Did Hollywood finally catch up with Hong Kong Cinema fight scenes?

[TheMaster]

For years the best we had in Hollywood fight scenes was this.



Meanwhile Hong Kong cinema had this type of action as a staple for decades.



Then gradually, in the West we had first only Asian martial arts trained actors doing good fight scenes


Now we expect nothing less than this


So the question is, did we catch up with or even pass Hong Kong movie fight scenes or are they still No.1?

 

[Get To Da Choppa]

Hong Kong movie fight scenes are still GOAT with the likes of Donnie Yen


But we are seeing some strong title challengers from Southeast Asia


Hollywood isn't sitting idle though, and stepped up its game by collaborating with the Asian fight scene masters

 

[John Mabrey]

Hong Kong movie fight scenes are still GOAT with the likes of Donnie Yen


But we are seeing some strong title challengers from Southeast Asia


Hollywood isn't sitting idle though, and stepped up its game by collaborating with the Asian fight scene masters

This

 

[KnightTemplar]

Depends on your personal taste; what style of fight scenes you prefer. Personally, I stopped enjoying Kung Fu-style fights a long time ago. My GOAT fight scenes are from movies like Bourne, Winter Soldier etc. Asian fight scenes bore me to tears.

 

[horc00]

Fights, maybe. But Hollywood will never catch up with the absolute insanity of Hong Kong stunts.

 

[horc00]

Depends on your personal taste; what style of fight scenes you prefer. Personally, I stopped enjoying Kung Fu-style fights a long time ago. My GOAT fight scenes are from movies like Bourne, Winter Soldier etc. Asian fight scenes bore me to tears.

TBF, fight scenes in Winter Soldier and a lot of MCU characters like Black Widow are very old school kung fu-ish spinning acrobatic kicks and all that, they just lack the pre-fight crane/tiger/monkey style poses.

 

[moreorless87]

Hollywood actually uses a lot of stunt co coordinators and second unit directors who worked in Hong Kong/China previously, especially with Jackie Chan. I mean really the style that Hollywood has picked up on is more than 80's Hong Kong kickboxing/brawling look rather than overtly kung fu or wire work.

The main differences I'd say are fight scenes don't tend to be central to films as often and the actors involved don't specialise in them although I think you can see people like Chris Evans and Johansson got better at them as the MCU went on needing fewer doubles.

 

[cmw43]

Give me the They Live street fight over any prancy Kung Fu fight any day.

 

[WhiskyJack]

Hong Kong movie fight scenes are still GOAT with the likes of Donnie Yen


But we are seeing some strong title challengers from Southeast Asia


Hollywood isn't sitting idle though, and stepped up its game by collaborating with the Asian fight scene masters

Flashpoint was fucking badass. Mixing fu with
Mma

 

[Travis Alexander]

Hong Kong movie fight scenes are still GOAT with the likes of Donnie Yen


But we are seeing some strong title challengers from Southeast Asia


Hollywood isn't sitting idle though, and stepped up its game by collaborating with the Asian fight scene masters

The Raid and The Raid: Redemption are both GOAT level action films imo, they serve up a level of technical nuance with brutality in a way that I absolutely fucking adore.

 

[KnightTemplar]

TBF, fight scenes in Winter Soldier and a lot of MCU characters like Black Widow are very old school kung fu-ish spinning acrobatic kicks and all that, they just lack the pre-fight crane/tiger/monkey style poses.

I can see the similarities in Widow's fighting style, which was very acrobatic. Cap and Winter Soldier had a more grounded, power based fighting style. Some of the techniques come directly from Kali/Escrima.

 

[Patrick Jane]

Hollywood used to have better fight scenes than HK in my opinion. They fell off.

 

[TheMaster]

Hollywood used to have better fight scenes than HK in my opinion. They fell off.

Judo throw-fest

 

[sissypunch]

Real fights in real life don't look that way, not even between real martial artists. It's kind of like a stylised dance that I find really distracting when I'm supposed to be watching a movie that's supposed to be somewhat realistic.
Its a lot easier to enjoy within the context of the hyper-stylised action and kung-fu movies where that style finds its home. But when a gritty espionage movie like Born starts doing it I just laugh.

 

[SSgt Dickweed]

Bollywood >

 

[moreorless87]

I can see the similarities in Widow's fighting style, which was very acrobatic. Cap and Winter Soldier had a more grounded, power based fighting style. Some of the techniques come directly from Kali/Escrima.

Its less about style than the way the fights are filmed I'd say, Hong Kong action really stopped being about Kung Fu by the early 80's.

 

[Excelsior]

Hollywood fight scenes are awful. With the exception of the John Wick films, most fight scenes are cut so quickly that it's impossible to follow the action.

Star throws a punch.

Cut.

Punch hits bad guy's face.

Cut.

Bad guy flies backwards.

Cut.

Bad guy goes through a window.

Cut.

Bad guy lands.

Cut.

Good guy punches next victim.

Lather, rinse, repeat. They never show a steady flow of uncut action that your eyes can follow, which is why I love the rarities that have long-cut fights. Atomic Blonde comes to mind.

 

[5crew]

lol using Bourne franchise as Hollywood standard to compare to HK fight choreography. It's all shakey camera. Why? Because most action stars in the Hollywood can't really fight, so they need to use editing tactics to make the punches/kicks looks realistic. Another reason is the main actors themselves "can't get injured" so they need stun doubles, thus we again see editing tactics.



Watch this, I timestamped it where Jackie Chan explains why there is a huge difference in Hollywood and HK fight scenes.

If you are really interested, watch the whole video.

EDIT:
@Excelsior basically ninjad what I wanted to say.

 

[Bacco]

Since they step up their pace to go fast as asian, i prefer western take at fights

More gritty/realistic (even if ever bullshit lol) and way more emphasis on the power of strikes, specially punches

 

[moreorless87]

lol using Bourne franchise as Hollywood standard to compare to HK fight choreography. It's all shakey camera. Why? Because most action stars in the Hollywood can't really fight, so they need to use editing tactics to make the punches/kicks looks realistic. Another reason is the main actors themselves "can't get injured" so they need stun doubles, thus we again see editing tactics.



Watch this, I timestamped it where Jackie Chan explains why there is a huge difference in Hollywood and HK fight scenes.

If you are really interested, watch the whole video.

EDIT:
@Excelsior basically ninjad what I wanted to say.

That really I would argue is much more the style of 00's hollywood than the last decade or more though.



The secret though is that the second unit director for that film was Bradley James Allen(also did stuff like Kickass and Scott Pilgrim vs The World as a choreographer) and he actually started out in the business working in Jackie Chan's stunt team.

Thats often how Hollywood works these days, you have a specialist who comes in and does a lot of the work for fight scenes for people like the Russo's. Ironically probably part of the reason why their fight scenes are so good by Hollywood standards is that there naturally more drama/comedy directors so are probably happy to focus on those scenes and let others play a big part in creating the fight scenes.