When it comes to the best knife fights in the movies, Hollywood has provided us with plenty of choices, giving everyone a chance to create their own list of the best knife fight movie scenes ever committed to film.
We’ve covered some of the most famous knives in a previous list, but for this one, we will focus on a handful of scenes involving knives, with great choreography that looks to be some of the best knife fight movie scenes. These movie scenes are pure fantasy and choreography, and while they may pull from martial arts, and look really cool, the scenes are not the reality of real life situations.
Best Knife Fight Movie Scenes
The knife scene in Crocodile Dundee never actually becomes much of a knife fight, but it’s a funny scene that most knife owners know about, especially the catch phrase, “That’s a knife!” But for the best actual fight scenes, here are a few worth checking out.
The Long Riders – If you want your knife fight western style, then The Long Riders is a great choice. The film is a classic with David Carradine as Cole Younger, and James Remar, playing Sam Starr. Sam first challenges Cole to a gunfight, but Sam’s wife, Belle, played by Pamela Reed, quickly steps in.
Belle says to the two men, “Now, boys, there is no need to fight over me. But, if you’ve got to, you make it man-to-man, hand-to-hand.”
Sam agrees, whips out a huge, shiny, obviously dulled blade from his backside and smacks it hard on his other palm and even twists the “blade” toward his own hand.. If that blade had actually been sharp, from the looks of it, the actor would have sliced his palm enough for stitches. Good thing it was only a pretend-knife!
Carridine’s character then takes out his own equally large “knife”, and Belle steps in again.
“Here you go, both of you.” she says. “Have a chew.”
The two men bite down on the ends of a strip of black cloth. Apparently, this length of cloth is a means of keeping the fighters within an equal distance of one another.
Cole then asks, “What does the winner get?”
“Nuthin’ you ain’t already had”, says Belle as she takes a swig of whiskey. She then indicates the two men are keeping her entertained.
Sam swipes at Cole with his arm arching again and again at his opponent.
The fight is complete with a saloon audience, women crying out, men cheering, tight and broad camera angles, all while the two actors play out this knife fighting dance. We won’t tell you who wins the battle, but it is a fun one to watch.
The Hunted – This movie has several great fight scenes. These scenes are what really carry this film. The climax of the movie pits teacher against student in a grim knife fight along the rocky edge of a roaring river between Tommy Lee Jones and Benecio del Toro.
Released in 2003, The Hunted was loosely based on a real life occurrence between Tom Brown, Jr., an outdoorsman, survival expert and technical advisor to the film, and one of Tom’s former students. Tom’s book, Case Files of the Tracker, details the tracking of and the actual fight he had with the Special Forces veteran.
Benecio del Toro brought in two choreographers to help with the knife fight scenes. The film credits Thomas Kier and Rafael Kayanan as the experts in Filipino Martial Arts that trained the actor.
Kill Bill Vol 1. – When it comes to this type of list, “Kill Bill” – both the first and second volumes – usually makes the cut. You’ve got sword fights, gun battles, karate and, yes, a memorable knife fight in a suburban home between Uma Thurman and Vivica A. Fox.
Against the backdrop of an idealistic, American, suburban neighborhood, Thurman plays the part of the aggressor in this knife fight scene. Her character calmly waits on the front step, while scanning the toys strewn across the front yard, for Fox’s character to open the front door. There is a moment when they lock eyes that a memory montage brings the audience into the mind of Fox’s character. Immediately thereafter, the fight is on.
At one point, a large kitchen knife is pulled from the butcher block. Thurman removes a blade from a sheath on her thigh. With every swing of the blade the sound engineer was sure to include swish, swoop and schwing sounds, taking the scene away from any sense of realism. Thank goodness, because we wouldn’t want to see either of these ladies in a real knife fight!
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This is just four of many possible choices, but they are all worth your time if you want both knives and badassery combined in one scene. Let us know in the comments below what knife fight movie scenes are your favorites.
What about the fight scene between the 2 assassins in the movie The Man from Nowhere! Lots of amazing fight scenes too!