yen and Samo Hung (as martial arts choreographer) can't go wrong, except maybe for the disastrous 14 Blades. Watching Ip Man 2 is very much like going to the General Election, there will be some contest but we always know what to expect!

Ip Man 2 succeeded better than part 1 as the producers scaled down the national hero theme for a more ordinary Ip Man who is struggling to start a martial arts school as he settles down in 1950s Hong Kong. The story felt more believable and empathic this way. And as he realizes, trying to be ordinary is never as simple as it seems. He gets challenged by other martial arts school and becomes embroiled in the politics of the system. Samo Hung plays Master Hung, the leader of the martial arts clan who stands in the way of Ip Man's establishment. In order to 'earn the right' to start a school, he has to challenge all the other masters in Hong Kong and not be defeated within one joss stick's time.

That premise itself is an action flick fan's wet dream. Seeing Ip man take on various masters of different school will be a feast for the eyes. And when the showdown came, it did not disappoint. Hong Kong film makers have certainly mastered the art of action cinematography over the years. They can instill humor and suspense into the action, drawing audiences to submit to the different moods before the grand confrontation between Donnie Yen and Samo Hung. The two of them are not only portraying the grand masters of their school, but these two men represent the only two pinnacle action masters left in the Hong Kong film industry. Their first on screen duel was in 'SPL' years ago, but this time in Ip Man 2 their fight sequence is one of the most intensely choreographed scenes I have seen in a long long time. Both actors have so much experience and chemistry with each other that you can literally feel the energy and wind blowing across your face with each punch thrown. The showdown between the two of them alone is worth the ticket price!

Unfortunately for most action flicks the script is always the collateral damage as immediately in the second half of the movie, the story tumbles into yet another stereotypical racial battle between the Chinese and Western, which has been done to death since Bruce Lee's time. Again the westerners, in this case the British, are the arrogant and conniving group who picks on and bullies the Chinese population. And as usual the Chinese will have to restore their honor and dignity through no other means other than to kick their sorry white ass in a boxing tournament with their resident champ, who surprise surprise, is an even bigger snob!

But still a few things worked in their way, this time the main English actors put up a much more decent and professional display of acting to their characters, and they don't sound 'weird' when they speak. Thus the later half of Ip Man slowly transforms into Rocky like mode, you could almost hear the Rocky trumpet theme blowing when Ip Man trains hard for the challenge and the whole of Hong Kong is throwing in support for him as he walks down the street. It is plagiarism on an unprecedented scale, but at least it is shameless fun! Ip Man 2 is an action movie, nothing more nothing less. Story in such films has always been inconsequential when all we want is to see are punches and kicks that takes our breath away. So just go watch Ip Man 2, relax your mind and let the energy on screen indulge you. This at least is what movie entertainment is about!