Yù Jiāolóng (Zhang Ziyi), the daughter of a rich family who is being forced to marry into another rich family, shows admiration for the life of Yú Xiùlián (Michelle Yeoh) because of the freedom she has to live the way she wants. But their connection breaks down when the spoiled Jiāolóng, referred to as Jen in the English version, becomes angry at Xiùlián (romanized as Shu Lien) for lecturing her and challenges her to fight.
The numerous weapons Shu Lien uses are specifically designed to combat swords but they fail despite this. The diverse weapondry keeps the fight fresh and interesting while demonstrating Yeoh’s abilities with each one. The fantastic fight choreography has a rhythm that is almost hypnotic and the ambience creates a perfect atmosphere for a one on one battle. While many American fight scenes tend to be a bit gimmicky when it comes to editing and cinematography, this scene is very conventionally edited and uses mostly practical effects which make the performances by both even more impressive.
What’s also extraordinary is the preparation both actors put in. While Yeoh had been starring in martial arts films for over a decade prior to Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, she did not speak Mandarin. This meant that she needed to learn Mandarin to play the role. Meanwhile, Ziyi spoke Mandarin but was a professional dancer by practice and had never been in a martial arts movie. This meant that she needed to learn swordplay prior to the movie to the point where she could shoot scenes such as these for the film.
It’s those reasons that one can use to make a case for this being the best fight scene of all-time even over Oldboy.
Not every fight scene has to be nonstop action with 100 punches or 200 bullets flying.
Sometimes a nice slow burn hits the spot, especially when it’s No Country for Old Men
Brolin finally realizes there is a tracker in the money and waits for Anton, who uses his trademark cattle gun to shoot the door lock into Brolin’s chest. Brolin shoots back and then climbs out the window and they take the battle onto the street. Just a great scene in a great movie.
For my second round pick, I select the opening scene from The Matrix: “Trinity vs the Agents”
A groundbreaking fight scene in a groundbreaking movie. This is the scene that told the audience they were in for something they’d never seen before. The choreography is stunning and innovative and singularly primes you for the later bullet-time scene that inspired copycats for decades to come.
Just look at this kick!!!
The directors had long been admirers of Hong Kong action cinema, so they decided to hire the Chinese martial arts choreographer and film director Yuen Woo-ping to work on fight scenes. To prepare for the wire fu, the actors had to train hard for several months.
Yuen let their body style develop and then worked with each actor’s strength. He built on Reeves’s diligence, Fishburne’s resilience, Weaving’s precision, and Moss’s feminine grace. Yuen designed Moss’s moves to suit her deftness and lightness.
Obv we’re not going to mention undrafteds before the draft is over, but if you don’t pick anything from the other two movies, let’s come back to this one after the draft. What a claim :P
