The Mary Sue: In this “Notes on a Scene” video from Vanity Fair, Black Panther director Ryan Coogler breaks down the movie’s South Korean casino fight scene. As he walks through the scene, Coogler explains his use of color, the character-driven contrast between Nakia and Okoye’s fighting styles, and how he designed the shots for maximum impact. “This scene was shot very early in our shooting schedule,” he says. “You know, it was something that we kinda bookmarked and said, ‘Look, if we can get this right, it’ll set the tone for the rest of the film.'”
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I love how the theme of tradition vs innovation carries through various pieces within the Black Panther movie. It is central to the conflict, and carries through in almost every aspect of the design within the production. I find it really interesting that one of the ways in which the tradition vs innovation manifested is through the differing combat styles of Okoye and Nakia. Okoye is a traditionalist, so she fights with a traditional weapon and in a very traditional style. It almost looks like dancing, the way she fights. Nakia is an innovator. What we wanted to do is give her a very innovative fighting style. You know, she’ll use any weapon, anything that she can get her hands on. She fights dirty, she fights aggressive. She’s a spy who had to learn to make due with what she had. It actually reminds me a lot of the cartoon Avatar the Last Airbender. Each bending style is based on the movement of a different East Asian combat style to better reflect the values of the characters who could bend.
Fight choreography is always really interesting in the entertainment world because so much prep has to go into it so no one will be hurt. In theatre, fight scenes aren’t usually as brutal because they can get away with hiding and not doing things. In the film industry, this is a little harder because they need to get those close-up shots so everything has to be really close or actually happening and can cause actual injury because of it. Johnny Depp has even said that he has been punched in the face before while shooting. From this article, it was interesting to see what went into the actual choreography and style they pulled from. However, I was hoping to also get what fighting style they fought in, like capoeira, as to better understand where they pulled moves from. Other than that, a very informative video with a nice look on the inside.
A really interesting element in this article was the color history that was used in this scene. This is not something that I picked up on when I saw the movie but it is defiantly an interesting element that the designers had to think about when composing this scene. There were are so many symbiotic messages within this scene. The metaphor of the use of femininity as a weapon through the use of the heal as a weapon was genius. The thought that went into the fight choreography based on the characters personality is something that I would not have thought about, but looking at it in retrospect defiantly added to the continuity of character through out the film. A question that I have for this video is how the conversation happened between the fight choreographer and the cinematographer that was in charge of the moving cameras and how to get the necessary shots. I think that would be a really cool conversation and how they figured out how to get the shots and their process.
I recently was fortunate enough to have been able to the movie the Black Panther and was extremely pleased. Being a bit of a comic book nerd I generally like to see most comic book movies and going to see Black Panther was no different. Two of the biggest things it feels like a comic book movie needs are the origin story and some epic fight scenes. While the origin story was fairly scaled back compared to other comic book movies it was well done, but the fight scenes are what made this movie so cool, mostly cause there were so many bad asses in the movie. And I would honestly have to say that the casino scene is probably my favorite because it has so many different styles to it like the article says, there is the traditional spear fighting( probably my favorite fight in the movie), there also the improvised style, the shooter up style, and also the shear brute power off the Black Panther too. The movie was just damn good.
I think it is so interesting how deeply Coogler dug into the background of all his characters, down to their particular ways of fighting and their every action. I believe that this (in addition to the immaculate production design) is what directly led to the success of Black Panther, and what set it apart from the more shallow Marvel Superhero outings: A character driven story with really well developed and thought out characters. This is most obvious in the villain, whose every action is motivated by his tragic past. But as seen in the article, this character driven storytelling pervades every scene and action in the film, leading to an incredibly believable story with a deeply fleshed out supporting cast. Yes,Black Panther set itself apart through representation, but the success of that representation is dependent on honestly portrayed and believable characters. This is something that Coogler excels at, and Black Panther is a shining example of it.
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