Fight choreography analysis thread!

[jspeedy]

The purpose of this thread is to discuss what generally is considered a good fight in a movie. I would hope that this thread can educate people like me who are are martial arts enthusiasts that enjoy a good movie fight scene. Just because I can youtube link several of my favorite movie scenes doesn't make me an authority on the subject of fight choreography.

If you feel you can educate the masses about what it takes to successfully produce a theatrical fight share your input or link a pertinent clip. How has fight choreography changed? What was the best classical/traditional approach to movie fight scenes? What is the most recent choreographed fight scene you enjoyed?

Hopefully this thread will involve educated fans and if anything amateur actors, if any pros get involved even better. My goal is to educate fans about the work or cost involved of producing a good fight scene. Hopefully this thread will not turn into an endless link-fest of fanboy movie fight clips.

If you like a fight scene, guess what myself and most of Bullshido do too. Save us all time and don't post a video, we have already seen every martial movie no matter how obscure you think it is. This is a choreography education thread not a fanboy expression thread! DAMMIT!

[Volya]

Interesting question.

There are a couple of things i really dislike in movies with fighting scenes.

Overuse of wires:
I don't know why you need to make people fly about everytime they get hit. Dramatic effect? It's just fucking lame. No-one needs to be shown the "awesome power" of a technique by having the victim fly halfway across a room/up a wall/over a stack of stuff...

Fake furniture:
People fighting is dramatic enough, why do they always have to end up landing in some balsawood prop? I'm sure it was humourous once upon a time, but seriously, solid objects fucking hurt and chances are your body will shatter into bits.

Quick and close-up shots to cover lack of contact:
Usually coupled with flamboyant body movements to convey a sense of TEH RAEL DEDLY DAMAGE!!!!111 This one really annoys me, unless you are deliberately trying to be cheesy why the hell do they think this is an effective method of filming? All it does is make the fighting scenes non-believable and give you that terrible embarrassed feeling for the film-maker.

I don't know if this is what you wanted but these are things i think make movies with fighting shitty.

[jspeedy]

I guess we're getting started off on the right track here.

[Jimmai]

Quick and close-up shots to cover lack of contact:
Usually coupled with flamboyant body movements to convey a sense of TEH RAEL DEDLY DAMAGE!!!!111 This one really annoys me, unless you are deliberately trying to be cheesy why the hell do they think this is an effective method of filming? All it does is make the fighting scenes non-believable and give you that terrible embarrassed feeling for the film-maker.

These scenes absolutely infuriate me! Worst offender by far is the newest Star Trek film.

[devilboy7778]

I guess I kinda liked the Bourne Identity series

[Bad Apple]

Interesting question.

There are a couple of things i really dislike in movies with fighting scenes.

Overuse of wires:

I blame the (success of) "The Matrix" for this

Fake furniture:

Just one I'd like to see somebody get hit with a bottle and it doesn't break

Quick and close-up shots to cover lack of contact:

I think you can blame John Wayne for this. There is a stuntman punch named after him that's just a forced perspective trick. What I hate more than those are the "fights" in the "Bourne" movies. No choreography at all just seizure inducing quick edits and Michael J Fox holding the camera.

Make no mistake Bullies. It's popular Hollywood action movies that do more damage to the martial arts than a thousand Ashida Kims.


Realistically tho the sorry state of fight choreography is to save money. Any movie with an "A" list cast is gonna' have bad fights because the actor can't get hurt. Any "B" movie where nobody will miss the actors all that much just doesn't have the budget to begin with. Just like CGI is cheaper that real blood and explosions crap fights dressed in trickery are cheaper than good choreography.

[PointyShinyBurn]

Realistically tho the sorry state of fight choreography is to save money. Any movie with an "A" list cast is gonna' have bad fights because the actor can't get hurt.

Counterexamples Troy and the Count of Monte Cristo re-make, both of which had A-list cast and clean, characterful fight choreography shot in such a way you could actually see what was going on.

