The art of screen fighting
It truly is an art all of its own. Often we talk about dramatic actors and how hard their task is but surely the art of screen fighting is the most impressive form of acting? timing, skill, stunts and the danger – this is what many 21st century audiences want to see.
But with so many martial arts movies how do you pick the best ones? How does the martial arts actor find a way to showcase new skills to an ever evolving audience? What about those new to martial arts movies?
The Official AMP Top 100 onscreen Martial Arts fights should help answer your questions. Over the next few days we will be counting down from 100, the best fights ever put to film. Stick with us over the next few weeks and find out which fight scenes make it into our top 10, and of course use the comments box to the right to discuss any of our choices.
80.Spiritual Kung Fu – Jackie vs the Monks
The fight starts with a one-to-one fight which is a good watch with chan vs a monk in a pole fight (which the monk gets the better hand for a while). Then jackie faces about 15 monks armed with the weapon “Tonfas”, he shows great skill and timing to show he can go and defeat the badguys. He shows trademarks were used to seeing today by the way he takes the poles of the monks and flicks the poles back to them. Good fight and did you know Yuen Biao actually plays one of the ghosts that help Jackie train.
79.Vengeance – final fight
David Chiang goes out for revenge against the men who murdered his best friend in this brutal and bloody showdown. As the fight goes along we see Chiang get stabbed alot of times as he battles back and the white suit that he is wearing seems to get more and more blooded by the second. It also shows us Chiang using the stairwell to get more height over the villians, ok the speed isn’t the quickest but it certainly is enjoyable. Also stars Ti Lung.
78.Dragon Fist – End Fight
This is my favorite Lo Wei film with Jackie Chan and here we get to see the serious side to him with moves that are fast, powerful and direct. It starts with Jackie facing a guy using a steel tonfas who is brillaint with them giving jackie a difficult fight, but we do get to see great hand techniques by chan and even a few backflips thrown in. After defeating him we see another guy jump in which is more hand to hand combat, showing chan deliever some killer blows with such speed even Bruce Lee would approve off.
77.Way Of The Dragon – Nunchuaku fight
Fight starts when Bruce Lee is led to the back of the shop by a guy with a gun but suddenly hits him then grabs a pole facing two other guys. After knocking them out more come running out thats when we see him use the nunchuks, fast, powerful and gets rid of them rather quickly. One shot is when a guy is holding two knifes and bruce knocks one out his hand, kick to the shin, nunchuck to the face followed by a roundhouse kick. quality.
76.Fists and Guts – Gordon Liu vs Lo Lieh
Great exhibition of traditional wushu weapons as we see Gordon Liu (Nunchuakus) take on Lo Lieh (Sword) in this gripping fight scene.
The fight starts off quickly then enter the sand bags hanging from the ceiling making it harder for both fighters to perform.
It then turns more to hand to hand combat and the use of the head from the shaolin fighter ducking low and counter attacking, then gordon liu ends it with a classic leg break.
75.Shanghai,Shanghai – Sammo Hung vs Yuen biao
Fantastic fight scene between two legends of the kung fu world and this makes up for a rather dull film. Sammo plays the badguy and at the end of the movie we finally get to see them square off, the hand combat is excellent with wing chun style moves and blocks thrown in there with a mix of high kicks and brillaint timing.
Who wins the fight? you’ll have to grab a copy to find out.
74.Miracles – End Fight
Jackie faces a tough battle after being caught by the local traids and taken to a factory, here he first faces super villian Billy Chow with both of them hitting fast and hard (billy getting the upper hand). Chan decides to run and then incomes atleast 15 fighters to attack him, we see him perform some great stunts and his stunt team do a great job falling from 30ft to the ground in one shot.
He wraps it up with a jump spin kick followed by a low spin kick then roundhouse to the face. class fight.
73.Armour Of God – Jackie vs 4 women
Yep jackie faces his toughest test to date (maybe not) fighting against 4 women after just defeating aload of monks, who give him a run for his money. The women actually have some muscle on them and as the fight progresses yes there is some heavy doubling going on but its still brilliant to watch Jackie against 4 women and just hitting them like you’d see in a Sammo hung movie. Jackie hits out with power until he punches one of the womens breasts and says “sorry” before beating them all up.
72.Above The Law – Yuen Biao vs Melvin Wong
After defeating Cynthia Rothrock melvin wong faces legend yuen biao in a battle to survive and bring wong to justice. Biao delievers excellent kicking skills and shows this when he performs a double spin kick to wongs face knocking him to the floor. Wong tries to escape in his aeroplane this is when biao shows us how good a stuntman he is by hanging from the side of it thousands of feet in the air then falling into the sea. Yes he did it before Jackie Chan in Police Story 3, good fight.
71.Pantyhose Hero – End Fight (Factory)
The film isn’t sammos greatest film by any means but the final showdown with him and Alan Tam (Armour Of God) facing aload of gangsters is well worth a watch. When the fight starts both sammo and Alan run off in different ways and cuts inbetween the two but Sammo’s scenes are excellent showing him take on a few guys with a metal pole going one to another and taking them down. We see brilliant weapon work from the master before he gets into a fight with the main guy, this guy can kick very well and delievers some brutal kicks to sammo (one that hits him in the throat and he falls back into a ditch falling through wood). The fight is great but the only thing id change is the annoying girl who doesnt stop screaming throughout it all.
