14 Movie Fight Scenes That Would Have Ended Earlier If The Bad Guys Didn't Wait Their Turn To Fight
- Photo: Miramax Films
In Kill Bill: Vol. 1, one of the most memorable fight scenes occurs between the Bride (Uma Thurman) and a group of skilled assassins known as the Crazy 88. Inspired by old-school Japanese cinema, the scene involves choreographed martial arts, dozens of samurai swords, and buckets of blood (so much so that director Quentin Tarantino had to adjust the scene to black-and-white to avoid an NC-17 rating).
If you look in the background during this extended setpiece, you'll notice the Crazy 88 members foolishly hang out on the sidelines, waiting for their turn to take a swing at the Bride. Rather than working together to take her down, they waste their efforts sparring in the background, doing little to assist their fallen comrades.
Not only do the Crazy 88 allow her all the time in the world to defeat them, they also make her feel relaxed enough to get creative with her professional skill set - including gouging a dude's eye out one-handed. The Bride takes out every foe with relative ease. Still, Tarantino's talent for cinematic gore makes up for the Crazy 88's flawed attack strategy.
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Constantine follows rogue hunter and occult detective John Constantine (Keanu Reeves) as he attempts to do heaven's work by exorcising demons. In exchange, he hopes the angels will cure him of his lung cancer and extend his life, but he's met with resistance. After an attempt to take his own life leaves him with a one-way ticket to hell upon his eventual passing, Constantine attempts to redeem his soul by exorcising a demon out of Los Angeles detective Angela Dodson (Rachel Weisz).
He's met by an army of half-demons who, despite their numbers, are no match for Constantine and his fire sprinkler system full of holy water. After setting off the sprinkler with a lighter, he watches as the demons writhe in pain. One by one they come after him, allowing him to take them out with minimal effort.
Not only would the demons have taken care of business if they'd taken a smarter approach, but the whole thing also could have been over pretty quickly if most of them didn't disappear halfway into the scene. While at first we can see them all continuing to squirm around in the background, those who don't charge at Constantine strangely go missing. Are they hiding? Did they run away? The opposing army getting inexplicably cut in half is, if nothing else, a nice stroke of luck for our hero.
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Frank Martin Vs. Carjackers In 'Transporter 2'
Photo: 20th Century FoxOne scene in Transporter 2 guilty of this action movie cliche is the carjacking scene. A group of thugs foolishly attempt to carjack Frank's beloved vehicle, unaware of his ninja-like skills. Despite the fact that it's five against one - and the five have a side arm - the fearless driver has no problem defeating them all.
Before the brawl even begins, the young offenders allow Frank to take off his freshly dry-cleaned jacket, fold it, and place it on the roof of the vehicle. That's the scene's first abnormality; the second is when the petty crooks all spread out to make room for the scuffle's choreography. It's almost as if every move in the fight was carefully mapped out and rehearsed.
Remaining consistent with an all-too-common trend, the group chooses to go after Frank one at a time rather than choosing a more logical alternative. He goes fairly easy on them, though, perhaps because the female carjacker's minuscule plaid skirt - as well as several comments about school - suggests these might be mere teenagers. In the end, Frank gets his car back - and his assailants are taught a lesson that might make them think twice the next time they set their sights on a new set of wheels.
- Photo: Golden Harvest
The classic kung fu film Fist of Fury features a rivalry between the students of late martial arts master Huo Yuanjia and Japanese dojo grandmaster Hiroshi Suzuki (Riki Hashimoto). When Suzuki's students show up at Yuanjia's funeral and disrespect him, one of Yuanjia's former students decides to seek revenge.
Chen Zhen (Bruce Lee) shows up to the Japanese dojo looking for a fight and ends up throwing down with Suzuki and about two dozen of his pupils. In true kung fu fashion, Zhen is first surrounded by his opponents before they lunge at him in a single-file line. Similar to the scene in Ip Man, those who aren't caught up in the action stand around in the background in a fighting stance patiently waiting for their turn to be knocked out.
In between challengers, Zhen has enough time to flex his muscles and pose for Suzuki, who looks on in horror as his men are taken down with ease. Every now and then, two or three men jump in at once, resulting in epic moves like Zhen swinging them around like a helicopter before tossing them aside.
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The film Blade depicts monster hunter Eric Brooks (Wesley Snipes), AKA Blade, as he fights to protect humans from Marvel Comics' version of vampires. As a Dhampir, Blade is the product of an encounter between his pregnant mother and a vampire. This gives him superhuman strength without any of the usual aversions to sunlight, silver, and garlic.
When Blade raids an underground vampire club, we get to witness one of the bloodiest supernatural fights of all time. Though Blade is significantly outnumbered, most of the vampires choose to flee rather than fight. He may have superhuman strength, but the vampires do, too; even if one of them had chosen to stand up to the hunter, it would have been a more-or-less fair fight. That's not how it plays out, though.
