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10 Best Movie Fights
So you think you’re a fight-movie buff, eh? We here at WHF know your type. It probably started before you can remember—videos your parents put on when you were a baby because it was all they had lying around. Most likely you were weaned on Enter the Dragon and bottle-fed Chuck Norris. Then they noticed that they were the only types of movies you’d actually sit through without getting bored and hassling them. Eventually your folks came to a conclusion that could be summed up thusly: “F*%k it. Who cares if they’re rated R and filled with grotesque violence. It keeps him entertained and out of our goddamn bedroom.”
On the next trip to the video store, they strolled your five-year-old ass straight past the “Kids Korner” and let you graze among the martial arts and action aisles. Their sex life got a lot better (we know, sorry, but it’s true), and in return you got a first-class education in the most savage brutality ever committed to celluloid. Every year since, valuable cerebral real estate previously reserved for memorizing calculus theorems and friends’ birthdays has slowly but surely been supplanted by photographic memories of picture-perfect beat-downs. Hell, you might have even taken a few martial arts classes before you decided sweating wasn’t for you and went back to the Way of the Joystick. Chances are you only recently admitted to having a problem when your girlfriend of two years left because of your insistence on renting a new translation of a Shaw Brothers movie instead of Great Expectations.
Anyway, his one’s for you. We’ve rounded up the best (or at least extremely memorable) fight scenes you may not have seen. They are mini-masterpieces of the skuzzy, low-budget bowels of the B-movie and bootleg underground. Enjoy.
This may be the most ubiquitous selection on our list, so we’ll get it out of the way. But, the thing is, it never gets old. God only knows where the casting agents working on The Code of the Dragon (aka The Ghost) found a half-man in a wheelchair who is capable of inflicting so much punishment. Where is this guy now? And why isn’t he making still making movies? Oh, his name is Henry Smalls, and he’s a real-life samurai warrior who is more than capable of cutting you down to his size.
Oh, behold this Nigerian wonder. It’s from a movie called O Le Ku that was made in 1997 but looks like it was shot closer to 1967. It’s one of those so-incredibly-awful-it’s-good scenarios, but when you film two drunk African guys in smocks try to clobber each other it pretty much creates a force field that is impervious to criticism. Also, the sound effects are an amazing atrocity.
OK. So we’ve got Billy Blanks (of Tae Bo fame) and a little guy in a Jester’s outfit from the Halloween aisle at K-mart duking it out in some sort of glorified, giant varmint cage. It’s from 1990’s The King of Kickboxers, and we really can’t stress how important it is that you steal this film if you ever happen upon it at a 99-cent store. Really, it is capable of changing your life and perspective of the world in general.
This clip is from the flick Brave Girls and wins the award for Best Fight Featuring a Lady in a Coordinated Pink Number That Even Your Dead Grandmother Wouldn’t Be Caught Dead In. In all seriousness though, Ms. Yukari Oshima dishes out some wicked beatings in this 1990 monstrosity and you should track it down if at all possible.
Hahahaha. We just found this randomly. It’s from Knights, a movie about a post-apocalyptic cyborg named Job who needs the blood of 10,000 humans for whatever robot-people do with that much red stuff. Motherfucking Kris Kristofferson is cast as the cyborg hero, Gabriel, and… do we really have to say anything more? It’s a plotless smorgasbord of piss-your-pants-with-laughter fight scenes. The director is B-movie auteur Albert Pyun, who is probably best remembered for the Jean-Claude Van Damme abomination Cyborg.
We don’t know if this is real or not, nor do we know what movie it’s from, but the porno-combat genre has the potential to become bigger than both the sources that spawned it. There doesn’t even have to be sex; guys would gladly shell out $20 to watch women in their underwear beat the living shit out of each other. Why isn’t anyone cashing in on this? Obama, are you listening? You’ve got an FDR-sized public works program right here.
One of the key scenes from the Japanese masterpiece Yo-Yo Girl Cop, this is a good example of what the film is all about: A policewoman who fights people with a spinning disc tied to a string. We don’t think Donald Duncan had this in mind when he mass-produced the yo-yo, but we bet he would be down.
We’d be remiss not to include an example from the horror genre in our little list here, and it’s kind of impossible to do much better than Citizen Toxie: The Toxic Avenger IV. In this little stinky nugget he treats some mutant cowman thing and a Phantom-of-the-Opera-looking chucklehead to the business end of his mop handle like a master of the bō staff. Who knew Toxie had it in him?
This is another one you may have seen that never gets old. The beginning of the clip—when the Bruce Lee-look-alike has some sort of blinding-powder thrown in his eyes—is funny enough, but things get much more interesting when he pops his opponent’s eye out by smacking him on the back of the head and birds immediately swarm down to eat it. Then things go way past the WTF zone when the newly eyeless guy commits seppuku and tries to strangle duder with his intestines. If you know the film please let us know in the comments so we can promptly order it on the internet.
