Daxtreme

Lucasfilm going into the week-end

I'll be back later today for more entries, including the first American entry in this list!

#45 Gordon Liu vs Lieh Lo Fists and Guts (1979) Hong Kong (Cantonese & Mandarin) Directed by: Chia Yung Liu Fight Choreography: Chia Yung Liu, Chia-Liang Liu Starring: Lieh Lo, Gordon Liu Box office - N/A, I'd say under The Avengers would a good estimate Synopsis: Gordon Liu stars in this Kung Fu comedy as an undercover Shaolin Monk. While searching for a fugitive who has wronged the order, the Master (Liu) uncovers a scheme to steal the priceless Jade Buddha. But in order for him to stop the theft, he must fight his way through a labyrinth of booby traps and powerful opponents first! My rating for this movie: ★★★ My rating for this specific fight sequence: ★★★★ This is an old school martial arts film produced by the Shaw Brothers, one of the most famous martial arts films studio. As of today, there are 65 ratings on IMDb for this movie (and one of them is mine!). To say this movie is unknown in the West would be an understatement. As such, box office information for it is pretty much nonexistent. Gordon Liu and Lieh Lo are both renowned martial arts legend from the 1970's, so this movie was kinda popular in China at the time for sure. What this fight sequence's all about Gordon Liu and Lieh Lo headbutting mini punching bags that fall from the sky as they fight? Count me in! This entry is more in a "traditional" genre of kung fu fighting, and thus, I feel like I should explain a bit what that means. Traditional fighting refers to pretty much all the Chinese Kung Fu movies made before the Sammo Hung/Jackie Chan era (~1983 and onwards), while modern fighting can be found in all action movies made since then, including movies made today, worldwide. What the modern approach and the traditional approach to fighting have in common is that they're both choreographed, obviously. The differences, though, are numerous. The modern approach seeks to mostly hide that choreography by making the fights seem more realistic through interactions with objects, varying pace, shorter sequences, and often more brutal results -- like stuntmen getting knocked around. This is by far the most popular one. The traditional approach, however, seeks to let the fighters showcase and openly perform that choreography a lot more. What results is the choreography being way more obvious to the eye, and the moves being visibly telegraphed and often being performed by the actors in a sort of alternating "rhythm"... like dancing! Obviously not everyone likes both styles of fighting since they're so different in their execution and feel. So if you're curious to see what a traditional fight sequence looks like, feel free to watch the video below, from this movie: If it's not your cup of tea, that's alright. It's obviously not for everyone! Just know that it's been part of Chinese movie culture for decades (well before even that movie came out). Chinese cinema kinda developed and did its thing on its own, which is what I admire about it the most.

@JamesCameronScholar Yuen Biao is incredibly underrated. __________ Next up is a movie with about 65 ratings on IMDb Not too popular, I suppose Don't worry, there will be popular movies on this list too!

#46 JeeJa Yanin - Final fight sequence Chocolate (2008) Thailand Directed by: Prachya Pinkaew Fight Choreography: Panna Rittikrai, Taworn Tonapan, Weerapon Poomatfon Starring: JeeJa Yanin Worldwide Box office - $3,179,014 ($14,000 domestic!) Synopsis: An autistic girl with powerful martial art skills looks to settle her ailing mother's debts by seeking out the ruthless gangs that owe her family money. My rating for this movie: ★★★ My rating for this specific fight sequence: ★★★★ $14,000 domestic. Respectable opening week-end of $11,180 in 7 theaters, but then faced a huge 80.5% drop in its 2nd week-end. Bad word of mouth? In Asia though, the movie was a lot more popular where it grossed 3 million dollars. Great comeback! So this movie is about an autistic Thai girl who goes around collecting money various people owe her ill mother. Being autistic, the only thing she's really good at besides screaming is, of course, martial arts (Muay-Thai), which she learns via watching movies from fellow Thai legend Tony Jaa (later featured in this list)! How could that possibly work as a movie? Well, it kinda does because the director commits to the themes of his story, which was very interesting to see. This movie is, without a doubt, quite unique, as you may have guessed from the synopsis. What this fight sequence's all about The real stars of this sequence are every single member of the stunt team. At some point you just go like "this absolutely cannot be possible, this is either CGI or this guy must be in the hospital right now" and then you watch the bonus features in the end credits and yup, he's in the hospital... but they got the take! They had to tell JeeJa Yanin to pull her punches eventually because she kept sending people to the hospital, one after another. This movie's production definitely couldn't have happened anywhere near Hollywood. You see so much crazy stuff in Asian action movies, that's why I love them! Sadly, no link to YouTube because the final sequence is being removed every time someone uploads it. The gif above will have to do. The sequence is about 10 minutes long. Choreographed by legend Panna Rittikrai (RIP) who was a mentor to Tony Jaa.