Later in the scene, the vampire club's security team appears and decides it would be best to confront Blade one at a time. These guys couldn't have possibly made it easier for him to take them down, even taking his variety of silver-coated weapons into account. If they had simply teamed up against him, Blade wouldn't have stood a chance.
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- Photo: 20th Century Fox
When thinking about movies with drawn-out and unrealistic fight scenes, Transporter 2 is likely one of the first to come to mind. The story picks up where the first left off, following Frank Martin (Jason Statham) to Miami. However, instead of being the go-to getaway driver for notorious crooks, he's a personal chauffeur for a billionaire's young son.
Frank's low-profile routine gets flipped upside down when the boy is kidnaped for ransom and injected with a lethal and highly contagious virus. Thought to be involved in the abduction, Frank must obtain the antidote to save all of those infected - and clear his name. He does this by going after the mastermind of this operation, a man named Gianni (Alessandro Gassman).
Keeping in line with action movie cliches, Gianni is protected by a seemingly endless supply of henchmen, with whom Frank rumbles numerous times throughout the film. Though they have Frank seriously outnumbered, the henchmen spend most of their time hanging out in the background or casually strolling toward the action. After they've succumbed to Frank's fists of fury (despite having swords, axes, and other miscellaneous tools), the heavies remain on the floor until it's their turn to get up and give it another go. Facing this kind of tactical approach on the reg, it's no wonder Frank has survived long enough to make so many movies.
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- Photo: Sony Pictures
Ultraviolet takes place in the not-too-distant future after a virus that causes vampire-like symptoms goes global. In an attempt to stop the spread of the virus, a government organization referred to as the Archministry starts exterminating the infected. This leads to a resistance movement and a struggle over the weapon - a young boy - thought to be used to eliminate those who are infected.
Violet Song Jat Shariff (Milla Jovovich) is a member of the resistance who believes the child may also hold the cure to the virus, which she is infected with herself. She storms the Archministry on her own to get the kid and singlehandedly takes down the organization's entire security team.
One line of defense is armed with katanas, which prove useless against Violet, whose superhuman vampire-like powers allow her to dodge oncoming blows with ease. It doesn't help that their method is to approach her one at a time as the others remain off-screen, patiently awaiting their demise. Violet is later attacked by another line of defense armed with automatic weapons; however, their passage into the room via two narrow doorways makes it quite easy for her to pick them off individually.
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The Mummy follows treasure hunter Rick O'Connell (Brendan Fraser) and his friends to Egypt, where they accidentally resurrect the mummified high priest Imhotep (Arnold Vosloo). During his life, Imhotep was executed for having an affair with the pharaoh's spouse and plotting to assassinate him. When he's brought back from the grave, he is drawn to one of the tourists, Evelyn Carnahan (Rachel Weisz), as she resembles his former lover.
After Carnahan is captured by Imhotep, Rick goes after them in an attempt to rescue her, and ends up facing down an army of mummified priests. Fortunately for the treasure hunter, these mummies are not only slow but also quite clumsy. Even though they surround him at the start of the brawl, it takes some of them an unrealistic amount of time to reach their opponent. When they're not participating in the fight, they can be seen slowly creeping toward Rick in the background. That, or they are conveniently left off-screen.
At one point, one mummy can be seen tripping over another, adding humor to his slow-paced method. Once the mummified priests are all wiped out, Imhotep instructs his undead army to go after our gallant hero. But apparently, this army never made it through basic training, as they fail to work together at any point during the skirmish. Considering the average guy is fighting against the undead, he shouldn't have even made it past the mummified priests.
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The Indonesian film The Raid: Redemption was released in the United States in 2012. It depicts a special police task force as they raid an apartment block in the slums known for being home to crooks and junkies. The officers quickly find themselves in hot water after being discovered by a lookout and subsequently confronted by dozens of armed delinquents.
A member of the police task force, Rama (Iko Uwais), finds himself on his own in the building, forced to fight off numerous perps by himself. This is when he winds up in a long hallway with several bad guys on his tail. Similar to other action films, the assailants in this scene use the hallway as justification for going after Rama one at a time.
With nowhere to hide, Rama charges the four antagonists as they do the same. Armed with machetes, the crooks defy the laws of physics and don't meet the officer in the middle. Instead, one of them meets him in the middle, while the other three men seem to be running in the background on a treadmill. They only reach Rama when it's their turn to fight, giving him ample time to defeat each of them.
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The One depicts a universe that spans across 125 dimensions, each home to identical versions of the world's inhabitants. They may have different occupations and different friends, but they share the same face. This little factoid is unknown to the public, however, and travel between dimensions is policed by the MultiVerse Authority.
When Gabriel Yulaw (Jet Li) discovers he has 124 doppelgangers and that he can absorb their energy by taking their lives, he goes on a crime spree in an attempt to acquire superhuman powers and become what he calls "the One." When he gets caught by the MVA and sent to prison, he fights off dozens of inmates in a continued attempt to achieve his goal. The fight scene depicts Yulaw at the top of a steep flight of stairs, taking on the prisoners one by one as they ascend to the top.
