Best Sword Fights in Film

[Ihateregistering1]

Ok, it's technically a big damn knife vs. a retractable beat stick fight, but holy cow I love this fight between Donnie Yen and Jing Wu is Sha Po Long (AKA "Killzone"). Even better because no wire-fu, no speed up, and they're not made of stone.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZs48lJXhxM

(also, how do you embed videos onto your posts?)

 

[PedroSteckecilo]

A little known but all time favourite of mine from the 1974 film "The Four Musketeers" directed by Richard Lester (The Three Musketeers from 1973 and The Four Musketeers 1974 are, together, also one of the more accurate versions of The Three Musketeers put to film)


It's impressive because it attempts to recreate a much more realistic style of sword fight full of dirty tricks, brawling and fantastic bladework. Also the showdown between Christopher Lee's Rocheforte and Oliver Reed's Athos is awesome. Also the actors did almost all of their own sword fighting.

Another excellent one is from Cyrano De Bergerac from 1950 staring Jose Ferrer,


an excellent sword fight and some great word play.

And if you like your swordfights extremely technical, here's a great one from Ridley Scott's "The Duellists" with Harvey Keitel and Keith Carradine.


It's up there with the Rob Roy fight for being much more hard edged than some of the more cinematic offerings.

Another really fantastic one that I can't find a clip from is 1940's The Mark of Zorro with Tyrone Power and Basil Rathbone, a lightning fast duel that's a hell of a lot of fun to watch.

 

[putowtin]

Spoiler

Generally, I hate sword fights will lots of stupid twirly stuff and prancing about. You're trying to kill your opponent and not die yourself, not dance.

Winning!
For fun I'd also recomend anything from this classic movie,

There's a whole lot of fighting going on but not a drop of blood!

 

[DJjaffacake]

Do Lightsaber duels count? If so, then the duel from the end of Return of the Jedi is my favourite. Partly because it's just cool, but also partly because there's a lot more going on than just an obligatory action climax.

If it has to be actual swords, then King Arthur's duel with the Black Knight I'd have to say Jack and Barbossa's fight from the end of Pirates of the Caribbean is just awesome. Eerything, the music, the acting, the choreography, combine in one big chunk of kickassery.

 

[Barbas]

I've been partial to stop-motion for as long as I can remember. The jerky movements fit the chattering and leering skeletons very well. A fantastic scene from a fantastic film.

 

[Buzz Killington_v1legacy]

Came in expecting to see people saying "ZOMG the Star Wars prequels!"; left pleasantly surprised.

I'd name my favorite sword fights, but two of my top ones--the Princess Bride and Equilibrium fights--have already been mentioned.

 

[PedroSteckecilo]

Came in expecting to see people saying "ZOMG the Star Wars prequels!"; left pleasantly surprised.

I'd name my favorite sword fights, but two of my top ones--the Princess Bride and Equilibrium fights--have already been mentioned.

The only Star Wars lightsaber duel I'm really fond of in the movies is the one in The Empire Strikes Back, it's a really interesting battle scene that presents a great contrast between Vader toying with Luke and Luke being too inexperienced to really have a chance against Vader.

The final duel in Return of The Jedi is also a good one, but that's all about character drama rather than being a full on great swordfight.

 

[Gizmo1990]

I have one that is unmatched.


Beat that. I dare you.

 

[briankoontz]

29 posts later and noone mentions Seven Samurai?

 

[michael87cn]

A sword is a tool for killing, not playing around. Tuxedoman's clip shows this quite well. Everything else is hollywood.

Two handed swords are my favorite, and unfortunately not enough fights exist showing them off.

Spoiler

 

[BOOM headshot65]

Ladies and Gentlemen: I give you, the GREATEST sword fight EVER:

 

[cojo965]

I've been partial to stop-motion for as long as I can remember. The jerky movements fit the chattering and leering skeletons very well. A fantastic scene from a fantastic film.

It always struck me how well the skeletons interacted with the actors in that film. It must have been hard as hell to get that looking believable.

 

[Thaluikhain]

It always struck me how well the skeletons interacted with the actors in that film. It must have been hard as hell to get that looking believable.

IIRC, the actor is swordfighting with stuntmen, and the stop motion skeletons were then based on them (maybe frame by frame) and stuck over them.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

It always struck me how well the skeletons interacted with the actors in that film. It must have been hard as hell to get that looking believable.

IIRC, the actor is swordfighting with stuntmen, and the stop motion skeletons were then based on them (maybe frame by frame) and stuck over them.

Psh, that's silly. The only possible explanation is that the actors were also stop motion, and the skeletons were human size.

 

[Redlin5_v1legacy]

Spoiler

Generally, I hate sword fights will lots of stupid twirly stuff and prancing about. You're trying to kill your opponent and not die yourself, not dance.

Awwwww... ninja'd...

The worst part is I don't even have another one to put in its place. I just adore that scene too much.

 

[Misterian]

I don't watch alot of action films, but when it comes to sword fight's I'm simply partial to any fight scenes that don't do constant close ups of someone's face and just kept the camera at a reasonable distance so I can actually make out what's going on.

For some reason, I think I rarely see those kind of fight scenes in action movies.....

 

[jdogtwodolla]

I do believe that the final fight between the samurai protagonist and the second Serial Killer in Bunraku is a nicely choreographed sequence. I would have liked it better if it were a bit longer and not interspersed with Brad Pitt and whatever the hell he was doing.

 

[Blitsie]

The final fight scene from Sword of the Stranger is easily one of the best I've seen in an anime

Spoiler

And that scene in Princess Bride just never gets old, gosh I love that movie to bits.

 

[skywolfblue]

On the other hand, the actors can usually actually wield their weapons with a certain expertise to allow for longer sequences, instead of the 3-4 seconds of flailin' action cuts we usually get in Western media.

That particular fight would be my nomination.

The wire-fu is pretty silly in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, but they're skilled, a lot more skilled then I've seen in other movies.