#47 Jet Li vs 4 champions | Ending tournament sequence Fearless (2006) Hong Kong/China (Mandarin) Directed by: Ronny Yu Fight Choreography: Yuen Woo-Ping Starring: Jet Li, Sun Li, Yong Dong Worldwide Box office - $68,072,848 ($24,633,730 domestic) Synopsis: A biography of Chinese Martial Arts Master Huo Yuanjia, who is the founder and spiritual guru of the Jin Wu Sports Federation. My rating for this movie: ★★★★ My rating for this specific fight sequence: ★★★★ First of all, I would definitely recommend watching the Director's Cut of this movie, it's way better. And Michelle Yeoh also has an extended cameo role in that cut (stay until the end of the credits!), and who doesn't love more Michelle Yeoh? If that name doesn't ring a bell, it will, soon So we're starting this list with Jet Li's Fearless, one of the few Chinese movies in this top that were 1. released in the US 2. actually grossed millions of US dollars in worldwide box office. This is progressively gonna become more of a rarity with Chinese movies going forward. With $24.6M in domestic gross, Fearless was definitely popular in the West. Here's a review by Audrey Karloff I enjoyed reading on letterboxd: What this fight sequence's all about Clocking in at around 13 minutes, easily what sets it apart is that it's very cinematic and... dramatic! It's that long because it's a tournament, where Jet Li has to fight people one after the other. Fearless truly is a movie that anyone can enjoy, not just martial arts fans. It's a movie with historical context that's got something to say, and without revealing too much about it, this sequence is an awesome and fulfilling way to finish the movie. For once, Jet Li actually gives a good performance too, he isn't only there for the fighting. It helps that he's speaking in his native Mandarin here instead of being dubbed over in Cantonese by random voice actors as was the custom during his Hong Kong years. The sequence features lots of different fighting styles like boxing, spear work, sword fighting, Japanese karate vs kung fu, etc. Lots of variety, and very well directed. Lovely! About 30 minutes into this movie, there's another great sequence where Jet Li takes on just about anyone who challenges him that could have made this top as well. Great stuff. Jet Li is famous for a reason! Unfortunately, the scene is too long for YouTube (no one uploaded it in its entirety), so I suggest you watch the full movie. It's good, up there especially for a martial arts flick!

It's too tricky with guns duels honestly. I did pretty much the same thing as most people doing a top fight sequences do: it has to mostly be a "fight" as in, close quarter. It can have a few bullets shot here and there but the focus should be on people fighting, either with their fists or weapons in close quarter. You can't lose by guessing anyway. Either you win BOT gold or your situation doesn't change That's also why you guys have until the top 25 starts. You'll be able to see a bit what kind of fights will go in this top first! Starting the top soon @Pandamia! I tagged you actually but the tag disappeared? Maybe the same happened with That One Guy? I made my tags a while ago and maybe it bugs with people who change their names. In my file I have: @Critically Acclaimed Panda Before grey ghost, and yet it disappeared

Getting a bit late so I'm gonna start the countdown tomorrow! Should have time for at least 5 entries or so.

