This isn't really a spoiler for MK or anything so I feel OK talking about it but if you follow me and want to make up your own mind feel free to mute this thread.

When action fans talk about too many cuts during a fight scene we're not really talking about the number of cuts

We're talking about the placement, specifically the fact that action and reaction are not in the same shot, but instead there's a cut in the middle. You see me throw a punch in close up, but instead of it landing, it cuts to a wide of it landing.

Rather than increasing the impact it serves to lessen as the viewer can't get a sense of the action and reaction, and in fact since it takes a couple of frames for our brains to catch up, we often miss the impact completely, instead registering the result

like somebody throwing their head or falling on the floor. We don't actually feel anything from the scene because there's no visual or mental continuity. It's been a long time since I've seen a movie as bad at this as MK21

Look at not just the number of cuts in this brief scene, but also at the placement. Every cut moves to an extremely different angle, giving us no sense of how thoroughly Liu is beating Kano, other than the narrative tells us so because we see Kano on the ground

A my friend @Doubleh55 said not everything needs to be a oner (HK masters rarely did oners because they are too restricting), but endelessy cutting to extremely different angles causing the viewer to lose the geography of the fight scene. Because the action/reaction is gone

We never see Liu Kang complete one single sweep. It's a frigging sweep, there's no reason to cut in the middle of a sweep. It's a movie that I assure Ludi Lin is more than capable of pulling off.

Now look at how someone like Eric Jacobus shoots and edits a scene. This is from Rope-A-Dope 2. There's plenty of cuts here, in fact almost as many as MK, but the placement allows us to see the action/reaction of every hit.

When we do shift to a different angle, it's not drastic like close to wide, but rather in essentially the same framing so the viewer never loses the placement, and your brain never has to quickly readjust. In MK the shot where he lifts himself up with the cane would have cut

to a wide shot from the kitchen or something. Or look at how someone like Isaac Florentine and Akihiro Noguchi shoot something like Special Forces. Again there's plenty of cuts but look at the way we see Adkins kick the door

Yes it cuts to it hitting the guy in the head, but since the eyeline doesn't change we're easily following his leg>the door>guy's face. And of course the finishing double kick is one unbroken shot. If you can shoot a double kick in an unbroken shot I'm sure you can shoot a sweep

But Mike Jocobus and Adkins are actual martial artists you can't expect Hollywood actors to have same skills. That's why they have to cut the way they do.

Bulllllllshit. Lewis Tan is as skilled as any martial artist in films, Joe Taslim and Hiroyuki Sanada are legends, and

Everybody else in the film is more than good enough to pull off these scenes. This isn't on them. In fact that's why the movie makes me so angry because for once we got actors who can actually do this stuff and the directing and editing just absolutely destroys their hard work.

My criticisms are not for anybody in front of the camera, solely those behind it. Further, let's say that's the case. You can show action/reaction in the same shot. Look at this from Karate Kid, nobody's idea a of a state of the art martial arts masterpiece

Daniel completes a leg takedown in one unbroken shot. He moves, we see Johnny go down, and we feel the impact. If John Avildsen can give us Ralph Macchio doing an unbroken takedown, I'm pretty sure we could see Ludi Lin do an unbroken sweep

I'm not a filmmaker, or an editor, just a guy who watched way too many action movies. I'm not trying to rain on anybody's enthusiasm. If you liked MK 21 awesome! I'm glad you did, I never want anyone to dislike movies

But everyone being excited for a Hollywood martial arts movie that gives action this bad and incoherent, shouldn't we demand better? If this is what Hollywood martial arts movies look like, I'll slink off back to my DTV realm where people like James Nunn can give me this instead

Since this taking off a bit, please watch Every Frame a Painting. Tony's a genius who explains all of this stuff better than I ever could, using the lens of one of the masters, Jackie Chan

I guess I should also do the obligatory, if you like more action analysis, I run the @AdkinsPodcast wherein every week a guest and I break down the films of Scott Adkins. New episode coming this weekend on the great Ninja 2 https://anchor.fm/adkinsundisputedpodcast