YOUR FIGHT CHOREOGRAPHY DOES NOT MATTER.
Fight choreography itself doesn't matter, no matter how perfect the martial arts technique is.
Choreography is the connective tissue that gets us from moment to moment.
Choreography alone is not memorable.
Can you remember your favourite fight scene move for move?
Probably not, unless you've watched it on repeat, and learnt it shot for shot, frame by frame. So how about another question:
What do you remember about it? How would you describe what happens.
You're probably remembering key moments. and how it made you feel. What we really want to see is how the fight affects each character. How badly do they get hurt? How do they problem solve? or do they double down?
Here's an example:
In the final fight sequence of Police Story (1985) Jackie has just lost everything, been accused of murder, and his girlfriend is caught up in the fray. This is his only chance to clear his name and rescue his girlfriend.
HE IS FUCKING PISSED! and you can see it. Every swing looks like he's trying to hurt them.
Jackie here isn't fighting logically, his only strategy is to fight as aggressively as he can to get what he wants. All the break away destruction creates moments that reflect his emotional state. He doesn't care about getting hurt as he punches through mirrors.
This creates...
MOMENTS
as a definition could be oversimplified to reactions. But it's not just selling a hit or performing an appearance of pain.
Moments are the little pockets of time we spend with a character as they emotionally react to what's happening to them. Moments give us a window into what they are feeling and thinking. This is the magic of cinema.
These moments motivate the camera to cut into close ups or insert shots, or to hold on a shot longer.
STORY
Whenever I get asked to make up choreography on the spot my mind goes totally blank. There's too many possibilities and no motivation to pick just one direction to go in.
So instead of brainstorming punches and kicks I start outlining the story.
And the easiest place to start is the end.
If you know where you're going you don't waste time adding on extra beats until the sequence gets bloated and vague.
So focus on: What is the end result of the fight?
Another side note here:
Life and death is not enough for a movie, audiences are so desensitised to deaths on screen. So a fight to the death doesn't matter. If we don't know more than that about a character we don't care.
It's the stakes behind each character. If they die or lose the fight why does that matter?
Do they have people relying on them? Are they brothers or best mates. Is it going to break our hearts to watch them hurt each other.
That's what makes action scenes engaging. The danger is more than physical, it's emotional. It's crucial to build tension.
We want to know why they're fighting and what they're fighting for!
The Man from Nowhere (2010) does this better than most action films, It takes 30 minutes before we get to the first fight sequence. All of that time is spent purposefully exploring our protagonist's relationships to his neigbours, giving them a depth of character beyond two-dimensional plot devices.
We actually care about the girl he's trying to rescue because we've seen how much she cares about him, he's a surrogate father to her whether he likes it or not.
This is SUBTEXT!
Every scene is an opportunity to display a smaller arc of the:
THEME
Theme in screenwriting is basically this:
At the start of the movie a character doesn't want to change. They're living in a way that's opposite to the theme.
By the end of the movie they have no choice but to embrace the theme to overcome the biggest conflict.
Example:
Batman: The Dark Knight
Batman is trying to prove justice is incorruptible, while also holding tightly to his reputation as a hero, because it's his identity.
Everything he understands about justice is turned upside down by The Joker. Someone who can corrupt the shining light of justice that is Harvey Dent. The Joker is trying to convince batman the only way to win is to break his one rule.
After the final confrontation with Dent, the city believes Batman has murdered him. They don't know that Harvey became a villain.
So Batman has to become the villain in the public's eyes to protect the city's perception of justice.
"Because he's the hero Gotham deserves, but not the one it needs right now." - Commissioner Gordon
So the theme is: Making the right choice even when people hate you for it.
That's the big picture, in the context of a feature length film.
You can apply that on a smaller scale through choreography by designing moments to tell us what's really going on internally for each character.
Them being trapped or pinned down can be a metaphor for their emotional struggle and how powerless they feel at this point in the movie. Their solution to how they get out of it or perform a reversal shows how they problem solve. Maybe they do something they wouldn't normally do. Something that shows growth.
Or maybe they don't succeed, they lose, and that transitions us to the next scene and their situation gets even worse!
Keep punishing your characters until they're ready to accept change. And then punish them a little more.
To care about characters we have to watch them suffer. They have to face their biggest obstacles to change and grow.
"When We hit our lowest point, We are open to the greatest change." - Avatar Aang
I highly recommend listening to the Scriptnotes podcast episode: How Craig Mazin writes a movie, It's available on youtube.
Sometimes characters refuse to change. Especially villains.
A great example is in Avatar the last Airbender, Book 1, Episode 16: 'The Deserter'. Admiral Zhao is very arrogant and always throwing his weight around, proving how powerful of a fire bender he is.
Aang realises that he can't win in a contest of strength but he notices that Zhao has no self-control. Just blasting fire everywhere without consideration for his environment. That becomes Zhao's undoing when Aang starts weaving through Zhao's river boats provoking more destruction without throwing a single hit. This ends with all of Zhao's own boats destroyed and even worse, it's humiliating.
That's what Zhao hates most, to be humiliated, to feel inferior.
That's what makes this a great fight. The character arcs of the protagonist manipulating his opponent's ego against him to win.
And the characters movements are clearly defined by who they are, beyond their already visually distinct powers of fire and air.
Aang is light, agile, and adaptable. Zhao is powerful, hot headed, and stubborn. These traits are performed in their movements and choreography, not just their dialogue.
This is how you can craft truly memorable action.
Build out your choreography move by move to reflect character moments, story, and theme.