Bust out your blades, we're talking knife fights.
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Action movies love weapons. They love swords, shotguns, and other weapons that don't begin the letter S. Whatever our hero is wielding, it lets them show off a bad-ass skill against other fighters. But on the smaller end of the bladed weapon scale we've got the ever-versatile and under-appreciated knives. So today we're going to break down how action movies use knives and their limitations in their action scenes.
Definition?
So this might sound like a silly thing to do, but I'm going to define what I consider a knife. For our purposes a knife is a small bladed weapon designed to be wielded with one hand. I don't have an exact length cut off, but if you can stab or cut your opponent without getting up close, it's not a knife (*insert Crocodile Dundee joke here*).
Why is that important? Well a knife is inherently dangerous, since any good cut or stab can disable or kill someone, but it's short range means whoever's wielding it has to close the gap the get a solid strike in. Which leads to a lot of unique kinds of fights.
Fight Type #1: Control, Counter, or Run Away
This fight type is rather simple. One of the fighters has a knife, the other doesn't. You see this a lot in hand to hand battles between a hero and comparable opponent. If the hero gains a clear upper hand the villain decides to discard sportsmanship and busts out a combat knife that can either slash or stab in equal measure. It's a nice natural progression because it escalates the fight's danger and gives the hero a new problem to solve with one of three solutions: control, counter, or run away.
The control option is fairly straight-forward. Whenever the villain attacks with the knife, the hero will try to control their opponent's motion or the limb that has the knife. Sometimes this means getting in so close that the villain can't wield the knife effectively because even a stabbing motion requires some kind of wind up or shoulder motion. Other times this means grabbing the baddy's arm and then attempting to disarm him with a downward blow at their hand.
Even with a competent hero this can shift the battle in the baddies favor because while our hero is trying to counter the knife, their opponent can through punches and kicks to injure or worse free up the knife for more stabbing.
While these fights can be free-flowing and graceful, they often devolve into wrestling matches where each fighter is trying to turn the blade against their opponent with leverage or even their body weight to deliver a decisive blow. You end with a lot of knives almost being stabbed into someone's eye like the final fight of Mission Impossible 2.
The counter option is where things tend to get interesting. Because a knife-wielding opponent isn't something you can ignore a lot of heroes will scan the surrounding area for an effective counter that can either meet the knife head on or deflect the strikes as they come in. In Kill Zone Donnie Yen faces off against a knife-wielding Jing Wu using a police baton. While this means that Yen can counter Wu's slashes with an equally agile weapon, it also limits the kind of damage he can do with a single strike. Thus the entire fight is Yen trying to find an opening to land hits without being hit himself or turning Wu's blade against him.
Our old friends household items can join the party as well. In Kill Bill Vol. 1 The Bride is facing off against a fighter with a kitchen knife with no easy means of defending herself. Her counter weapon is what's nearby: a flying pan. And as silly as this sound it's actually a perfect defense because it's sturdy enough to deflect blows and big enough to defend a reasonable radius.
The fun with the counter option is watching our hero be more resourceful than the bad guy or upending a standard weapon with a silly option.
And finally there's the run option. The run option usually features an inexperienced hero against a more experienced opponent. The opponent either has or finds a knife and it's up to our hero to run away and find leverage or help. Because our hero is trying to keep their distance vs. fight, almost every move they make is defensive or a dodge. They may knock stuff over or roll out of the way before a stab lands. But chances are they're not going blow for blow with this opponent. The hero's end goal in these situations is often a superior weapon like a gun or an improvised solution. It means that every step they take feels desperate, especially as their pursuer closes the gap. It makes the tension release when the skirmish is over all the sweeter.
Fight Type #2: Stealth Kills
Knives are a quiet assassin's favorite weapon. Because guns are too loud and it's easy to get in close for a kill shot with a small blade. This tactic is used by all kinds of characters including good guys and bad guys. Generally it's meant to show off how bad-ass the character in question is because not only are they getting the drop on these trained people, they're taking them out with a knife without making a sound.
Because our knife-wielding friend is aiming for a quick quiet kill the blows tend to be at or around the head and neck, the back, or directly in the chest. Lots of throats get slit with this option and lot of hands end up over mouths before the killing blow.
