The five best kitchen fight scenes
There isn’t a building, mode of transport, or backdrop that hasn’t been reduced to rubble at least several times over in the action genre, but the kitchen tends to lend itself better to wince-inducing set pieces more than any other room of the house.
The fact it tends to house reams of sharp knives and bladed instruments is a huge part of that, never mind the old faithful staple of using the gas supply to blow everyone and everything to kingdom come, leading to a raft of close-quarters scraps taking place in both personal and professional cooking areas.
It’s hovered above the realms of cliché for a while, but the best kitchen-based showdowns tend to use the every square inch of the environment to their advantage, giving rise to several stunning showdowns that typically end up with the tiles being painted red.
The combatants didn’t need to get out of the kitchen because the evidence is right there that they could stand the heat, and it was viewers everywhere who were left sweating after being plunged into the thick of the conflict.
The best kitchen fight:
5. Monkey Man (Dev Patel, 2024)
Pouring every ounce of himself into his feature-length debut behind the camera, Dev Patel deftly balanced prescient socio-political commentary with bone-crunching action in the brutal and unrelenting Monkey Man.
The star, co-writer, director, and producer wasn’t an obvious candidate to take the genre with such ease, but based on the strength of his first movie, Patel’s future as a filmmaker is just as bright as the career he’s enjoyed on the other side of it, regardless of which genre he casts his eye towards next.
Monkey Man‘s kitchen-set brawl finds the protagonist in full-on bloodthirsty mode, using any equipment he can get his hands on as a vessel for blunt force trauma. Plates, surfaces, fire, and fruits are all fair game, with the intimate camerawork and precise choreography making it hit even harder.
4. Special ID (Clarence Fok, 2013)
Special ID is nowhere close to being the finest action movie Donnie Yen has ever lent his name to, but by roaming the corridors of an expansive kitchen, it did lend the perfect backdrop to one of his most memorable fights.
The best sequence in the film by a considerable distance, the actor’s lightning-quick reflexes come in especially handy when he’s forced into a close-quarters situation by a small army of goons, who soon get their arses handed to him on the exact sort of silver platter the food would go out on.
The surroundings may be cramped, but it doesn’t do a thing to prevent Yen from unleashing his signature style of ass-kicking, and if anything the narrow halls provide an even better opportunity for snapping necks and roundhouse kicking jaws into dust.
3. Sudden Death (Peter Hyams, 1995)
Jean-Claude Van Damme’s Sudden Death is basically ‘Die Hard at a hockey stadium’, but John McClane never got the opportunity to beat the living shit out of somebody dressed as a giant penguin.
It’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for any actor, one that the ‘Muscles from Brussels’ seizes with both hands in the standout set piece that went a long way to establishing his reunion with Timecop director Peter Hyams as one of Van Damme’s most popular movies.
What’s even better than watching an action hero trade blows with a penguin mascot who knows martial arts? Having it end with the villain being dragged by the neck and killed by an errant dishwasher, of course.
2. Kill Bill: Volume 1 (Quentin Tarantino, 2003)
Bringing a knife to a gunfight is generally ill-advised in the action arena, but Uma Thurman‘s Bride wasn’t in the mood for fucking around when she descended upon the home of Vivica A. Fox’s Vernita Green to cross the first name off her hit list.
In a short, sharp, and frantic bout of fist and weapon-assisted carnage, any implement within reach becomes a potential murder weapon as the two members of Bill’s assassination squad batter each other to within an inch of their lives.
Unfortunately, Vernita’s daughter happens to walk in right after her mother has been struck with a killing blow, which would have served as the backdrop to Kill Bill: Volume 3 if it hadn’t become one of the many projects Quentin Tarantino teased and never got around to.
1. The Raid 2 (Gareth Evans, 2014)
Unless something truly staggering comes along, there’s never going to be another kitchen fight anywhere near as kinetic, intense, and bruising as the one Welshman Gareth Evans choreographed to within an inch of its life in The Raid 2.
Expertly executed by stars Iko Uwais and Cecep Arif Rahman’s aptly named The Assassin, there’s a feeling out period as the two elite-level fighters try and determine which one of them can be called the better man. From there, all bets are off as they proceed to knock seven bells out of each other for almost seven minutes.
Once weapons enter the fray, Evans and his performers gradually turn the screws of tension, and while the outcome was never really in doubt, The Raid 2 nonetheless leaves audiences concerned for the wellbeing of Uwais’ Rama after he comes dangerously close to being shuffled off his mortal coil.
