Movie fight club: Gladiator II and more intense punch-ups

Twenty-five years ago, Ridley Scott’s Oscar-winning action movie Gladiator turned Russell Crowe into a megastar. Now we’re back in ancient Rome’s Colosseum as a new gladiator faces off with evil emperors in Gladiator II. 

As a boy, Lucius Verus Aurelius (Paul Mescal), the son of Lucilla (Connie Nielsen), watched in awe as his hero Maximus (Russell Crowe) defeated his uncle Commodus (Joaquin Phoenix) on the sands of the arena. Now he’s going by a new name, Hanno, as he returns to Rome as a slave following General Acacius’ (Pedro Pascal) conquest of the kingdom of Numidia, where Lucilla sent Lucius to protect him from the corruption of Rome. 

While “Hanno” trains under the cruel Macrinus (Denzel Washington), hoping to one day face Acacius (who’s now married to Lucilla, adding step-dad insult to injury) in combat, he has two far more dangerous enemies – Rome’s insane brother emperors Geta (Joseph Quinn) and Caracalla (Fred Hechinger). 

Stream Gladiator II now, along with the original Gladiator. 

It’s a zoo in there!

Geta and Caracalla are obsessed with staging showy exhibitions in the Colosseum. And Gladiator II’s most insane fights are somewhat grounded in reality. Instead of going to the zoo, Roman citizens could see wild animals from all over the world at Rome’s Forum and the Circus Maximus. Contemporary writers recorded that lions, elephants, bears, tigers, wolverines, zebras, ostriches, giraffes, leopards, crocodiles, boars, hippos, hyenas and gorillas all appeared in hunting displays called Venatio, which were held on the mornings of gladiator duels. 

In Gladiator II we have a full-on gladiator riding a rhinoceros (an animatronic that could shake its head, and move its eyes and ears, and get steered around the arena like a Go-Kart), battles with rabid baboons (inspired by a video that Ridley Scott saw of baboons attacking tourists in a parking lot in South Africa), and the recreation of a naval battle, complete with ships and water, in the Colosseum arena – which was based on real events called naumachiae. (Those probably did not feature sharks, though.) 

What’s a fight between mere humans?

That’s a lot for any fight scene between two humans to stand up to! But one of the film’s most intense scenes, physically and emotionally, is the showdown between Lucius/Hanno and Acacius, who’s just fought his way through every Praetorian Guard in the arena. It’s a clash of swords, skill and muscle until Acacius turns Lucius’s ideas about him inside out by revealing that he trained under Maximus and tries to uphold his moral lessons. After that, Lucius makes a bold decision that shows off his defiance of both the emperors and the crowd. But until that point, Lucius and Acacius are fighting for their lives, wielding two swords each and bringing a frantic energy to the battle as they maintain constant eye contact. And after seeing Paul in action, we’re weighing up our odds against the rhino! 

Paul used his 12 weeks before filming started on Gladiator II to pack on about eight kilos of pure muscle with the help of Tim Blakely, a Navy-man-turned-bodybuilder. Taking into account the fact that Paul, an Irishman, would be running and fighting under the blazing sun in Malta and Morocco, they put a lot of work into improving his cardio fitness, too. The result was a kind of power and endurance that had Pedro joking in a Vanity Fair article, “He got so strong. I would rather be thrown from a building than have to fight him again. To go up against somebody that fit and that talented and that much younger … It’s brutal, man. I call him Brick Wall Paul.” 

Now keep in mind that they were just working together as performers under Gladiator’s stunt coordinator Nikki Berwick, in a scene storyboarded by director Ridley Scott. None of those blows were supposed to hit. Perhaps instead of 100 random guys taking on one gorilla, we should just send one Paul Mescal?

Stream Gladiator II now, along with the original Gladiator. 

