10 Best Examples Of Movies With A ‘Chekhov’s Gun’

10. The Fifth Element - Match

Taxi driver Korben Dallas is attempting to give up smoking, with a clever machine that rations him to four cigarettes a day. Endeavouring to find a match, he searches around his flat, finding empty match boxes until he finally discovers one with two left. He uses one to light his cigarette, putting the box with the other one in his pocket.

The scene is forgotten about until the end of the film when he and his associates attempt to activate the four element stones and Ruby Rhod exclaims that he has no fire to set off the fire stone. Luckily Korben remembers his last match and manages to light it, saving the day from the aliens.

Korben could have easily had a match in his pocket anyway, but the fact it was shown early in the film why he had one on him, and that it was his last one, helped to build the tension and make the solution more satisfying for the viewer.

It was the one element that they couldn’t access using bodily functions or dust found in the room so it was pivotal that he had put it in his pocket rather than back down on the shelf, which he could have done considering he only had cigarettes at home!