[Traceur]

I think the Bourne fights were pretty good and were a game changer from the flood of sub par wire work that had been the norm ever since the Matrix, which was sub par from the HK movies it was taken from because Reeves and co were never going to be as slick as Woo-Ping's regular wire/stunt team. The Bourne fights did away with the posturing and taunts and got straight into it. It was different, it looked cool. On the other hand a lot of people then assumed this was what happened when 'trained' people fought.

One of the gripes I have in movies is the current fad for a ferocious female kickboxer who beats up men twice her size. Is anyone really buying Kate Beckinsale winning a fight? Some sell it better than others - Jessica Biel at least looked pretty hench in Blade Trinity but then you have an anorexic Jolie in Salt (how did she ever get this rep of being a great action star anyway?) At least when Gina Carano hits someone you're going to know she can actually do some damage. One of the better girl/guy fight scenes recently was Olga Kurylenko's fight with the general in Quantum of Solace. She is not kickboxing him or anything and he clearly has her beaten on size and strength but she fights really dirty and uses anything she can get her hands on to stab, cut or bludgeon him. She is that opponent who keeps coming no matter how many times you knock them down. If she'd been throwing all sorts of pretty kicks, like Zoe Saldana in The Losers, it wouldn't have been the same

Sticking with Bond, the best fight scene I've seen recently was watching From Russia With Love again on TV. Sean Connery and Robert Shaw fighting in the train carriage a is a classic. Not too martial-arty but a sense of two trained and driven guys going at it pretty hard. They are really laying into each other and dealing with a confined space as well.

For a more modern movie I really liked Liam Neeson in Taken. Same combat advisor as in Heat and Collateral but much more hand to hand on display. The story was a dog but the fight scenes were pretty good and Neeson can sell a punch.

[DARPAChief]

Perhaps more lacking than choreography itself is its placement within a film. Among the finest examples of the content of a film matched organically with its action would be John Woo's A Better Tomorrow: Chow Yun-Fat's walk into a restaurant is intercut with footage of a rival group having a grand ol' time drinking and celebrating. As Chow jovially strolls to the tune of 80s Cantopop, he deposits pistols into the several flower pots furnishing the hallway. Chow opens a door on the party, the music ceases, shots of his face and the faces of the diners reveal the dawning recognition. A daunting tune creeps into the scene...and THEN action!

The aforementioned scene is gangster retaliation; Chow's character wants revenge against the scum who sell out his friend, and it's a scene that has weight to it. The choreography of action thereafter is by no means lacking; Chow makes short work of several men with dual Berettas before tactically retreating to his weapon caches. But it is the camerawork, the acting, sound, and the events that came before that punctuate the action and convey a fight.

[jspeedy]

Make no mistake Bullies. It's popular Hollywood action movies that do more damage to the martial arts than a thousand Ashida Kims.

Interesting statement and probably quite true. Of course, as much as I loath some of the Bruce Lee Larpers it's probably due to Bruce and 1980s movie krotty and ninjas that first got me interested in martial arts.

Perhaps more lacking than choreography itself is its placement within a film. Among the finest examples of the content of a film matched organically with its action would be John Woo's A Better Tomorrow: Chow Yun-Fat's walk into a restaurant is intercut with footage of a rival group having a grand ol' time drinking and celebrating. As Chow jovially strolls to the tune of 80s Cantopop, he deposits pistols into the several flower pots furnishing the hallway. Chow opens a door on the party, the music ceases, shots of his face and the faces of the diners reveal the dawning recognition. A daunting tune creeps into the scene...and THEN action!



The aforementioned scene is gangster retaliation; Chow's character wants revenge against the scum who sell out his friend, and it's a scene that has weight to it. The choreography of action thereafter is by no means lacking; Chow makes short work of several men with dual Berettas before tactically retreating to his weapon caches. But it is the camerawork, the acting, sound, and the events that came before that punctuate the action and convey a fight.

Nice commentary this is what I was getting at with the OP.

