Hitchcock famously said, "What is drama but life with the dull bits cut out." You can expand the quote to any genre of storytelling, but action films are the ones I want to focus on today. Action movies have a tricky balancing act to undertake. If every action scene aimed to capture violence with 100% authenticity, sequences would either end rapidly or be bogged down by intense grappling sessions. Regardless, most action films still endeavor to retain some of the reality of violence while heightening the less entertaining bits.
The prevalence of Kung Fu and similar martial arts only compounds Hollywood's authenticity problem. Even when films hire martial arts choreographers, creative license always trumps legitimacy. In the video linked above, Uriah Hall, the owner of one of the scariest knockouts in UFC history, lends his expert eye to some of cinema's most thrilling fight scenes.