While the fight may have been over in minutes if the prisoners had just worked together to defeat him (or bombarded him all at once), at this point in the film Yulaw isn't just an average guy. He has eliminated and absorbed the energy of all his doppelgangers except one; functionally, he's superhuman. Super enough to take on all of the men in the prison? We'll never know, as the movie ends on a cliffhanger. However, if future opponents follow the logic of their predecessors, all "the One" will have to do is knock them off one at a time until he's the last man standing.
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The Protector follows Kham (Tony Jaa), the last in a line of guards who once watched over the king of Thailand's war elephants. He grows up and bonds with an elephant named Por Yai, who is later swiped by poachers. In search of his elephants, Kham ends up learning that his beloved Por Yai was slain and encrusted in jewels as a gift for a Chinese gangster, Madame Rose (Xing Jin).
To get to Madame Rose and satisfy his need for revenge, Kham has to fight off dozens of ruffians. Unsurprisingly, this scene follows the unwritten rule of action movies. Not only do the characters basically line up to brawl the movie's hero, but they also come running out from hidden corners of the room in sequenced groupings.
Those who aren't in on the action or standing in the shadows are rolling around on the floor in pain when they really should be passed out. What saves this scene is the moment Kham starts using the elephant's bones as a weapon, truly bringing the story full circle.
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Ip Man is a biographical film that depicts the early career of famed martial artist and master of Wing Chun, Ip Man (Donnie Yen), best known for teaching his skills to actor Bruce Lee. The story takes place in China after the Japanese invasion of 1937. The film follows Ip as he investigates his friend's disappearance after competing in a karate arena against Japanese military trainees. Organized by Japanese General Miura (Hiroyuki Ikeuchi), Ip learns that his friend was likely slain during his fight.
Determined to get revenge on his friend's behalf, he seeks out Miura and demands to fight 10 of his military's black belts. This inspires one of the greatest martial arts fight scenes in cinema history. However, in line with so many other action movies, the antagonists in Ip Man take their sweet time taking down the hero.
The scene starts with Ip surrounded by karateka. However, as soon as the rumble begins, all but one of the militants remains in the background holding their fighting stance. Taking on one maneuver at a time, Ip has the time to show off some of his fancier moves, breaking one guy's leg and rapidly punching another while the others just watch. The only thing that saves the scene from being something of a joke is the fact that it takes place in a martial arts arena, which makes everything seem more methodical than absurd.
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There are a few memorably long fight scenes in the cult classic The Warriors, but one in particular strains credulity from a strategic perspective. After the Warriors are framed for offing the leader of a rival gang, a hit is put out on them, and they have to try to make it back to their home turf in Coney Island safely - which means fighting their way across town if they have to (which they do). Due to the kind of unfortunate circumstances and bad luck that could only happen in a movie, they must make the journey on foot, as crews from all over the city seek them out.
When one particular group chases the remaining Warriors into Riverside Park, we witness what probably should have been the Warriors' premature defeat. Armed with baseball bats and face paint, the Baseball Furies surround Ajax (James Remar), Snow (Brian Tyler), and Cowboy (Tom McKitterick) in what looks like an easy win - and likely would have been, if a dozen or so guys didn't hang out in the outfield waiting for their turn to get in on the action.
At one point, you can even spot a member of the Furies in the background getting up from the ground, as if not fighting had been so exhausting for him that he just had to take a seat. In his defense, though, the Furies were chasing the Warriors through the park prior to throwing down, so a break may have been warranted.
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The South Korean action flick The Man from Nowhere depicts a quiet pawnshop owner, Cha Tae-sik (Won Bin), whose only friend is a young girl from the neighborhood, So-mi (Kim Sae-ron). After the girl's mother stores a large bag of heroin in Tae-sik's pawnshop for safekeeping, he suddenly finds himself targeted by the mob, which wants to get its hands on the dope.
When So-mi is abducted, Tae-sik tries to turn the stuff over; however, the authorities get in the way. By the time he tracks down the crime lord who has the young girl, he's told she has been slain, and is given her eyeballs in a jar. In a blind rage, he pulls out his piece and begins to fire - despite the fact that he's heavily outnumbered.
Even though most of the henchmen are armed, they choose to fight using their fists and a few blades. While Tae-sik is brawling with one or two opponents, the rest are kept hidden off-screen. After everyone is defeated, the boss comes out from his hiding spot, offering a warning shot aimed at the floor before gently putting down his piece and raising his fists. Perhaps it never occurred to him to take down Tae-sik sooner, which would have ended the fight almost immediately and saved the lives of most of his men. Then again, with that kind of tact, we wouldn't have gotten to enjoy this great, blood-soaked scene.
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