Ze Germans really know how to capitalize on ze mindless gore, and this trailer for Violent Shit 3: Infantry of Doom is the epitome of the country’s splatter-core offerings. We’re not really sure there is a plot other than “shoot and punch and stab and blow up and kill stuff,” but then again is there a better combination to have beamed into your eyeballs? No, there isn’t.
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Season’s Beatings
Beat the holiday rush with our series of fun, tongue-in-cheek Season’s Beatings e-cards, available exclusively on WeHeartFighting.com.
Want to send a Season’s Beatings card of your own? Go to http://weheartfighting.com/seasonsbeatings and show that friend or relative you really don’t care.
(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...Ten Best Real Fight Songs
You know how Rolling Stone and Spin and other publications unworthy of being birdcage-liner like to do those Top Ten Fighting Song lists? Well, they’re all a bunch of lame bullshit. Sonic garbage plonked out by Limp Bizkit and stuff like “We Will Rock You” might rile up a bunch of drunken idiots in a stadium somewhere, but we wanted to know the best songs for breaking bones and faces. So we made our own. Think of our selections as a playlist to put on when you feel the need to go completely aggro and take care of a few enemies—in other words, the ten best real fight songs.
“Seek & Destroy” – Metallica
Before Metallica went all alternadad and stared making shitty music they were experts at inciting their audiences into violent spasms. This little number off Kill ’Em All might still be the most tantalizing of their repertoire. That’s why it’s been played at almost every single show since it was written. During the early 90s it was routinely extended to almost 20 minutes of headbanging carnage.
“(You Gotta) Fight for Your Right (To Party!)”– Beastie Boys
Unfettered debauchery is perhaps the only thing truly worth fighting for, and we’re not sure a finer ode could be written. It might be a cliché by this point, but the party really isn’t a rager if this doesn’t come on by four in the morning. If some loudmouth disagrees or tells you to turn it off, just grab him by either side of the head and introduce his face to your knee. Then party on like nothing ever happened.
“Ride of the Valkyries” – Richard Wagner
Never mind that this is the only instrumental (and classical, for that matter) selection on this list. Can you think of a better soundtrack for a war zone? Maybe it’s just that Lt. Colonel Kilgore used it for the beach attack scene in Apocalypse Now, but every time we hear it someone has to talk us out of enlisting. It wouldn’t be a surprise if two out of three soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq have this perpetually pumping through their headphones. It makes you want to harm people.
“Nervous Breakdown” – Black Flag
If you’re mentally disturbed and/or homicidal, hardcore already has a special place in your scorched little heart. The video above pairs the track to some classic freak-out scenes from the movie Falling Down. It’s a perfect visual representation of what the song’s all about.
“Eye of the Tiger” – Survivor
OK, this one might go against our little introductory rant because it’s included on a lot of those lame top-ten lists. But you know what? We can’t deny its ability to inspire the wherewithal and stamina necessary to give the worst of your enemies a bad case of the ol’ black-and-blues. It’s predatory nature makes it perfect when you’re planning to give someone a premeditated beat-down—just crank this to 11, tape a picture of their face to the punching bag, and imagine how lumpy it’s going to be after you’re through.
“Drink, Fight, and F@#K” – GG Allin
GG was quite possibly the antichrist (his birth name, no joke, was actually Jesus Christ Allin), and this was the anthem of his existence. We encourage you to go waste a few hours on YouTube if you’re unfamiliar with Mr. Allin and his inclination to berate, defecate on, and assault audience members. If it doesn’t make you want to put a boot up someone’s ass you’re either lobotomized or the second coming of Gandhi.
“Bottled Violence” – Minor Threat
This little ditty is like one of those 30-second fights you drunkenly get into until your friends break it up or you get punched in the stomach and puke all over your shoes. That’s kind of a paradox being that it was written by the world’s premier straight-edge band, but it’s the truth.
“Panic” – The Smiths
You might be puzzled by this choice, but just think about the lyrics for a minute. It’s about flipping out on various streets in England and ends with the refrain “hang the DJ” being repeated approximately 31 times. Next, think about who wrote it: a celibate, vegan man who idolizes James Dean and wore a fake hearing aid onstage for a good chunk of his career. It’s the sonic manifestation of repressed, seething hate bubbling over into fantasies of wanton violence—in other words, a perfect fight song for underdogs.
“Take the Power Back” – Rage Against the Machine
Not many bands come close to inciting a riot every time they hit the stage. In fact, the police physically barred them from playing in St. Paul, Minnesota during the 2008 Republication National Convention because they were afraid of what might happen. “Take the Power Back” is all about physically and philosophically rebelling against the government. We can’t really think of a more important battle.
“Hell in Paradise”– Yoko Ono
Just about every song she has ever written taps directly into some Neanderthal portion of your brain that makes you want to smash windows and faces. This one, however, pushes aural brutality to a whole new level. She and Lennon went through years of “primal therapy,” and our theory is that they adapted the theories to music and figured out the precise frequencies to blow people’s fuses. Listen with extreme caution and make sure no one else is in the room.
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