Nah, not really. Smiley It's actually a wonderful film, and I do really like the duel because I feel it tells the story well... but from a martial arts perspective, it sucks, as do just about all sword fight scenes. Smiley And for me, the most important part is the story, so I'm able to turn my brain off during sword fight scenes in movies (unless if they are atrocious).
The problem really is that it is not cost-effective to take the primary actors and train them to a level of proficiency that would be required to become excellent stunt men just for the sake of a few fight scenes. So even people like Liam Neeson, who have a lot of stage fighting experience, are not going to be a martial arts actor of the caliber of, say, Tony Jaa. The flip side to that coin is that a Tony Jaa film is always going to be pretty dumb no matter how amazing the martial arts are, while a Liam Neeson movie has the potential to be very good with adequate fight scenes.
I share the same if not similar viewpoints when it comes to Hollywood and Sword Fighting. Hollywood always take literary freedoms when depicting violence, sometimes even choreographers will make fights look dumb so that the audience can look at every single move (shame on them!). But please, this is just choreography, real violence is fast, ugly and real.
In terms of Liajm Neeson films, one needs to look no further than Kingdom if Heaven as an example of a good film (historical accuracy of events are debatable even the representation of the actual Crusaders Kings and Knights and Saracen warriors and Gernerals, costumes, and terrain never the less good) along with an adequate sword fights scene (the scene in which Liam teaches Bloom how to handle the sword with a reference to Philipo di' Vadi's Guard of the Falcon or Posta di Falcone). That is an example of Das Bill's point concerning Martial Arts films.
I use top watch Tony Jaa all the time back in the olden days of intense Kung Fu and Tai Chi training (I was a nut back then). I would watch just for the action and didn't care for film premise. Nowadays I consider story premise to be most important, action should be a compliment to further the story. It should be entertaining, rather than just a bravado show of all brawn's but no brains in the story line. The exception would be a good old Rambo film.
Speaking of Rob Roy, I did a film review of the film for a Western Civilization class in college, I gave it a good entertaining film with several historical events left out just to focus on the main characters. i considered the sword fight in the end a fantasy match, because back in the day, fighting a rapier wielding opponent with a Scottish broadsword would be considered unfair. Duels were foughtb using single weapons (rapier vs, rapier, broadsword vs. broadsword), there were no duels in which weapons were matched against different weapons. It was against the dueling rules.
You could write that as: I've never seen any Hollywood actor do 'good combat'. The sword instructors make do with the clay they're given, or so I believe. Here's a decent Hollywood sword fight, in that it incorporates some strikes as well as swordwork, from the director's cut of KoH.
That is not a bad choreographed sword fight, but it irritates me. First, wielding sword and dagger was invented during the Renaissance with the Side-sword. Second, the dagger was a weapon of last resort. Third, Orlando Bloomer staying in High Vom Tag (or Posta di Flacone: Guard of the Falcon not the Hawk) doesn't look too bad, just fighting in that stance: good for fighting in Zufechten, but not in Krieg. And fighting in Krieg would be a lot more different than what is shown in the clip (grappling, winding etc.) This looks more Hollywood style with a tiny element of truth in terms of the movements.
Or as I would say it: "What is wrong with these people! Why thrashing your sword wildy when you can bind, wind, cut or thrust at your pleasure! Bloomer, your an idiot for holding High Vom Tag, you need serious help. What's his face, needs serious training, let go of the dagger lest your hand gets severed! And please, for the love of Pete stop trying to hit, Hit your opponent! JUST HIT"
