10 Of Cinema’s Best Train-Based Fight Scenes

10 Of Cinema’s Best Train-Based Fight Scenes

10 Best Train Fight Scenes From The Movies

A tribute to trains which endures so much from the film crews, Death defying scenes, larger then life punches and then standing up again. Well it’s all part of the entertainment.. Don’t take it to your heart or to the brain.

 

10) Fast Five (2011)

There are so many action set pieces in Fast Five that it’s easy to forget some. After all, this is a movie that opens with a prison transport coach flipping over a dozen times in the first two minutes. So amongst your favela chases and your safe stealing you may have forgotten the first-act train heist, but trust us, it’s there, and it’s a peach. The team need to steal some fast cars from a moving train by driving them full-tilt off the side and across the desert, which they do, but just afterwards Dom (Vin Diesel) and Brian (Paul Walker) Butch and Sundance their way into a canyon… and survive.

9) Police Story 3: Super Cop (1992)

You never need a reason to watch Police Story 3, Jackie movies are fun to watch they are light to absorb and filled with humor, good real action sequences less wires to glide people from here to there.

You see Michelle Yeoh’s numerous attempts to launch a motocross bike on to the top of a moving train, Jackie Chan nearly blowing himself up, and all the goofs from this final fight scene. The epitome of what happens when Chan’s sense of humour and willingness to put himself in harm’s way slot together perfectly, this makes the most of the train location and showcases Chan’s superlative action/comedy chops. 

8) The Lone Ranger (2013)

The Lone Ranger has more than one railroad fight scene, with the opening action beat – a clip of which you can watch here – seeing the newly-acquainted Tonto (Johnny Depp) and John Reid (Armie Hammer) chained together as they deal with Harry Treadaway and his gang trying to kill them. 


7) Safe (2012)

Clearing out a carriage full of thugs whilst sporting a skull cap and a slightly rickety American accent.

Stand-out moments include the vicious crotch-on-metal-pole move and the unfortunate incident of the broken knuckles on the night train, both reminding the world that it is never wise to get aggro with our Jason in enclosed spaces.


6) Wanted (2008)

James McAvoy indulges in some long distance assassination whilst on top of a moving loco, but really, it’s all about trains falling into canyons and metal slugs smushing together mid-air in busy passenger compartments.


5) Under Siege 2: Dark Territory (1995)

Under Siege 2 is almost entirely set on a train, and given that kick-ass chef Casey Ryback’s modus operandi is essentially kicking people until they cry or die or both, there are many train-set fight scenes while Seagal is in ‘Dark Territory’. The best of the bunch is in the train’s kitchen, where Ryback has a complicated slap-fight with a goon and his cleaver. It all ends abruptly when the man of the hour gives the poor fool an enthusiastic neck hug. Where is he these days anyways !?

4) The Wolverine (2013)

The top speed of a Shinkansen train – which translates as “new trunk line” but which we English-speaking folk insist on calling a “bullet train” because it sounds cooler – is around 200mph. That means that both Logan and his Yakuza henchman assailant have to think laterally when it comes to staying aboard the roof of this one and not, say, flying off into a Tashida Industries billboard. The Wolverine has his claws, and the goon has a knife. 

3) Sherlock Holmes: A Game Of Shadows (2011)

If there’s one lesson to taken from this epic train battle – aside from the one about not giving hand grenades to soldiers with co-ordination issues – it’s that there are easier ways to win a pitched battle on a train than with a Vickers heavy machine gun.

Firstly, you can’t see what you’re aiming at. Then there’s the danger of killing umpteen ticket inspectors by mistake. Add to that the risk of blasting merrily away at completely the wrong trajectory and you’ve got all the ingredients of a red-coated clusterfrak.

2) Mission: Impossible (1996)

There’s one bit where an old man (Jon Voight) kicks a younger man (Tom Cruise) as they’re riding the top of a (presumably) speeding channel tunnel train, but it’s not exactly Vin Diesel and The Rock going mano-a-mano in Fast Five, is it?

But, and this is a big but, if you’re looking for Jean Reno and the aforementioned older gentleman getting blown up in a helicopter because of a stray piece of chewing gum, then this is the remarkably difficult mission for you.

1) The Robot (2010)

The Robot, this Indian Tamil sci-fi action film may be relatively unknown to Western audiences, but to its fanatical fans in India, it’s an incredibly big deal. Breaking box office records on its release, it hauled in over 1.4 billion rupees (£15 million) and successfully reinforced the superstardom of its lead, Rajinikanth, who stands over his competitors like a Terminator, a baddie-breaking mega-machine.

This particular fight scene – which is almost guaranteed to make you gasp like a startled Jane Austen character on several occasions – lasts six minutes, but for its sheer weirdness alone, oh it’s a good one and you do have to watch this, This will be most defining six minutes of your life but please remove any sharp objects from the desk and keep out of the reach of children… i mean don’t even let them hear it …

10 Of Cinema’s Best Train-Based Fight Scenes

Bonus: 

Spider-Man 2 (2004)

Doc Ock doesn’t make things easy for Spider-Man during their train fight. As well as having to battle his four intelligent mechanical tentacles, Spidey ends up flying through a bridge, catching two innocent bystanders in specially-slung webs, slamming headfirst into another oncoming train and, at the very end, stopping the out-of-control locomotive with his feet.

To add insult to injury, Dr. Otto Octavius delivers a killer quip before he scarpers away: “You have a train to catch…”.

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