best and worst sword fighting films you've ever seen

[daddydiboy]

I noticed that many of us here in this forum love swords and trained using swords. I do think that it is the best weapon ever devised by man. U can find swords in most cultures in the world. It's no surprise that you will come accross swords in movies in any language.

What is your favorite films that has swords in them?
Pirate movies? Samurai? Ninja? Highlanders series? Starwars? Epic battles scenes?

Which sword fighting scenes most memorable to you? My examples:
Archiles (Brad Pitt) vs Hector in 'Troy' is the best western sword fighting I ever saw thus far.

[daddydiboy]

I am a fan of the highlanders series. The best thing about it is this. In these movies, you can find different types of blades clash against each other. Japanese katana vs european long sword. A sabre vs roman short sword. The fights takes place on the ground too, thankfully. High flying clashes in the air as in the Hong Kong movies kinda spoil fights on the whole.

[complete]

My favorite is the Samurai sword. Something about the details and dedication went into making one of those.

[silver fox]

hero(jet li), zatoichi the blind swordsman, kill bill vol.1 there's so many more i can name them all at the moment. i like the broad sword.

[Chapel]

Silver Fox beat me to the Kill Bill Vol 1 fight with the Crazy 88. I also liked a bunch of the fights in Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon.

[NinjaMaster]

I think the sword from Kill Bill was Hanzo(?) and the sword from Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon was Green Destiny.

[wmks shogun]

Esteemed Moderator, I believe that the question was about the favorite sword fights from movies, not the swords themselves, though you are correct about the names of the swords in question.
Honestly, I enjoyed the bokken fighting/training scenes in The Last Samurai, if that counts. I also enjoyed the sword fight in the blacksmith's in the first Pirates of the Carribean.
BUT, the all time best sword fights are in The Princess Bride. (LOL) Okay, so maybe not, but they are entertaining. I also enjoyed parts of the sword fights in the aformentionted Crouching Tiger and Hero, but there was too much wire-fu for my tastes.

[Chapel]

There were a lot of non-wired sequences in CTHD. Those are the ones I really liked. For example, the fight between the two female leads (its been a while, forgot the names) which featured the younger with the green destiny and the elder with several different weapons.

[complete]

I think the best sword fighting movie was a movie I can't remember the name. It's a Japanese movie. The swordsman has a young son that he carries in all the battles. It was such a long time ago but if I remember the story, the mother and the rest of the family were killed. The main swordsman vowed revenge but didn't want to take the infant son, so he gave the young baby the choice. If he walked towards the sword, he'd take him along with him. If he walked towards a toy or something, he'd kill the baby so he could go alone. The baby chose the sword. Anyway, a lot of great sword fight scenes. Very bloody though.

[silver fox]

i believe there's a remake of that movie(starring jet li) called The Legend of the Red Dragon.

[Chapel]

I thought Jet Li was done after his most recent movie.

Edit: nevermind, you said 'there is' not 'is being made.' My mistake

[Broken Wings]

Kill Bill, and Zorro!

[daddydiboy]

[quote=complete;6970]I think the best sword fighting movie was a movie I can't remember the name. It's a Japanese movie. ]

i saw that movie, it has a great realworld/nonwired fight scenes with katana. it was dramatic as well. You need some kind of drama to accompanied a MA film. In that respect, I really
love the last samurai. The scene where T. Cruise fights the thugs in the street of tokyo was my fav. Emotions plus some angst. Great stuffs.

[silver fox]

as for the not so recent sword fighting movies, i enjoyed the Conan series and Red Sonja, but the sword scenes were'nt as exciting as the previous mentioned.


"Success is a journey, not a destination".-Bruce Lee

[MASTERforge]

Its got to be Hero for me.

It has the beautiful cinematography of 'house of flying daggers'. It gives you a real feeling of dao in motion. The seasons are colorfully shown as they change giving an insight into the beliefs of Chinese Buddhism and Taoism.

The philosophical depth of crouching tiger hidden dagger. You can see change as constant and never ending. The characters all develop emotionally and mentally.

Finally 'nameless' realises that the ultimate attainment of the sword arts is to no longer need the sword. Nameless saw this in his friends calligraphy.

A Chinese friend recommended Hero. He is a buddhist. I asked him if he would ever take up a sword art. He replied:

'a sword in the hand is sword in the heart'.

I'm not entirely sure what he meant but I understood this to mean that when you gain a higher level of spiritual development your mind will not dwell on the fear of being attacked or the need to fight. Instead you will be more concerned with growing and developing life.

Practicing defense through the fear of attack has its limitations. I now practice for health maintenance and spiritual development.

So for me Hero is much more than a MA film. It has depth and subtlety that is difficult to grasp unless you are familiar with Chinese culture. It is also beautifully made. I haven't seen many western made films that can match this level.

I also love the Jian swords as I sell the Han Dynasty type in the film. I like the boxes also and hope to get one someday. So the film is quite personal to me.