There’s a special place in my heart for fight montages. Who can forget the great fight montage during the tournament in The Karate Kid. I think I saw that movie twice on the same night when it came out.
The montage is a film term that delineates a scene that does not have to obey the rules of continuity. In other words, the montage can skip time and space and, as a filmmaker, I can show you different clips that are now associated, not by the semblance of continuity of time and space, but rather connected by an idea.
That’s how you can see Rocky, for example, training and jogging and hitting the bag etc. The filmmaker is not telling you that all of this is happening at once. It may be happening over a period of months. But the images are connected by the idea of Rocky training hard.
One of my favorite fight montages is the one in the movie Bloodsport. It’s still my favorite of Van Damme’s films and I believe it remains so for many people.
The film is based on the real life exploits of Frank Dux. Of course the movie is highly dramatized. Even the fight scenes are far from being realistic.
What I like about this one is the emphasis on the different styles and how the filmmaker delineates characters out of these fighters even though they hardly speak at all.
The kung fu fighters are superb. I also enjoy the muay thai practitioner. And of course, you can’t beat Bolo Yeung as a bad guy. Ever since Enter the Dragon he’s represented the epitome of evil.
There’s a whole lot of bad-asses in this one. Hope you enjoy it!
