unfortunately many fight scenes and i'm probably going to open this up to pretty much every action
scene in cinema quite often suffers from the issue of style over content and it's when these
action scenes forget that they still need to be telling a story to keep us actually engaged that
they forget that only so many punches and kicks are going to keep us there until we start to
feel like it's white noise many kung fu movies have actually mastered this balance so i'm going
to take a look at the latest Mortal Kombat movie the very first Mortal Kombat movie and
probably one of the best martial arts movies ever made Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon
so how have these three movies dealt with that balance of story and action in their fight scenes
well i think this fundamentally comes down to the pace of the edit so when we take
a look at one of the most legendary martial arts battles ever to be put
on the silver screen the battle between Shu Lien versus Jen Yu i was right geez i
remembered it in Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon we can analyze the scene like this
the actual fight sequence itself is 4 minutes and 37
seconds long with a total of 92 cuts across the entire fight sequence that might sound like a
lot especially when we consider that's one cut on average every three seconds
when you then look at the latest mortal kombat movie that's just been released
well one of the very first fight sequences in the movie
a battle between Scorpion and Sub-Zero the fight sequence is only one minute and 20 seconds long
however that one-minute 20-second fight sequence has 82 cuts in it totaling
0.93 seconds per cut on average and sometimes it's even faster than that
and then we take a look at the original Mortal Kombat movie one of its first fight sequences
is similarly 1 minute 16 seconds long but it only has 32 cuts in it totaling 2.3 seconds
on average per cut it really highlights just how different each filmmaker has
presented the fight sequences themselves this information also helps us understand
why a fight sequence is more successful or not
so it isn't necessarily down to the talent of the stunt performers the martial arts or the
choreography it isn't necessarily down to the density of the story because there is a huge
story behind Mortal Kombat and a lot of content for them to pull on at any given time based on the
characters that are very well developed already i think i can help did you see a guy down there
complete [ __ ] [ __ ] answers to kano instead what is really highlighted here
is just how we actually obtain information during these fight sequences it's really
obvious in the latest Mortal Kombat movie they chose an incredibly high pace of editing
to convey a kinetic energy a chaos to the fight however it lacks in telling a story of the fight
we don't understand the ebb and flow who's winning who's losing who has the up hand or the lower hand
whereas in Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon we absolutely understand throughout the entire fight
who is outclassing who what is the reason for each blow each use of a weapon
here the camera moves above the actors for a seven second clip in the film this is one of the longest
moments we hold on the choreography and for those of you who know anything about stunts
seven seconds of continuous choreography with weapons where you could end up hitting one another
is incredibly difficult it's also important to note that quite often cinematographers and camera
teams have to put cameras in positions where you cannot see the distance between the fist or weapon
and the other person so we don't know that they are actually a safe distance away from each other
whereas by putting the camera above it forces the choreography to be absolutely perfect where
we believe that every punch and swing of the weapon might actually connect with the other
character it's these moments that really shine a light on the brilliant choreography but it
also tells us something more we can see the movement of the battle on a wider scale we
can see when one character pushes the other back and in the story of Crouching Tiger
Hidden Dragon when we meet this fight sequence a young girl who's an inexperienced martial artist
is utilizing a legendary sword and she is being pushed back by a more experienced
martial artist with much lesser weapons in fact these weapons are designed for training
rather than battle so when we see from above that she is pushing her back we understand the
ebb and flow of this battle we understand that she is outclassing her even with a lesser weapon
in Mortal Kombat though i don't really know who's gonna win until kind of the last second when
so let's take a look at the latest Mortal Kombat movie in the fight sequence where Scorpion and
Sub-Zero are battling at the beginning of the movie we are given a couple of wider shots there
are no high angle shots but there are a couple of wide shots cut into the fight sequence itself
unfortunately however this shot is up for exactly half a second and it lets us know nothing
and this is also where form or the style of editing has actually taken precedence
over the importance of that clip to let us know the information that we need to know
we see the two characters between two trees they're badly lit we don't really know the
depth of the scene and where they're moving to and from the clip is so short
that it really adds nothing we don't learn anything more because of seeing this
frame than having seen the previous frame it feels like a cut to cut for cutting's sake
i'm sorry that i got you whereas looking back at Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon even outside of the
top down shot every single shot has been designed not just to show how the other
person is trying to punch the other person but to tell the story of that fight sequence itself
you have to remember that cutting is the act of momentarily disorienting
your audience so if you don't give your audience enough time to find out where
they are why they're there and give them something for being there give them something
for continuing to pay attention to your story we end up just creating white noise
i really hope in the next Mortal Kombat movie that they take a look at what went well and
what went wrong in the first movie and they don't keep treating the fight sequences like
a mad rush to the finish and i really don't even know my name by the end of it
because my brain's been scrambled by 9 million angles of someone punching someone in the face
but instead start to treat the fight sequences like a battle of wills one which ebbs and flows
and follow it like a dance like an incredible drama and i believe that
will engage audiences and transcend Mortal Kombat movies to where they really should be