The tone of this tactic depends on whether it's a hero or a villain doing the damage. If it's a hero, there's a lot of tension because they clearly don't want to be discovered for fear of armed or at least stronger resistance. Thus every enemy encounter is tense as we see if they can take out their target in time. For instance, John Wick taking out bodyguards in the Red Circle club to avoid a shootout.
For villains, it's often a team of assassins who are taking out our heroes. Frequently they're ninjas, in look if not by name, who are taking out the lookouts before a more direct strike. We've still got tension, but in this case it's more of the horror movie "turn around you idiots you're about to be stabbed" variety.
In either case, a lot of bodies will quietly hit the floor before everything goes haywire.
Fight Type #3: Knife vs Knife
The knife versus knife fight is one of the least common in cinema. And I understand why. It is much easier to choreography someone fighting an opponent with a knife, a la the final fight of Commando that the close quarter chaos of two blades. Because the weapon is so small and can move so quickly it's incredibly hard to follow. Offhand I can think of three decent takes on this that demonstrate different ways to go...two of which feature Tommy Lee Jones for some reason.
The first is the final fight from Under Siege when Steven Seagal faces off against Tommy Lee Jones' terrorist. This fight is interesting because it features a ton of knife on knife deflections. Lot of little clangs as these two try to cut one another. It's frenetic and kind of hard to follow, but mostly effective. It does enough to demonstrate that both of these men are competent fighters.
The second version is from another Tommy Lee Jones movie, The Hunted. In the film's final fight, Jones and Benicio Del Toro face off. This fight is much better and realistic because the two fighters are constantly trying to get leverage to cut and stab instead of aiming for each other's blades. It's like a wrestling match mixed with edged weapons.
But the creme de la creme has to be the kitchen fight from The Raid 2. This fight works best for two reasons. The first is that it begins as our first fight type. Our hero Rama is facing off against an opponent with two knives and he quickly prioritizes getting one out of his opponents hand and into his own. So we get a lot of the controlled grappling and countering, with a notably more flexible knife that can spin on a finger, before Rama disarms his opponent and goes for quick slashes and stabs. Then the two fighters trade attempts to land blows with their blades before Rama comes out victorious. I'd say this is the gold standard for knife v knife fights.
Fight Type #4: Let's Throw'Em
The other fun thing about knives is...you can throw them. Most of the time the throwing knife is a one shot kill used on an anonymous henchman. It's also a favorite for hired assassins who all seem to be mute.
The size of the blade doesn't really matter. Whether it's Boromir in Fellowship of the Ring or Arnold in Predator tossing a blade is a great way to quickly thin the herd of baddies around you while showing off your skills, and changing up the pace of the fight. If your fighter is primarily a gun fighter or sword fighter a quick knife throw livens things up.
But a thrown knife is also an opportunity for the intended target to flex. A low level flex is deflecting the thrown knife, usually with a sword. Pretty impressive. Requires good timing, reflexes, and aim. Catching a thrown knife is playing on god mode. If you pull that off chances are you'll be able to toss the knife back at your target with deadlier accuracy.
Not all thrown knives are a one hit kill though. In Desperado, Danny Trejo's assassin has throwing knives to spare, but it takes multiple hits to take his target down. Hence why our favorite Mariachi is able to get away and get patched up.
Fight Type #5: The V Option
If you want a kitchen sink approach to knife fighting, look no further than V for Vendetta. Throughout the film the titular V wields a number of blades and does....everything with them. Sometimes he's slashing, other times he's stabbing, and in his final fight he does plenty of throwing as well. I think this approach is best for a character who only uses knives, as V does, but it's very effective.
Possible Problems
Most of the problems with knife fights come down for cinematography or choreography. From a shooting standpoint, we should always have a clear sense of where the knife is, when it hits and where, and how the knife-wielder adapts their tactics. That showy move of dropping your knife to catch it and gain leverage is only cool if the camera follows the knife.
Likewise a knife fight can devolve into a boring wrestling match if you're not careful. It's one thing to have two characters jockeying for position on the ground or trying to take the knife away from one another. It's an entirely different thing for them to bounce back and forth for five minutes.
Conclusions
A knife is great for action movies because it's an easy way to step up the danger without resorting to firearms for throws, stealth kills, or one on one combat. But you better keep track of it and shoot it well, or your fight scene will bleed out.
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