Sometimes, you don't need to tell a character's back story in lengthy flashbacks. Sometimes, you just need to give them ONE moment so badass, the viewer will instantly know everything they need to know about them.
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One of the things I will always praise the 1986 Transformers movie for is that whenever a character shows up within just two lines of dialogue you know everything you need to about them.
"If you're gonna ride, Danno, ride in style!"
"Turbo-revvin' young punk! I'll straighten' ya out yet!"
Yep! This also reminds me of how, in the original draft of A Fistful of Dollars, there was originally a big speech about what happened to The Man with No Name's family. But in the final film, it's just "Because I knew someone like you once and there was no one there to help."
Hell yeah, is this from A Better Tomorrow? I haven't seen it in years but I think there's some kind of big shootout on a waterfront in this movie? Or I've got it mixed up with Hard Boiled, as usual.
I'm still famous in certain (small) circles for, the day after seeing Hard-Boiled in the theater, acting out in the dining hall Mad Dog's powersliding his bike to shield himself from gunfire, popping the front brake to spin it off him and whirling to his feet firing his machine pistol,
I'm convinced the part of this scene where Tequila uses a car door to shield himself, then shoots his shotgun lying on the ground at Alan who leaps through the middle of a car as it EXPLODES in sparks is one of the greatest sequence of action gunplay shots ever filmed
Interestingly, lacking this is one of the things that got a lot of the cast of The 13th Warrior REALLY PISSED. They had shots of the vikings to help establish their characters, and it all got cut. There were so many who had so little screen time that they couldn't get any other characterization.
Hard Boiled is one of my favourite films.
I watched it years ago and it has stuck with me ever since.
That scene has better characterisation of a badass than so many other films.
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"If you're gonna ride, Danno, ride in style!"
"Turbo-revvin' young punk! I'll straighten' ya out yet!"
I'm still famous in certain (small) circles for, the day after seeing Hard-Boiled in the theater, acting out in the dining hall Mad Dog's powersliding his bike to shield himself from gunfire, popping the front brake to spin it off him and whirling to his feet firing his machine pistol,
"violence so over the top it becomes balletic"
or words to that effect
I watched it years ago and it has stuck with me ever since.
That scene has better characterisation of a badass than so many other films.