As for how Pedro and Paul’s showdown fares against epic movie battles of history, we’ve picked out eight of our favourites that you can watch right now, some silly, some serious…

1. Mission: Impossible – Fallout

Bathroom stall brawl

The decoy for John Lark (actor, stuntman and Wu Shu champion Liang Yang) takes on both Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) and his ally, CIA agent August Walker (Henry Cavil), after they knock him out to scan his face. This public bathroom stall brawl is even better to re-watch once you know the truth about the secret identity switch. Gasp as August throws Lark full-body through the mirror that divides the bathroom, Lark moves his body like a cat who’s resisting a bath, and August “reloads” his fists for another punch. The tension is cut with humour as random people notice a few too many feet in their bathroom and decide to sing La Vie en Rose to these stall-crossed lovers. 

This four-minute fight sequence, choreographed by Wade Eastwood and the Eastwood Action Stunts team (which Liang is a member of), took four weeks to film. 

2. Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome

Thunderdome death match

In the spirit of the Gladiator arena, Mad Max (Mel Gibson) winds up in Bartertown’s Thunderdome for a live cage fight to the death with Aunty Entity’s (Tina Turner) giant, metal-helmeted champion, The Blaster (Paul Larsson). After the announcer proclaims “Dyin’ time’s here,” the contestants are unleashed with their first weapons of choice – a mace and a chainsaw – and they go at each other while attached to the top of the arena cage by bungee harnesses (inspired by baby bouncers) that allow them to flip out of danger and somersault through the air. A good, high bounce will also allow them to nab new weapons off the cage wall. 

Behind the scenes this was an incredibly dangerous and complex sequence as bungee harnesses wouldn’t build up enough force to launch the stunt crew through the air in real life. Instead, special effects coordinator Mike Wood took inspiration from the Disney film Mary Poppins to use compressed air cylinders to achieve the effect.

3. Monkey Man

Kitchen fight at Queens

As well as including a wink to the John Wick films in Kid’s slick black-suit-black shirt combo, the kitchen fight at Queenie’s ticks the Wick boxes for improvisation and fight-to-the-death desperation. Kid (the film’s creator-director and star, Dev Patel) comes in, no guns blazing, grabs a solid steel frying pan and starts swinging, smashing heads into glass oven doors, throwing something to a bodyguard before he punches them while they’re distracted by trying to catch it, and kicking service trolleys full of china into their legs. It’s a brave man who’ll start throwing hands in a room full of guys with knives! Kid creates mayhem with slick grace and speed before detonating one of the kitchen’s gas canisters. 

Fight coordinator Brahim Chab worked with Dev’s note that Kid would need to fight dirty and use everything in his environment to win, and he has described this fight, the first of Kid’s battles at Queenie’s, as an unstoppable train, destroying everything in its path. 

4. Boss Level

He’s trained for his sword fight

A retired special forces soldier named Roy Pulver (Frank Grillo) is trapped in a time loop in which he dies over and over again until he can figure a way out. As we enter the story, he’s already 140 repetitions into this dilemma, which the film keeps track of on screen, video game style. Roy has reached the point where he can predict his attackers’ every move and he’s fighting on cheat mode, even getting dressed and pulling on his pants while blocking an attack. 

Stunt coordinator Frank Torres and fight choreographers Dan Rizzuto and Bryan Sloyer weave comedy and inventiveness into the combat scenes that really shine after Roy gets training from the world’s greatest sword fighter, Dai Feng (Michelle Yeoh) so that he can take on the bane of his repeated existence, decapitating diva Guan Yin (Selina Lo). It’s the screen’s cheekiest sword fight, during which he does everything from giving her a haircut, to showing her how impractical her shoes are. 

PS: Frank admits that one of his most painful-ever stunt accidents happened in Boss Level when Mel Gibson (playing Colonel Ventor) clipped him in the jaw with his “giant popeye elbow” (in Frank’s words) so hard that Frank thought he had a broken jaw.

5. Gladiator

Commodus gets flushed

Tigers aside, one of the greatest fights in the original Gladiator is the long-awaited emotional and physical showdown between soldier-turned-slave-turned-gladiator Maximus (Russell Crowe), and Roman emperor Commodus (Joaquin Phoenix), the man who ordered the massacre of his family. Their confrontation more than delivers on the audience’s desire, at that point, for Maximus to wipe the floor with the snivelling, psychotic Commodus, the most hated on-screen emperor before Game of Thrones’ Joffrey. With Commodus peacocking in his white armour and Maximus staggering because cheating Commodus has stabbed him “off screen” to give himself an easy victory, Maximus still manages to destroy his highly trained opponent’s confidence until Commodus loses his temper and loses control. The swords get lost and the fists come out as we go to pound town (not like that).

