10 Most Brutal Fight Scenes In Movie History

7. Eastern Promises

Promises David Cronenberg€™s character film about the Russian mob in London always had a particularly grimy feel to it. It eschewed the glitz and glamour of most crime films to show you the real, scuzzy world that a Russian hood might live in. Even the man who ostensibly runs the whole crime family only owns a humble restaurant, and his son (played excellently by Vincent Cassel) prowls around bedsits and back-streets being an awful but conflicted human being. It€™s this grimy aesthetic which helps fuel the next fight scene, where two low-level Chechen enforcers come for Viggo Mortensen€™s main character when he€™s relaxing in a bathhouse. What follows is a strange mix of compulsive and unwatchable. Any notion of glamour is instantly removed by the fact that Mortensen€™s Nikolai is completely €“ and graphically €“ naked throughout the whole scene. There€™s no Hollywood cliche to any of the punches or kicks that he throws, and his nakedness adds a sense of urgency and pain, allowing you to see the knife wounds he receives. How he ends the fight €“ slowly driving a curved knife through the back of a man€™s skull, must also go down as one of the most brutal ways to ever end a fight. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Re37IVYO_MY The whole thing is a particular breed of awful and shocking and unlike most Hollywood-ised fight scenes, the man you€™re rooting for doesn€™t fare too well either €“ though victorious, he€™s severely wounded and spends much of the film€™s final act either in the hospital or nursing his injuries.
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Durham University graduate and qualified sports journalist. Very good at sitting down and watching things. Can multi-task this with playing computer games. Football Manager addict who has taken Shrewsbury Town to the summit of the Premier League. You can follow me at @Ed_OwenUK, if you like ramblings about Newcastle United and A Place in the Sun. If you don't, I don't know what I can do for you.