hello i'm IPostSwords and today we're going to be looking at what may be literally the best
swordplay in the history of cinema and film it comes in the form of a polish movie known as
"Zrodzeni do Szabli", or "born to the saber" and is about a young noble and his growth from his
baptism all the way up to his final battle. it's a well executed film particularly in the fight
choreography. The fight choreography in this film is extremely well executed because it was written
by actual fencers - this is a complaint that we often hear that fight choreographers rarely
know what sword fights actually look like but this is a rare exception to that rule. In the opening
exchange between the hero and villain we can see that not only is proper measure and timing kept,
we can also see that if the opponent did not move or block he would have actually been hit
by each slash of the saber. This makes sense in a fight - you do not want to slash at empty
air because you won't hurt your opponent in that manner and yet we constantly see in film and TV
that when a sword is swept at someone it's often swept at empty air even if the opponent had not
moved at all they would not have been cut and in fact the villain uses this to his advantage:
when he finally can step back (or slip back as it's often referred to in manuals) he is able to
dodge a cut from the hero's sword. This is an accurate historical technique - slipping back
to avoid a swing, and we can even see it used in some tournaments or fencing demonstrations.
In the next exchange we can see something even more clever: the protagonist - our hero - uses
a bit of dirty tactics and utilizes the nearby environment to his advantage he leans down grab
some soil and throws it into the eyes of the villain. This temporarily blinds the villain
to a limited extent and allows him to close distance and attack in which he performs a
push cut across the brow of his opponent. This push cut is not debilitating, however it would
cause blood to enter the eyes - which, as we've covered, already have dirt in them. In the next
exchange the villain hits our own hero across the face as well, drawing blood just above his brow to
the side of his head this leaves him at a fairly even level of injury compared to one another.
After this exchange we see a scene which is my only real gripe in the combat with this film: the
two actors close distance and engage in a grapple however if you look closely during that grapple
the protagonists sword is actually just below the arm of his opponent and pressed against his torso
if he were merely to execute a draw cut across his opponent's torso he would have cut through
his clothing and potentially into his flesh, broke the bind and potentially even won the fight. In
the final exchange of this fight the protagonist disarms the villain thus ending the fight. For
the moment I won't spoil what actually happens in the film what I will say is that the fight is very
well executed from the beginning we can see real historical techniques from both polish accounts
and other historical fencing manuals including the defensive slip including the use of proper timing
and measure including the use of push and draw cuts as well as regular cuts and including the
use of grappling techniques while I do have that small nitpick about the draw cut being
potentially usable in that grapple it's worth noting that overall this movie from it's very
beginning to its end uses historically accurate armor, arms, and techniques something I've not
seen in almost any other movie and there is a good explanation for that this movie was made by
a fencing society "Stowarzyszenie Sztuka Krzyzowa" or the Association of cross-cutting cross-cutting
describes a technique used in Polish swordsmanship and it is uniquely used with this style of sword
and with the Karabella I will make one note about this style of sword and that is that they are
historically pretty flexible and tough swords and yet in the movie after the battle we see a sword
being ritually sacrificed placed over the knee and simply broken in half which is not something
you can do with an actual historic polska szabla husarska, or polish hussars saber, as they are
spring temper and made of quality steel. the fact that this sword was able to be snapped so
easily means it would have also been susceptible to snapping in combat - which it did not. it's
not historically accurate which is rather strange given the rest of the film and especially because
it has documentary components by an actual smith, Zbigniew Justkiewicz. Zbigniew is actually a very
good smith and I doubt he would ever sell a sword that was not adequately tempered so this was
clearly done for cinematic effect but does detract from the historical accuracy and my personal
enjoyment of this film but despite that this was a very well produced film especially considering
its length and budget the story while not overly complex is easy to follow and well narrated the
documentary interjections interspersed throughout the movie add valuable context and information as
well as clarifying where some sources may have been interpretive rather than literal I hope
you've enjoyed this video and I hope you go check out as Zrodzeni do Szabli. I will note that it
is in Polish and you'll have to watch it with subtitles if you don't speak the language but
I'd say it's thoroughly worth it while I do wish they'd released a cinematic edit with none of
the documentary it is still well worth watching if you have the time it's available on Vimeo on
demand for around 10 US dollars to buy or eight US dollars to stream this has been IPostSwords
presenting what maybe one of the best cinematic fights in history until next time stay sharp