'Tis some fights before Christmas to watch in your house.
10. Wallace vs. Howard Howe (Tusk)
Kevin Smith [director] — All right, so here's the third act. He then goes and puts on his suit, you know, made of human skins, and so you realize he's done this before. So he's in it, you're in yours, and you guys have to have one of them walrus fights, like on the beach, where you slam each other.
9. Edwards vs. Bar Patron (The Knick)
Shot in part with a rig on Andre Holland's back.
8. May vs. May (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.)
Dat head smash!
7. Go Geon-soo vs. Park Chang-min (A Hard Day)
No one does visceral brutality like Koreans.
6. Schmidt vs. Mercedes (22 Jump Street)
Lord and Miller [directors] — The scene was supposed to be them having a big, knock-out fist fight. And then, it's like weird and scary in a movie to see a man hit a woman, and could a woman provoke a man enough to where it might not seem so weird. After a couple of takes, their chemistry was so strong, we just said, well, what if you tried to kiss him? What you see in the movie is basically what happened after we said that. They improvised this whole, crazy kiss fight.
5. The Mountain vs. The Viper (Game of Thrones)
The best fight ending of 2014.
4. K-29 vs. Crazy Monkey (The Wrath of Vajra)
Crazy Monkey is played by famed Korean street dancer Poppin' Hyun Joon. A lot of this fight looks like wire work, but most of it was done in camera – no tricks.
3. Jack Crawford vs. Hannibal Lecter (Hannibal)
Bryan Fuller [showrunner] — After we finished the fight sequence with Hannibal and Tobias Budge, Laurence Fishburne came up to me and said, "You know, I trained like crazy for all the fight sequences in the Matrix movies. I'm pretty good at those too." So we honoured that request.
2. Ha Hou-mou vs. Fung Yu-sau (Kung Fu Jungle)
Smash Bros. x Toad's Turnpike.
1. Rama vs. The Assassin (The Raid 2)
While the ending of Whiplash is the most thrilling bit of film I saw this year, the second half of this fight – after The Assassin busts out his karambits – is 1A.
see also:
needed Ping Wu
Ping Wu is too one-sided to be a fight.