Other Honorable Mentions Fists of the White Lotus (1980) Directed by: Lieh Lo Starring: Gordon Liu, Lieh Lo Fight Choreography: Chia-Liang Liu Smoothest disarm I've ever seen. If you were ever wondering where the character of Pai Mei in Kill Bill (played by Gordon Liu) originated from (this guy): well it comes from this movie, played by Lieh Lo... who fights with Gordon Liu! The circle is complete! ________________ The Five Deadly Venoms (1978) Directed by: Cheh Chang Fight Choreography: Ting Leung, Feng Lu, Robert Tai The opening scene to this movie is simultaneously hilarious and unsettling. I'm not sure how that's even possible! It's hilarious because some of the special effects are unintentionally bad, but when a child gets both his arms cut off in gruesome fashion, then it becomes quite unsettling. Then you kinda feel bad about laughing 5 seconds earlier. Then you feel weird. Behold: __________________________ Buster Keaton The grandfather of all movie fight choreography. Here's an example of a funny fight scene he conjured: Buster Keaton is featured as an honorable mention and not part of this top only because my knowledge of his work is too limited... for the time being. I intend on educating myself on his movies soon enough. It came to my attention only fairly recently that Jackie Chan basically cites him as the direct inspiration for his work. Say no more Jackie Chan, you piqued my interest! Expect some Jackie Chan sequences in this top, in case that wasn't obvious. ________________________ And last but not least... The Mortal Kombat Theme Song I think nothing pumps you up more for a fighting movie than hearing this song right as it starts. Absolutely brilliant soundtrack! __________________ And now we're ready to go.

Honorable Mention Come Drink With Me (1966) Hong Kong (Mandarin) Directed by: King Hu Fight Choreography: Ying-Chieh Han Starring: Pei-Pei Chang Box office: N/A Synopsis: A group of bandits kidnaps the governor's son and demands their imprisoned leader to be set free in exchange. If you're interested in King Hu's filmography, I would recommend watching A Touch of Zen (1971) instead, a 3-hours wuxia epic that won the Cannes Palme d'Or back then and was recently restored to blu-ray. It looks sensational. Hauntingly beautiful. He is widely considered to be one of the greatest Chinese filmmakers of all-time. As for this movie, it paved the way for what martial arts/action sequences would later become. It's an important movie in the history of fight choreography, since in a way, we wouldn't have the later, totally kick-ass Hong Kong action movies we got without this one. It stars Pei-Pei Chang in one of the earliest female action kick-ass roles in Chinese cinema that's highly reminiscent of Meiko Kaji in Lady Snowblood, the movie that inspired Kill Bill (Got to see that one via recommendation from Tele!) Watching everyone think she's a man, and then realizing their mistake after the reveal is quite funny. Pei-Pei Chang would later be cast in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000) as a direct nod to this movie. In fact, a few sequences in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon are callbacks to this movie, like the bar fight. An action movie that's 52-years old has bound to look ridiculous in some sequences. Watch this with an open mind. One thing though -- the period piece set design and on-location filming of gorgeous Chinese lush forests is quite the sight to see.

And a few Honorable Mentions before we begin!

What better way to start this off than with... Bonus: The worst Martial Arts movie I've ever seen Mortal Kombat: Annihilation (1997) USA Directed by: John R. Leonetti Fight Choreography: I'm think I'm doing them a favor not mentioning their name here. Starring: Robin Shou, Talisa Soto, James Remar Worldwide Box office: $51,376,861 (domestic: $35,927,406) Synopsis: A group of martial arts warriors have only six days to save the Earth from an extra-dimensional invasion. My rating for this movie: ★ Mortal Kombat (1995) grossed $122,195,920 worldwide on a $20M budget, and thus was a considerable success with audiences. It's also become quite the cult classic as it's a fun but flawed flick brimming with heart and cool moments. I like Mortal Kombat, it's awesome! This one is different though. Terrible dialogue, terrible story, probably top 5 worst CGI of all-time, actors being replaced, and most of all, terrible fight direction... what went right in this movie? Answer: Nothing. Except, well, if you're a fan of "So bad it's good" movies, then you can't go wrong with this one! Pop some beer, recline your chair, and enjoy, because that's the only way I'd consider watching this movie.

