Download- Ep. 3.1 Queensbury Rules!.
10. Cool Hand Luke- Luke vs. Dragline
In an age before sports science gone awry and personal trainers turning our Hollywood elite into yoked-out freakbeasts for the silver screen, there were real men. The new trend in making Hollywood leading men is to put them on the fast track to looking as ripped and big as possible. I cite Ryan Reynolds, Gerard Bulter, and Jake Gyllenhaal just to name a few. These guys look good on camera, but I feel like we’re not buying it as much as an audience anymore when they look too perfect. We’re not looking at King Leonidas on screen, but rather thinking to ourselves, “Jeezus, Gerard Bulter got fucking ripped for this role.”
Therefore, dear reader, I present to you something a little more grounded. This classic fight between Paul Newman and George Kennedy illustrates that visceral realism of a fist fight between two believable combatants. Dragline, the biggest, meanest guy in a Georgia prison dukes it out with Luke, the smaller yet fiery upstart. Luke is outmatched, but he refuses to back down up to the point where Dragline has respect for his indomitable spirit. These two fighters also look how they should look: sweaty, built physiques that are products of hard labor in the Southern sun. This detail really helps draw you into believing this fight.
I pray to the gods above that this movie is never remade. I picture the remade version of this fight featuring Matthew McConaughey fresh off a six-week program with some top personal trainer fighting the current MMA sensation of the time. Jump cut to an extended ground and pound, octagon-esque, mulit-angled choreographed sequence all pulsing to the beat of whatever Nickelback is producing nowadays. That’s were I think Hollywood and us as an audience are missing the point in fight scenes: the spirit of Luke is gone.
9. Mad Max 3: Beyond Thunderdome- Max vs. Blaster in the Thunderdome
“Two men enter, one man leave.” How can it get any better than this? Admittidly, the third installment of the Mad Max series does take a much crappier turn once we actually get beyond Thunderdome into the world of Never Never Land full of tiny blonde-haired littluns. Seriously, where were the adults in the secod half of that movie? Someone had to fuck to make all those little toe-headed toddlers and judging by the sheer maginitude of Aussie lost boys, there was a whole lot of fucking going on before Max stumbled into that lost vale of box office poison. Why would you ever want to get beyond this wonderful place of post-apocalyptia where men can settle their disputes in a gladiator pit on bungee cords? It’s the American Dream realized (by Australians no less) with all the pizzazz of “fill in the blank of current hit game show”. I have to give this fight scene mad props just based on the innovation of the time. If I had seen this in the theatre when I was a little lad of twelve, I’d be out on the jungle gym the next day with bungee cords hooked into my armpits and a baseball bat in my hands waiting to settle some scores with anyone who looked at me sideways. Yeah, I didn’t have too many friends when I was twelve. Bottom line: its a stylized (but not Crouching Tiger stylized), gladiator fight with action that seems actually plausible which just leaves the viewer wishing that we could just hurry up already and get to the actual post-apocalypse before we’re too old to pick up a chainsaw.
8. Evil Dead 2- Ash vs. his hand
Before Sam Raimi directed slobberknocking super-hero battles in the Spiderman movies, he honed his skillful craft in the horror/comedy masterpieces known as Evil Dead. Here, the immortal Bruce Campbell demonstrates that you don’t necessarily need another person to make a totally bitchin’ fight scene. In the scene, our hero Ash fights his own possessed right hand as it relentlessly bashes, punches, and even judo-flips him into submission. Or does it? You feel a strange sense of retribution as Ash gets the upper, well, hand on his adversary at the end. It’s a perfect blend of the Exorcist meets The Three Stooges.
7. Raising Arizona- H.I. McDounagh vs. Gale
I’d say this particular fight is a Rosetta Stone of sorts for other fight scenes to come. The Cohen Brothers are most definitely the masters of off beat storytelling and in this scene between H.I. and Gale, we see a very unique sort of melee. H.I. is scrappy, but essentially harmless. Only when he realizes that he’s going to have to stop the much bigger Gale from stealing his rightfully stolen baby, he clumsily charges into the fray. Gale is big, clumsy, and not too bright, but John Goodman in any Cohen Brothers always portrays an unstoppable force. One could argue that the trailer where the fight takes place in acts as a third opponent. I still crack up every time I see Nicholas Cage scrape his knuckles on the low ceiling as he goes for the ol’ hammer blow. I like to think that Tarantino gives homage to this scene in Kill Bil Vol. 2 where Elle Driver and Beatrix Kiddo square off in Bud’s trailer. My only complaint with this fight is I feel its over too quick. The Cohen’s had given us something new to work with and in my number six choice, I think you’ll see its progression.
6. Pineapple Express- Dale and Saul vs. Red
In this epic and chaotic brawl, Dale and Saul attempt to keep their friend Red from calling the drug kingpin who’s out to kill them. What is particularly enjoyable about this scene is a sense of objective besides just beating up the other guy. All Dale and Saul want to do is get the phone away from Red by any means necessary. Watch this video back to back with the Raising Arizona one and you’ll start to see parallels. First, we have the massive amount of collateral damage in a relatively tight space. My two favorite sick bumps are Red’s breaking of the toilet with his flying head and Saul’s incredible Jedi-esque coup de grace with the bong. Even the interior colors are close to that of H.I.’s trailer. The second Arizonian factor to watch for is, again, we have some unskilled and clumsy people really giving it their all to kick the shit out of one another. Lastly, this fight has the prize- the winning objective. In Raising Arizona, Gale’s dopey sidekick Evelle hides with the baby in the bathroom. Also in Pineapple Express, Dale attempts to lock down the prize, this time it’s a phone, in a bathroom.
