What's your favourite movie knife fight?

ERINT,
Wow, where should I begin...

Tommy Lee Jones is way too old for the role (he looked like he was running while wearing Depends).
Del Toro can't loose him in a city during rush hour.
A thrown knife splits a tree.
A knife is forged over an open fire in about 10 minutes (and is razor sharp too).
Tommy releases a wild wolf from a trap and does'nt get bit.

I could go own and own...it was terrible.

Allen.
 
I'll add my vote to NEVADA SMITH. Just a great movie in general, and the knife fight between the great Steve McQueen and the equally great Martin Landau is brutal and realistic. The fight takes place in a cattle pen, with Landau down in the pen, and McQueen dodging his slashes by hopping back and forth on the railings above him. McQueen finally closes for the denouement when Landau tauntingly says, "You fight like your mama, boy." The fight "goes to the ground," as we say nowadays, with grunting and the clacking of blades hitting each other. The loser screams like a stuck pig.

The movie is a neglected gem, with lots of other neat stuff, like Brian Keith as the wise old gun dealer. Directed by Henry Hathaway, of TRUE GRIT, which also had some swift and brutal knife action. Remember Dennis Hopper as the low life that gets his fingers chopped off and his belly stabbed?
 
Iv got to go with the hunted, for how real the fighting looked and exposure / high art / knife fighter, (all the same film just different titles).
 
allenC said:
ERINT,
Wow, where should I begin...

Tommy Lee Jones is way too old for the role (he looked like he was running while wearing Depends).
Del Toro can't loose him in a city during rush hour.
A thrown knife splits a tree.
A knife is forged over an open fire in about 10 minutes (and is razor sharp too).
Tommy releases a wild wolf from a trap and does'nt get bit.

I could go own and own...it was terrible.

Allen.
Click to expand...

1. Tommy Lee Jones played a retired and aging tracker/knife instructor. If you've ever trained with some of these old men you'll see that the knife doesn't really depend on your sprinting ability. However, if we split your comment up into two sections, I will agree that scene of the train chase was one of the scenes that was more 'Hollywood'.

2. TLJ's character is supposed to be a master tracker and downtown Portland isn't even close to being like New York City rush hour. People get tracked all the time, and in fact he did lose him in the end.. because Hallam was younger and faster (which counters the TLJ's Bonham being played as too young theory) ... long enough to buy himself some time.

3. Tree wasn't a redwood, it was thin and a knife can definitely go right into a tree if thrown. I remember as a kid trying to pry those damn ninja shurikens out of trees because they went right into them that you needed a pair of pliers to get them out....heh.

4. Knife wasn't razor sharp it just had an edge. You can cut someone open without having a razor edged knife. That's the movies. It also makes sense that TLJ's character didn't spill his guts on some of the close calls on his torso.

5. Would have to ask the wolf experts here. We also don't know how much Bonham's character interacted with that wolf prior to that scene... But you may have a point there.


allenC said:
I could go own and own...it was terrible.
Click to expand...

If you have more post it here. Sometimes when we study the problems with the film closer, we might be able to explain some of the misunderstandings.

Regardless, the problems you had were about plot points and story elements not really the knife fight which was the criteria of this thread topic. MOST of the films listed here can be picked apart for their story elements (how many folks really watched EXPOSURE for the story?) but we're focusing on the KNIFE FIGHT.

The HUNTED wasn't perfect but we were extremely amped to get some decent knife work into that film that didn't look like anything else that had been done before. By the POSITIVE reviews from 99% of film critics specifically on the knife choreography (they knew well enough to separate the choreography from the rest of the film) and the GREAT response from very knowledgeable knife instructors and enthusiasts around the world on the HUNTED... it's introduced our knife work to many who had never heard of us.

The only negative review of The HUNTED's choreography from a well known publication was from BLADE magazine. If you check it out, the reviewer merely dismisses it as "poor choreography" with no further comment, which was rather odd.

best,
--Rafael--
-------
-------
------
--------
 
nifrand said:
"The Long Riders" where Cole Younger(David Carradine) took on Bell Star's boyfriend.Both had bowies and Cole buried his in the dudes leg.Can still feel that one.
Randy
Click to expand...
Great scene. Nice example of how a big bowie can be concealed using horizontal behind-the-back carry, too! I bought the dvd, it's my favorite western.
 
