Jackie Chan Famous Ladder Fight Scene (First Strike) HD Unrated Version
Why Hacker News recommends it
Mentioned mostly as a joke or as an example of real stunt work with no wires or tricks.
What it is
The famous ladder fight scene from Jackie Chan's First Strike (Police Story 4), an action sequence that won the Hong Kong Film Award for best action choreography.
Recommended by 0 HN commenters across 0 different months, 2014 to 2023.
What Hacker News said
Cites gregmac · 2023-01 · on “Boston Dynamics’ bipedal robot Atlas can now grab and toss, like humans”
> A reality check, a "what you've seen today was staged", a "don't think this was real, and then make poor life choices". I liked the integrity of that. I think it shows something different from that: "the stunt you saw was real". As in: there were no wires, camera tricks, editing, or visual or special effects. Just someone extremely disciplined and good at what they do, trying many times to get it perfect. I don't think the only thing preventing people who watch his movies thinking they could fight a gang of people using a 10'step ladder [1] is the blooper real.. [1] [this video]
Critical dragontamer · 2021-09 · on “How Marvel took over cinema and TV”
But most fight scenes were fake, even before CGI. In fact, almost nobody ever gets hurt on set... and when people do get hurt, its in stunts (not the fight scenes). The number of "realistic fight scenes" are incredibly slim. Chinese martial arts are mostly Wuxia: a branch of martial arts that was developed for stage performance (flips, spins, etc. etc.) that has very little practical relevance. "Kung Fu" films (ie: Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan) reduce the number of filps... but even then, Jackie Chan's use of hilarious stage props is anything but realistic. I mean: just imagine "Die Hard", no one can sustain that many injuries realistically and keep going. Its fake action, yes with practical effec