One other thing I’ll mention is the wild dialogue in this scene. I don’t think I’ve ever heard the phrase “Holy cock!” yelled with such urgency in, well, any movie.
5. Kill Bill Vol. 1- Bride vs. O-ren Ishii
I tried hard to not put any Hong Kong cinema pieces on my list. While, I like a good chop socky sequence as much as the next ninja, I don’t think they have the same memorable or meaningful power as the ones on my list. In my opinion, however, Tarantino is a master at taking genre and molding it into the mainstream. This duel uses the power of tension to keep us engaged. It takes several minutes before O-ren or the Bride even attacks, yet the sweeping horns jam in the soundtrack and their gazes lock on each other like true samurai. There’s a real blend of Spaghetti Western and Kurosawa film in this piece. Our minds our going wild as we imagine what must be going through these characters’ heads.
On a deeper level, this fight exemplifies the quality of respect and honor. Both of these fighters are locked in a duel to the death, but they still carry the decorum of Bushido. O-ren gives the slightest of bows to her opponent and at the point where she thinks she has won, she offers the Bride the chance to commit seppuku and kill herself with honor. When O-ren is cut by the Bride, she realizes she was acting too egotistical and makes a sincere apology for mocking her. It’s hard to find a scene like this that so ingeniously mixes style, action, character development, and theme so eloquently.
4. Aliens- Ripley vs. Queen
I figured this list needed a little bit of sci-fi added to it to round it out. However, out of all the fights on this list, I believe this one exemplifies the idea of “raising the stakes.” In the world of Aliens its “game over man” if a human tries to go hand to hand with a regular alien let alone the Queen. They all got mouths on top of mouths, sharp claws, acid blood, and no want or need for diplomacy. So what do you do when you got the mad mammajamma of all aliens crawling around your starship and about to devour your young, plucky child sidekick? Simple. You put on a power lifter suit and bitch slap her into the unforgiving vacuum of space.
3. Chronicles of Riddick- Riddick vs. Lord Marshall
Okay, I know dear reader, you probably are going to fight me on this one. You’re going to tell me that Vin Diesel is a hack actor. You’re going to tell me that Chronicles of Riddick was a shit movie. And to that I will ask the simple question- what part of “balls to the wall action” do you not understand? Alright, let’s pose it to you this way. Remember when you were in middle school and you were bored as fuck in math class so you started doodling machine guns and starships in the margins of your college ruled paper? Remember the crazy scenarios you would imagine in your head as explosions rang out in your head in a desperate attempt to drown out whatever the hell Mr. Morrison was droning on about (what the hell is a hypotenuse anyway)? That’s what Riddick is, but brought to life in a movie that never blinks in how ridiculous the action is.
I can’t for the life of me fid a clip online of this epic fight between Riddick and the last boss of this epic game, er, movie. The Lord Marshall has crazy Donnie Darko warping powers with the ability to teleport all around the cunning Riddick. Luckily for Riddick, he is a badass. Picture Conan the Barbarian in space combined with elements of Street Fighter (the game not the abortion of a movie) but played as straight faced as possible. Oh snap!
2. They Live- Nada vs. Frank
I sincerely hope this movie makes it into the National Archives so that when the bombs drop, we’ll have this treasure of a movie saved for our radiated mutant children to watch and be astonished. For the first awesome factor, let’s start with the actors. Rowdy Roddy Piper is bat-shit crazy and a total real life badass; Keith David is tough as nails and is the voice of motherfucking Goliath of Disney’s Gargoyles fame. In this scene, the entire movie comes to a grinding halt as Piper’s character Nada tries to convince his buddy Frank that there are aliens in disguise all around them and only his special sunglasses can make them visible. Seems like a simple request. I mean, Nada’s not trying to stuff a magical suppository up Frank’s ass to make the aliens appear. However, it might as well be a suppository because what follows is one of the longest, knock-down, drag-out, back alley, bare-knuckled brawls in movie history. It drags out for a solid six minutes of pure head trauma on both combatants. I’ve hear rumor that because of Roddy’s pro-wrestling background, much of this fight is improvised and the actors aren’t pulling their punches much which makes this fight even more special. And how can you not like Roddy’s finishing suplex on the hard concrete?
1. Old Boy- Oh Dae-su vs. everyone in a hallway
I can’t even really tell you why this fight breaks out in this complex Hong Kong story of revenge, mystery, and psychodrama. And you know what? It doesn’t matter. My number one choice is so powerful, so hypnotic, it’ll burn into your memory forever. Oh Dae-su battles a whole gang of baddies in a long, narrow hallway with nothing but a claw hammer and a hell of a lot of fury. This scene is genius. Despite being outnumbered about fifteen to one, the narrow hallway makes it so Oh Dae-su fight only two to three opponents at a time. This factor adds a frightening realism to the fight. It’s a cliché in Hong Kong cinema to watch one guy fight a whole gang of people that inexplicably come at him one at a time. Secondly, this fight is brutal. Oh Dae-su is a badass, but he’s got his limits. He get beat down several times but keeps swinging even to the point where he’s up with a knife sticking out of his back. The slow side-scroll brings a feeling of a classic side-scrolling beat ‘em up video game like Final Fight. Then, you realize that as the camera pans, you’ve been watching this brutal scene all in one take!
Well folks, there’s my list. Like what you read? Have comments? Want to settle a dispute with me in Thunderdome? Leave a comment here then you candyass. Be sure to keep coming back to our little corner of the internet too for some tasty podcasts and articles.
[Kick ass. Chew bubblegum]
-Lars
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