Tagging some regulars who might be interested. After all, guess wisely and be awarded a free 1-month BOT Gold account!! @Telemachos @Nova @MrPink @grim22 @Porthos @Isle of Pasta @DeeCee @WrathOfHan @commendable @Jandrew @Cmasterclay @AndyLL @franfar @Mattrek @Water Bottle @#ED @Chewy @4815162342 @CJohn @EmpireCity @Empire @Fancyarcher @filmlover @TalismanRing @Blankments @Jack Nevada @Proxima Olive @ecstasy @kayumanggi @Sam @The Futurist @Noctis @Dexter of Suburbia @redfirebird2008 @RichWS @ddddeeee @K1stpierre @Ozymandias @a2knet @druv10 @Jay Hollywood @The Stingray @MovieMan89 @Lordmandeep @Claire of Themyscira @tribefan695 @DAJK @Gopher @Spidey Freak @Jake Gittes @A Roc in Time @chasmmi @Vanilla @Impact @Totem @Master Scottb @JJ-8 @SchumacherFTW @Tower @tawasal @captainwondyful @JamesCameronScholar @Premium George @slambros @Tree @75Live @MrGamer @misafeco @Thematrixfilm @UNDERDOG @Goffe @Dexter @Rorschach @angeldelmito @MrWhite @xxoo @narniadis @ThiagoMaia @grey ghost @Kalo @Water Bottle @titanic2187 @Jason @CoolEric258 @Chaz @RandomCat @Jayhawk @Johnny Tran @ProtoMan @xequalsy @DAR @Amadeus @Wrath @vc2002 @John Marston @Ethan Hunt @TwoMisfits @fabiopazzo2 @ZattMurdock @Rebeccas @Hunt for the Wilderpasta @terrestrial Tagging some additional regulars in the China forums whom I think could be interested in such a top, since Chinese movies will be well represented in here: @HouseOfTheSun @fmpro @NCsoft @feasby007 @firedeep @ymblcza @Deep Wang @ZeeSoh @Gavin Feng @Valonqar @Zakiyyah6 @TigerPaw @Litio @bangbingchan @RRA @Barnack @Jaybee @stephanos13 @peludo @efialtes76 @POTUS @justvision @fastclock Feel free to tag other members if you think they would enjoy this list It should end up in the Speakeasy eventually so be sure to follow or drop by in there if this top seems interesting to you! I might have went overboard with the tags -- if I tagged you and you're not interested, feel free to simply ignore this thread (I think you'll enjoy it though) Tonight I'll try to find some time to get started with the honorable mentions and other side mentions before we begin!

Stay tuned to find out It's not always about the martial arts though! My primary grading criteria are -- in descending order -- the quality of the choreography and fight, the overall look, flow, and feel of the scene, the stunts, and the novelty the sequence offers. Obviously, to evaluate the choreography I need to be able to see it. It's really hard for me to see what's going on in fight sequences with lots of shaky cams and quick cuts, so they won't score big.

Complete List (formatting optimized for desktop) Honorable Mentions Come Drink With Me (1966) Return of the Five Deadly Venoms (1978) Fists of the White Lotus (1980) Saving Private Ryan (1998) - Knife fight Kill Bill (2003-2004) Buster Keaton The Mortal Kombat Theme Song _____________________________________________________________________________ By the way, you can check the availability of all the movies in this top on trakt.tv, it tells you whether it's on Amazon Prime, Netflix, iTunes, etc. Very useful!

