Fictional Blade Fighters

Ray Moayeri

Ray Moayeri

Joined
Feb 21, 2023
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22
I am new, and I hope this post is appropriate on the forum. Also, please let me know if there is a better suited forum for something like this post.

I am curious who stands out to other folks as very skilled with a blade, in movies, or perhaps in real life if you know someone, like a HEMA competitor (I'm hoping to get into) maybe yourself! :)

I am impressed with Geralt of Rivera, in the Witcher, played by Henry Cavil, even though he only wields one single handed blade.

My avatar is of The Black Widow, played by Emily Beecham, in the series Into the Badlands. She is very skilled with twin blades, I would call light sabres (not an expert at classifications yet)

I don't recall a lot of choreographed knife fighting, as this is firstly called a knife forum, but what stands out in my mind is a really skillful knife fight with Steven Segal in Under Siege.
 
Paul Atreides, Duncan Idaho and Gurney Halleck from Dune, any of its iterations.
Wesley Snipes in the Blade movies.
Inigo Montoya (Mandy Patinkin) in Princess Bride.
Lets not forget Errol Flynn, best known for his roles as Captain Blood and Robin Hood, who was quite adept at sword fighting. Basil Rathbone, the villain in both of those movies, was also very skilled at fencing.
 
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Raphael Sabatini was one of my favorite authors, and many of his stories were turned into epic films with really memorable characters. Captain Blood (1935), The Sea Hawk (1940), Scaramouche (1952), etc. Not realistic by today’s standards of filmmaking but that’s what I enjoyed when I was a kid. I wanted to BE them.

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Errol Flynn and Basil Rathbone duel to the death.
 
Musashi Miyamoto is worth looking into if you're interested in historical figures skilled with blades.
 
Evelyn Cyril Gordon, AKA Oscar, in "Glory Road" by Heinlein. Heinlein had fenced when at the naval acadamy. His knowledge was evident in the fighting descriptions.
Dum Vivamus Vivamus, While we live, let us LIVE.
 
Many of the gentry in Shakespeare's audiences had detailed knowledge of fencing and personal experience in real sword fighting. To present his story without offending these experts with fake looking fights, Shakespeare hired fencing masters as permanent Globe Theatre staff to train his actors. Modern Shakespearean actors are expected to be proficient (and in some theaters, required to document their training) in the use of broadsword, small sword, rapier and dagger — not so much to buff their choreographed fights, but to avoid killing their fellow actors or being killed by them. Actors cost more, nowadays.

Watch some UK produced Shakespeare. The tragedies and histories are not martial arts extravaganzas, but you will see a little sword fighting in the style of 1600. I suggest starting with this:

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An Age of Kings is a 15-part serial adaptation of Shakespeare's eight English history plays. It was produced in 1959, broadcast in the UK in 1960, and I viewed it in the colonies in 1961, age 14. You can stream it if you're in the UK's broadcast area. If not, the DVD set is worth the modest price. Used copies on FleaBay start at $12. Here is young Sean Connery as Sir Henry Percy, not wielding his sword alas but another weapon.

 

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My favorite fictional "knife fighter"?

Hermes, from the movie "Exposure", aka "A Grande Art", aka "The Knife", and probably a few other names. Year of release 1991. Staring Peter Coyote, and Tcheky Karyo as Hermes, the soft-spoken, low-key underling of a Brazilian mob boss, with a sense of honor, who's weapon of choice is a fixed-blade.

Although Hermes has a few different scenes (like teaching Coyote how to use a knife), he only has one knife fight. I like it because the fight is short, not highly stylized with extensive acrobatic choreography. It was a street punk against a highly skilled, trained professional.

There's a lot of "cool" in the movie. From the opening quote from the Greek poet Archilochus "I have a high art, I hurt with cruelty those who wound me".

The characters name. In Greek mythology Hermes was a messenger for the gods who also escorted travelers to their final destination.

The movie was the first time I saw a Joe Kious custom knife, or saw anyone carrying a fixed-blade inverted in an underarm sheath/shoulder rig.

Heck, a movie about knife fighting, with references from ancient Greece and Greek mythology, and an appearance by a Joe Kious knife, how can you go wrong. And you also get to play "Name That Knife" with all the other knives that make appearances.

I just watched the movie again recently free online. So it's fresh in my mind.
 
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Opinions vary upon how fictionalized the many tales of Jim Bowie were... but the sandbar duel story was legit.
 
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Anyone still following this thread would probably enjoy Reclaiming the Blade (2009), a 90 minute documentary film on the history of fencing and swordsmanship in the movies. You can stream it "for free" (with ads) on The Roku Channel, Vudu, Tubi, Pluto, and Freevee.

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Bob Anderson (1922-2012) is one of the documentary's distinguished experts. He taught Errol Flynn, Sean Connery, Antonio Banderas, Viggo Mortensen, Adrian Paul, and Johnny Depp to fence; he was stunt double for Darth Vader's lightsaber fights in The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi; he choreographed all the sword fights in The Lord of the Rings; and he fought Errol Flynn in The Master of Ballantrae (1953), accidentally cutting the actor's leg in rehearsal and becoming a Hollywood legend as "the man who stabbed Errol Flynn."
 
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My initial thought when I read the title was from the books I read as a kid.

I read alot of Robert E. Howard, and I always think of Francis Xavier Gordon, or "El Borak" as a prodigious blade wielder.

I also read Karl Edward Wagner, and if you recognize the name then Kane comes instantly to mind. Pretty much unbeatable with any blade.

Whole bunch of others... Fritz Leiber's Gray Mouser, Howard's Cormac Mac Art, and even Philip Jose Farmer's Paul Janus Finnegan aka Kickaha.... Blade master's all.

You want to read a story of a blademaster creating a blademaster, Read "The Outlaw of Torn" by Edgar Rice Burroughs. A quick, easy vastly entertaining read.
 
Drizzt Do'urden
John Carter (helped by the lesser gravity of Mars)
Christmas from the Expendables
Beatrix Kiddo
Sho Kosugi (real name) in various roles
 
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