What about Charlie Sheen vs. Saddam Hussein?
And do knife fights count?
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Ridley Scott’s debut as a director. Come for the sword fights, stay for the beautiful photography. It’s years since I saw it. I may have to revisit it.
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Gonna have to chime in with one of the best (sort of) recent Japanese period films:
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Cinematically, that’s my favorite sword fight. The lead up fight with the Crazy 88 is great, the fight in the snow covered garden is perfect. Maybe my favorite Tarantino scene.
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I was getting a little upset that you all posted about all my favorite sword geek movies but then I remembered this one: Cyrano with Gerard Depardieu. Gotta watch the whole nose scene.
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And I’m STILL waiting for this to come out in bluray. Gorgeous cinematography. I love how in the second clip, Carradine has to stop for a sneeze.
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I’ll weigh in with best Star Trek sword fights:
(characters – episode)
Kirk vs Kang – Day of the Dove
Picard vs Sir Guy – Qpid
Worf vs Gowron – Tacking into the Wind
Klingon Janeway vs Hirogen – The Killing Game
Archer vs Shran – United
runners up:
Kirk makes a good show with a foil in All Our Yesterdays
Picard & Guinan practice - I, Borg
Just remembered Worf vs Duros – Reunion
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There’s a very nicely choreographed sword fight near the end of Tom Jones. I always get a kick out of how Albert Finney’s character fends off his opponents blows with the sheathed sword, they sends the sheath flying off into the background (still in frame)!
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In memoriam:
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Loved this post. Seems like someone’s been stuck in a YouTube hole @jlw 
What’s happening to the background in the closeups of the Errol Flynn and Basel Rathbone duel? It looks like the effect you get from body mounted cams but surely that tech didn’t exist back then did it?
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Automated digital stabilization, I’d say. You can see similar artifacts whenever there’s a lot of motion on screen.
This one doesn’t have it:
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So that’s what that is. I always thought it was a body mounted cam. Wonder why that effect was added to that clip.
I came here looking for Twilight Samurai and i am satisfied. Great movie!
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The Hidden Blade and Love and Honor weren’t bad either.
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Not seen those. It’s also been years since i watched Twilight Samurai. I’ll be revisiting and checking out your recommendations 
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They’re considered a trilogy, based on the stories by Shûhei Fujisawa. If I have the chance, I’d like to see if I could find English translations.
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Ah right i never knew. Will def check them out then.
Always preferred subs myself. Your getting the original performance.
Fantastic scene, but look at the candles at about 3.14 and 3.18. In between the (film) cut someone has switch the candles around and the angle at which Danny Kaye’s sword has cut them is completely different.
Continuity in these fight scenes must sometimes have been a real bugger.
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Thanks for the reminder – Power was another who took to the training and it shows in that scene.
Compare it to the Flynn/Rathbone duel and you’ll notice that in Zorro they keep centered and their blades in line with much, much less of the wild roundhouse swings (which with blades are an invitation to a direct thrust) that audiences loved so much with Flynn.
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