I salute you, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the ring, where legends have been beating the crap out of each other for decades for YOUR entertainment. -- Bloodsport (1988) So while some of you may be working on and submitting your favorite movie lines of all time in the coming months, I came up with a top of my own to keep you guys entertained during that time as well! So, there's something strangely captivating about watching people duke it out, which might explain the huge popularity of MMA and boxing tournaments. Movie fights are heavily choreographed though and have more in common with wrestling and professional dancing than competitive fighting. But we enjoy epic action scenes, don't we? Take the T-800 absolutely devastating the police station in The Terminator, for example... ... well, it's all fake you know, because -- news flash -- movies are fake. But why should it matter? It's a great sequence and it looks amazing! Same goes for movie fights. We all know they're fake, but that's beside the point. What matters is that they're engaging, awesome, and that they serve a purpose! I've always wanted to do a top in here, after seeing epic lists like "great movies you've never heard of" by baumer and Tele, so here I am with a totally different kind of top. This is the kind of top that younger me would have loved to have stumbled upon! It just felt natural that this would be the subject I would tackle from the beginning. -- SPL: Kill Zone (2005) Why me? I have been watching and enjoying martial arts movies since I was a kid. Along with my brother, we would go rent VHS tapes of Jackie Chan and Jet Li movies at the video rental store, and watch them. We may or may not have tried fighting a bit, thinking we were bad-ass (we weren't). I have watched hundreds of martial arts films, as well as a number of random fighting clips and compilations from various movies on YouTube that I simply cannot count. That in addition to non-Martial Arts films with fight sequences in them, which are numerous indeed (basically every other blockbuster?), and I have watched a lot of fights. There are still a bunch of action/martial arts movies I wish to see as some of them can be quite hard to find. It took more time than I initially thought to come up with this, but now I think I'm quite proud of the list I have! The reason why I wanted to do this is because movie fighting is a complicated thing. In fact, the truth is that most movie fights suck. It's not as simple as just telling actors "yo beat the crap out of each other" and calling it a day. You don't want the actors/stuntmen to get hurt, so it has be fake but look real for maximum impact... unless your name is Jackie Chan and it's all mostly real and people get hurt But looking real isn't always the goal either! Regardless, great movie fight choreography depends on a lot of factors, namely the actor/martial artist, the director, the fight choreographer, the stunts team, the editor, the cinematographer, and the screenwriter, if it applies. For a great movie fight sequence to be born, all of the above have to do an outstanding job. You can have the best fighter ever suck on screen if the choreography is terrible or if the director doesn't know how to properly frame and edit the fighting. Or you can have the best directing and editing only for the fighting actor and stunt team to... simply not be good enough! Thus, expect some surprises in this list, since so many factors come into play. Hell, even the music has a part to play! -- Royal Warriors (1986) About the list Well first of all, a disclaimer: There will be mild spoilers. I will try to spoil things as less as possible but really, if I wanna pique your interest and curiosity guys, I will have to spoil some things down the line. After all, many epic fight scenes tend to happen near the end of their movie! Since only a select few movies in this top have been reviewed here on BOT, I will try to find a good balance between reviewing them myself, or borrowing reviews from elsewhere whenever I find one I enjoyed reading. Now, as some of you may have guessed already, Chinese movies will be featured prominently in here. One only has to watch a few classic Hong Kong movies to see why that is. From the 1960's up until today, Hong Kong filmmakers have always had an eye for action (not just fighting), and this top aims to partly highlight that. But Hong Kong aren't the only ones doing some amazing work of course. There are others, which I hope will surprise you. There are American movies in this list of course, but mostly not the ones you would expect. Hopefully this top helps you guys discover new awesome movies! That's also why I am focusing on non-American movies as much as possible, since I know that BOT is more than 50% from North America. I guarantee you that you've never even heard of a majority of the movies in this list. Plus, a number of them are currently available on Amazon Prime or iTunes, even some of the old or underground ones, often for a couple bucks. So they're not so out of reach! Oh and I am running a little game along with this top by the way -- I will give a 1-month BOT gold subscription to the first person who correctly guesses the #1 movie fight sequence in this top. 1 fight sequence entry per person. Guess away! You have until I start the top 25. I will reveal the winner at the same time the #1 fight sequence is revealed. Those who guessed correctly but not first might also win something, at my discretion Remember, you have to guess the correct sequence, not just the movie (Don't worry, I'll be lenient on that front). We are now entering the ring. -- Iron Monkey (1993) Let the fighting... begin!

@baumer @aabattery While the entries come in from BOT members for the top 100 best movie lines, I have a top of my own I've been working on for a few months now. Will keep people entertained, it's a different kind of top, and one which hasn't been done on these forums before! Do you think I can post it in the main forum for visibility? When you guys are tired of seeing it (after a day or 2?), just move it to The Speakeasy? I list box office information for all the movies I could find information for, so it isn't entirely off-topic. Also, not making this up as I go, the top is already fully completed, I'm not gonna bail! If not then that's ok too, I'll post it in the Speakeasy and tag some people!

A lot of it is the John William's score to be honest

Can't we just submit a foreign-language line along with the translation? I think that would be fair, and attend to JCS' point. edit: Also, feel free to translate Hasta la vista baby all you want? lol

not running the show but I would say that if the movie line is in a foreign language but in an English-speaking movie then it's probably OK for it to be foreign? Or else it would probably have been translated. Or if it's so iconic that we don't need a translation then it's fine?

not fair for the most recent entries! Less time for likes to come pouring in

I wouldn't even be surprised if it's better than the one the oscars use...

THANK YOU PANDA for your amazing work! And everyone for participating!