[TheMightyMcClaw]

I was actually starting to write a whole article on this, but then I got distracted traveling and working and collecting large sums of money from models and rockstars.
Anyway, here are my big gripes:
1. Indefinite sparring. This is the one that I see the most, and I attribute it largely to on-site rather than pre planned choreography. The fighters will exchange blows and parries without ever changing the overall dynamic of the fight, until the hero eventually lands a shot that ends it.
This is reeeeaaally common with sword-fights, due largely to the practical difficulty of showing cuts. Adding cut makeup onto someone mid scene is an assload of work, and a lot of times choreographers get around it simply by having neither swordsman ever land a blow. It saves a lot of effort, but it also makes the fight less exciting.
2. All-Kicking, All the Time. There seems to be an implicit understanding that martial arts = kicking, and as a result, when a character knows "martial arts" this is all they do. I realize that high and acrobatic kicks are visually striking, but they cease to be so when they're the dominant body movement in every fight in every film for the past 40 years.
By far the worst culprit of this that comes to mind is Jet Li in Cradle to the Grave. All of the fights in this film are pretty bad, but the last one (7:08) is the worst culrpit. It's also a good example of Indefinite Sparring.

3. Stupid Moves. I'm going to rail against two in particular here: the low-spin kick and the Hollywood Throw. The low spin kick (WHICH ALSO IN THAT SAME FUCKING FIGHT SCENE) I'm sure you're all familiar with, where one fighter will crouch and throw a low spinning hook kick/round kick, typically with the result of the defender leaping out of the way. It's one of those go-to moves that films love and reality abhors. The LSK is occasionally not-terrible, and I feel like can be thematically appropriate in highly stylized wuxia films and the like. In gritty spy dramas, though, it just looks stupid and out of place.
The Hollywood Throw, on the other hand, is just always stupid. You know the move: one fighter grips the other by the neck/lapels/back of his shirt and tosses him across the room with inexplicable Superman strength. Never once has this move looked good. If you ever watch a vampire movie, they seem to be contractually obligated to use this terrible movement.
Perfect example at 3:48, from Twilight no less:

This is one particularly frustrating because there are so many other actually cool looking ways to throw a person. How much better would that terrible scene have been if Edward had busted out a harai goshi or a lateral drop? Unfortunately, it seems that everyone in hollywood forgot how to do Judo somewhere in the 1970s.
4. Cowboy punches. Ever notice how no one in Hollywood ever throws straight punches? Ever get pissed off at that? This is largely because straight blows to the head are hard to sell to the audience, but not nearly as hard to sell as the idea of Daniel Craig being physically attractive or any of the other monumental feats directors regularly attempt.
I have more gripes, but these are probably the biggest ones. Next, I'll talk about how to create a good fight scene.

[datdamnmachine]

Personally, I think it depends. I think when something different comes along, we consider that the pinnacle of how a fight scene should look and base our assumptions off of that until something else comes along (regardless of if it is new or not, it may be "new" or "different" to the masses).

I think over-exaggerated choreo may have been the norm for so long that everyone started being more over-exaggerated or over-exaggerated in a different way as a method of beating everyone else. Then, someone comes along and add (what may or look like) realism and it changes the game.

Remember when Steven Segal hit the scene...

Also, don't forget knowledge. As MMA becomes more and more popular and when Hollywood stops trying to make a MMA film and starts making good movies with MMA-style choreography, then that will become the next norm.

[TheMightyMcClaw]

And the Good

Now that I've gotten my griping out of the way, let me talk about what I consider the hallmarks of good fight scenes.
1. Dynamism. This is sort of the Yang to the Yin of Indefinite Sparring. Particularly if a fight is longer, new game-changing elements must be introduced in order to keep it from becoming stale and repetitive. A long fight should have movements and phases, just like a long piece of music.
The best example of this in my mind is the famous Weapon Fight from Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Every time Michelle Yeoh pulls a different weapon off of the sword rack, she changes the overall dynamic of the fight, making it feel new and refreshing.

