Film Treatment of Hammering Knuckleheads

Wed, Sep 25, 7:05 AM (2 days ago)

On a lighter note, an infamous fight scene from my youth. Does this man get the LaFondian seal of approval for his use of the humble claw hammer? If you decide to watch the whole thing it's a decent enough noir revenge flick but, avoid a synopsis, it's one of those twist ending sorts.

-An Appalachian Separatist

Sir, thanks for the clip. I'll look at this artistically and the as a practical study of combat.

I have seen this crew in video before and I do not think they choreograph, but rather do a type of implicit stage fighting utilizing conventions that appeal to the Asian sense of drama. This is similar to how Mark Whalberg did not choreograph his fights scenes in The Fighter, but rather just went in the ring and started going at it with some level of tacit restraint. This permits good actors to work with stuntmen directly and also demands acting of the stunt men. In short, I like it. Reminds me of the Raid. This kind of work is so much more lyrical and, in its own way, much more real than American fight choreography, with its outrageous precision and immediately incapacitated foes. Note that he really doesn't "kill" any body and that most of these dudes would be good for a beer in a few hours. The hesitation of the bad guys and the difficulty a lone man without a gun or a blade has in getting rid of people, is effectively conveyed.

In practical terms the opponent was open to the bum rush the entire time and could have been taken down by one meat shield and two pushers. But Southeast Asia doesn't have team mugging sports like American Football and Rugby imbedded in their culture.

The hammer is a superb weapon for a hallway. The claw hammer is one of the most fearsome improvised weapons available in the modern crimescape. I'd fight Big Foot with a hammer. Injuries to the head and face are maiming to fatal. It should not be wasted on body shots, but be used to smash in the face, smash the shoulder and hook the back of the head. This will keep heads back and punish shoots to your waist by threatening to crush the back of the head and spine. That short, dense club should be used to dominate the highline and make cringing bodies available for a one-handed sprawl. Note that this actor is actually able to strike stuntmen—selected for some girth—in the body with this hammer. He's not driving it, but he's actually hitting them a couple of times.

One Puerto Rican with a knife, a negro with a two-by-four or a big fat redneck spewing chaw and Frankensteining his way in would have ended the hammer rampage in short order—but those guys are in short supply now, even in their own haunts as the world goes full sissy.

The sticks were made of balsa wood so that they could even hit him in the back of the head and break.

The knife left in at a 2 in depth in the back is likely not to be debilitating.

What I believe these types of movie fights represent is a throwback to heroic swordsmanship, with most of these Asian action flicks using hallways and rooms for combat, which evokes the hero of old searching the enemy castle for his nemesis. You see, in such historic settings, one man in a hallway or on abridge, when armor, axes, swords and polearms were in play, could, if he were a superior combatant facing "rear echelon motherfuckers," enjoy the type of success depicted here.

Thanks.

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