Realistic fight choreography done in style

[DiP]

People often divide fight choreography in two groups: style (exaggerated, flashy, refined, etc) and realism (basic, vicious, brutal, raw etc). So in that regard, you would have the usual expectations based on these divisions. There are, however, many great examples of stylized fight scenes (Jackie, Sammo, Woo Ping) having a different look to them and people taking realism and such into account. But have you ever thought about this when it comes to realistic fight scenes? Fight scenes or even a couple of simple fighting techniques with a sense of attentiveness concerning plausibility yet with small signs of uniqueness and refinement.

I think a good example would be:

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But the one particular scene that caught my attention and inspired this thread was this:

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There's no real fight choreography, it's just Donnie beating the living shit out of the guy. Despite the limited use of techniques and the focus seemingly being the guy receiving the hits, you can tell that ALOT of effort went into executing the scene and keeping our attention at the techniques rather than the guy suffering from them. Also, the way Donnie's adjusting his arms to aim, deliver and control the hits shows signs of attraction in style.

What do y'all think? Can the rule for realism in fight choreography be challenged and be delivered in other ways of the spectrum? If so, what fight scenes do you have in mind?

[TibetanWhiteCrane]

Attraction? Never heard that term used. I think the opposite of realistic is stylized, at least that's what I call it.

Examples.... Well, aside from SPL and Flashpoint.... I can't really think of any, though there are surely several.

[DiP]

My own words I guess. Edited.

[Drunken Monk]

I always thought that the style in "City of Violence" was mainly from the camera work and yet the choreography felt frenetic and real. There's a very obvious sense of panic in some scenes, with the heroes doing all they can to fend off their (usually multiple) enemies...

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[odioustrident]

This type of realist grit in choreography stems partly from the early 80's crime films of HK and Taiwan. Tracing it from there seems like a good start. Any scenes that aren't pure improvisation will have some hints of style - no matter how hard they try to portray true-to-life fistifcuffs.

[ShaOW!linDude]

Probably to me, one of the best realistic fights is the end fight in Black Belt. I also find that, barring the awful shaky-cam and hyper-editing, some of the fights in the Bourne film franchise are very realistic to me.

But I have to say that I actually prefer more of the stylized choreography for screen fights, especially those containing the impacts from the blows and kicks. I guess that's why I love Ong Bak so much. Blows my mind.

Plus, the practicality of some techniques in a real fight would just never come into play. It's cool to see them employed and executed on screen and they just look so awesome when done properly.

[So High]

Awesome topic I must say. Couple that always come to mind first is a movie called Felon. Most of the fight scenes where done improve to make the fights look more realistic. Not to bad. Next would be a movie called Dueces Wild; I always describe this movie to people like so "Its like the Outsiders in NY" The brawl at the park just the way he was dinkin on em on the way to the fight with them KNUCKS on.