2. Unique Stunts. When I talk about "stunts," in this context, I'm talking in particular about the big, eye-catching movements that make you go "did you just see that? That was so fucking cool."
Video games honestly do this better than movies, particularly any time they're coming up with command throws in fighting games or quicktime events in action games.
The "Breaking Everyone's Arms" fight from Tom Yum Goong is a pretty good example of this principle in action:

3. Diversity of Attacks. This would be the opposite of the all-kicking, and it nefarious ibling, all punching. You know the old saying "a good magician never does the same trick twice?" The same applies for fight choreography. A spinning hook kick is less impressive the third time around, and even less the fifth. You will eventually run out of thematically appropriate ways to hit dudes, but the more you mix it up, the less repetitious a fight will be. This is also why I consider grappling and clinch work to so important for fight choreography; in addition allowing more big "wow" stunts, AND allowing for dynamic changes, they just give you a way, way bigger moveset to work with when writing fight scenes.
A great example would be what I'm pretty sure is everyone here's favorite fight scene, the final battle from Flashpoint. The blows are a mixture of punches, kicks, knees, and elbows, and the overall fight is a good mixture of striking and grappling. This is also a good example of dynamic changes, particularly when they switch from primarily striking to Nonstop Judo in the middle of the fight.

I'll probably have more thoughts, which I'll post as they come.

[TheMightyMcClaw]

Misc Thoughts

1. Grappling. BJJ, Judo, Sambo, and wrestling techniques. I'm really preaching to the choir here, but it's one of the most under-used aspects of fighting in film. Which is pretty outrageous, considering what an incredibly broad term it is. Throws like kata guruma and harai goshi are awesomely beautiful to behold. Same goes for flying submissions and crazy ass sweeps.
There is really no good reason NOT to be use more of these techniques, as they are substantially easier to shoot. Unlike strikes, grappling techniques do not require perspective tricks to conceal the lack of impact; you can just shoot one stuntman seoinage'ing another stuntman, potentially with an off-camera crash mat if it's hard ground (or without if it's not). Same goes for chokes and armbars and all that. Basic hip throws like o goshi and koshi guruma are much easier to teach actors to perform gracefully than punches and kicks (I know, because I've done this).
2. Also, grappling with weapons. I really wish I had some Atrophy footage to post here, because there is stickgrappling and Ringen Am Schwert and all that up and out the ass in that film. Weapons seem like they would diminish the potential for grappling maneuvers, what with occupying the fighter's hands, but they really just make them more unique and allow for more of those "wow" stunts I mentioned before. Box choke with your sleeve? Pretty neat. Box choke with a tire iron? Even neater.
3. Thematic appropriateness. First off, I want to say that I hate the phrase "realism" in fight choreography. Real fights tend to be awkwardly placed and often quite dull. I can't think of too many times I'd want a fight scene to involve someone stock in a headlock or trying to pass halfguard for two minutes without making progress, but that's how real fights tend to go.
Instead, what I find most people mean by "realism" is thematic appropriateness. And since the theme for most action movies is "sort of like the real world, but way more exciting", a theme for thes fights in these tends to also be "sort of like a fight in the real world, but way more exciting." The type of twirling and gymnastic maneuvers that fit the theme of a film like Hero don't work so well in a gritty spy film. Similarly, a fight scene focused around headbutting and eyegouging, quite thematically appropriate the above gritty spy film, would seem out of place in a flowery wuxia film.
4. Uniquness of Fights. Kind of going off of the whole idea of dynamism and not repeating oneself, each fight in a film should be noticeably distinct from each other fight; there should be a difference in weapons, in goals of the fighters, in style, in number of combatants - something to make it stand out from every other fight in the movie. Tony Jaa (before he went nuts) was awesome at this. Part of what made the Protector so good was each fight had such a radically different theme from each other fight. "This time, I'm fighting a series of duels against distinctly styled martial artists. Now, I'm breaking a bunch of dudes arms. Now I murdering bodybuilders with elephant bones." And so on.

[Zod]

The unarmed fight scene in film that really stands out to me as fresh (at the time), interesting and gritty feeling is the locker room scene in Grosse Point Blank. Sure, it's a little spin kicky at points but it's got Benny Urquidez in it, so that's kind of to be expected. Mostly I like that fact that it seems appropriately desperate; it conveys the impression that these two men are trying to hurt each other and that is something that is really lacking in a lot of Hollywood fights.