FullerH said:
My problem with The Patriot is the same as it is with Braveheart, their utter anti-historicity dives me absolutely crazy. The British, even "Bloody Ban" Tarleton, burning churches full of people is such a bunch of crap!
Click to expand...
There is a reason for this. The problem is, what shocked people in the 1700's doesn't necessarily shock us today. The British burned empty churches, but a modern audience can't really grasp this as an outrage. Your average person won't quit their job, and take up arms and risk death because their church was burned down. They'll be mad, but that's about it. So the filmakers need to balance historical accuracy with engaging the audience. When we see the church full of people burn we feel the same sense of outrage that a colonist might have felt upon seeing an "empty" church burn. That's why it is done that way.
 
I'm voting for Brotherhood of the Wolf. There's a sweet revenge scene at the end where the main character kills everyone with just two knives. They look like huge bowie knives, in fact every time I see the Chinook II I think of the knives in that movie. Its got great hong kong style choreographed action squences. I think I'm gonna rent it now.

Also, Under Seige and Last of the Mohicans get votes. Hey, and what about the Spyderco scene in Cliffhanger, that movie is responsible for my whole knife addiction!!!
 
Hi all, my first post here but I've been looking for awhile. I never registered but this topic flushed me out of hiding. Anyway, what about the sword fight in the club between Bond and the BG in Die Another Day? That made the hair on my neck stand up. And how about the fight later between the 2 babes? something stood up then too...

ra2bach
 
resurrecting a long buried thread it seems...my vote goes for Bourne's Ultimatum razor/towel fight.
 
Some of my faves include, in no particular order:

Kill Zone (a.k.a., Sha Po Lang). Starring Donnie Yen. Jacky Wu Jing plays an assassin whose weapon is a somewhat garish-looking tanto. The fights and assassinations are pretty brutal, and one of the film's highlights is Yen using a collapsible baton against Wu Jing's knife in an alley.

Full Contact. Starring Chow Yun-Fat. This older (1992) gangster film has some of the best (IMO) bali-song work in any movie I've seen. It's mainly one or two scenes at an ice factory in Bangkok.

Rob Roy. Most sword work, but a great movie, esp. Tim Roth's character.

The Wolves. Starring Tatsuya Nakadai. A Yakuza film. Most of the end fight features Nakadai using a tanto-style knife against a gang of thugs.

Lady Snowblood 1 and II. Part one was clearly a major influence on Kill Bill Vol. 1; Tarentino even borrowed the theme song.

Shinjuku Incident. This is NOT your typical Jackie Chan film. About Chinese refugees living in Japan and their encounters with the Yakuza. Some very brutal scenes with knives and short swords. Not a martial arts film.

Tokyo Rampage. Not a great flick, but knives are featured. The lead psycho character seems to favor liner-lock knives. A couple scenes are esp. brutal, and one looks disturbingly realistic.

Any one of the original Zatoichi movies (26 in all) starring Shintaro Katsu. Though it's mostly sword, not knives.

Jim
 
V For Vendetta. There's several. And they're all pretty sweet. :eek::cool::D



Creedy: Defiant to the end, huh? You won't cry like him, will you? You're not afraid of death. You're like me.
V: The only thing that you and I have in common, Mr. Creedy, is we're both about to die.
Creedy: How do you imagine that's gonna happen?
V: With my hands around your neck.
Creedy: Bollocks. Whatchya gonna do, huh? We've swept this place. You've got nothing. Nothing but your bloody knives and your fancy karate gimmicks. We have guns.
V: No, what you have are bullets, and the hope that when your guns are empty I'm no longer be standing, because if I am you'll all be dead before you've reloaded.
Creedy: That's impossible. Kill him.
[the fingermen open fire on V, but he still stands after their clips are empty]
V: My turn.
[V proceeds to kill all fingermen with his knives before they manage to reload]
Creedy: [desperately shooting at the approaching V] Die! Die! Why won't you die?... Why won't you die?
V: Beneath this mask there is more than flesh. Beneath this mask there is an idea, Mr. Creedy, and ideas are bulletproof.


Awesome. Plain and simple.
 
Last edited:
What about Rebel without a cause? I saw it when i was 10 and it made me want a switchblade sooo bad.
 
Nice zombie thread resurrection! :D

If, like some of the previous posts suggest that sword fights count then The Seven Samurai gets my vote. If we are truly just talking knives then, as one poster mentioned, the knife vs. gun quick draw scene in The Magnificent Seven (remake of The Seven Samurai) is cool if unrealistic.

As has been mentioned several times, The Hunted was cool as well.
 
While it isn't exactly a knife, the shiv scene at the end of Bad Boys (Sean Penn) was pretty cool. It stuck with me (no pun intended) for the past 20+ years or so.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top