10 Awesome Movie Gunfights You've Probably Never Seen

10. John's Awakening (Universal Soldier: Day Of Reckoning)

Director John Hyams gave the dormant Universal Soldier franchise a much needed shot in the arm with his 2009 DTV sequel Universal Soldier: Regeneration. Abandoning the campy humour of the original and making a straight ahead action thriller with some terrific fight scenes worked wonders for the credibility of the series. So it was something of a surprise that when he directed the follow-up Day of Reckoning he made something that feels like a bizarre hybrid of The Shining and Lost Highway, with high-impact fight scenes thrown in for good measure. The film stars Scott Adkins as a man named John who awakens from a coma after the brutal murder of his wife and child, seemingly at the hands of franchise hero Jean-Claude Van Damme. Throughout the film he investigates what really happened and discovers that the memory of his family was falsely implanted and that he is really a clone bred to assassinate a rogue band of Universal Soldiers. Towards the end of the film this group takes him in to remove the painful memory so he can join their ranks, but during the procedure he rebels. Violently. From this moment the film basically becomes one long action sequence and in a series of long, flowing takes John goes on a bloody rampage, wiping out all the soldiers in the base. He uses a fluid combination of tools, guns and martial arts to take on his opponents and the camera spares us none of the grisly details. The scene also gives real life marital arts expert Adkins ample opportunity to show off his physical prowess as he tears through the base like a violent animal. Or in this case a violent animal armed with a shotgun. And his one on one fight with villain Dolph Lundgren in a room full of weapons is a real treat.
Contributor
Contributor

Handsome. Charismatic. Intelligent. Noble. Witty. I'm none of these things, but I'm a half decent writer, I guess.