Stunt coordinator Phil Nilsen and fight master Nicholas Powell did their best but Gladiator’s fights took a toll on the cast, with Russell cracking a hip bone, breaking a foot bone and tearing his achilles tendons. 

6. King Kong

Kong vs T-Rexes

Damsel in distress Ann (Naomi Watts) runs from peril to peril as she flees a giant centipede feel-up only to capture the attention of not one but three T-Rex dinosaurs. Luckily for her, giant ape King Kong has taken a shine to the human, so he scoops her up with one hand, and then, as he gently cradles her, he uses his remaining fist and feet to go to town on the dinos. It’s a foot in the face for one dino, as Kong half-nelsons another T-Rex so he can repeatedly punch it in the skull. And he rips a T-Rex apart at the upper and lower jaw, all while we’re being swung around with Ann while the dinos try to snap her out of Kong’s hand. Yes, they’re animated by WETA Studio rather than being human, but are you not entertained? We are, especially as Kong, the dinos and Ann go over a cliff, wind up tangled in vines and one T-Rex tries to swing his way to enjoying Ann as his last meal. 

If you love the scene, director Peter Jackson has an official Universal 16-minute feature on it for you here! 

7. Bridget Jones’s Diary

Toff tiff

No list of fight scenes would be complete without the most realistic portrayal of hand-to-hand, man-to-man, combat ever committed to film. Well, the most realistic fight that any of us would experience. No stuntmen, no choreography, and the only note in the shooting script was “a fight ensues”. So it’s just two British actors going for it as Colin Firth (Darcy) and Hugh Grant (Daniel Cleaver) “messed about” and improvised to create their characters’ iconic fight for the honour of Ms Bridget Jones (Renée Zellweger), after they convinced director Sharon Maguire that there’s no way either Darcy or Daniel would have the vaguest clue of how to fight. The only time stunt doubles were called in was for when they crashed through the window.

It’s a, well, not a bloodbath, but apologies are thrown like punches as the two try to appease the diners whose evening they’re disrupting as they clumsily fall over tables while landing every fourth punch. And out in the street, their awkward hopping as they try to land kicks to each other’s kneecaps looks like a mating dance between especially hopeless cranes. So of course there has to be a rematch in Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason.

8. Dune: Part II

Harkonnen arena battle

The “May your knife chip and shatter” moment was epic, but for sheer visual drama, you’d be hard pressed to beat director Denis Villeneuve’s gladiator moment in the Harkonnens’ arena. This was shot in infrared so it appears black and white on screen, to create the eerily alien atmospheric conditions on the Harkonnens’ planet, Giedi Prime.

The grotesque Baron Vladimir Harkonnen (Stellan Skarsgård) has spiced up what’s meant to be his nephew Feyd-Rautha’s (Austin Butler) 18th birthday celebration by making sure that one of the three warriors that Feyd-Rautha is fighting in the public arena has not been drugged, as expected for the exhibition. While Feyd-Rautha makes swift work of the other two, a spark of insane glee lights his eyes as he yells at his black-clad defenders (who act like picadors in a bullfight) to stay back while he grapples, knife to knife, with Atreides soldier Lieutenant Lanville (played by Dune’s fight choreography and stunt choreography trainer and coordinator, Roger Yuan). What really makes us believe it’s a fight to the death is when Feyd-Rautha starts drooling and giggling as his opponent has him on his knees, slowly pulling Feyd-Rautha face down onto his knife. 

Austin Butler trained for his fight scenes with Navy SEAL-turned-stuntman Duffy Gaver and Roger Yuan himself. Their regime included Filipino stick fighting discipline, Kali.

Watch all these on Showmax now, along with Gladiator II, and try more action movies and series.