The Totally Phantom Menace

Not recent, but so much fun:

For those interested in good fight choreographies, here’s Jet Li fighting an entire room of police officers who were just in martial arts training:

You’ll note that there is the use of space and blocking to generally force his opponents to attack him one-on-one. Moreover he moves so fast that the time between attacks is much shorter; in some cases the two opponents attacking in series is basically them attacking at the same time just not in perfect unison.

It’s still a choreography, of course, and not realistic. But it’s a choreography done with a lot of skill and in general an eye for detail. Even when you pause it and look carefully about the only major criticism you could level is that the opponents almost invariably go for big swinging strikes and never use jabs. That said, at least their big swinging strikes are fast. Oh, and Jet Li turns not because it’s pretty but because there are people behind him.