Fight Clip Club: Black Dynamite

Can you dig it?

We’re back to the funny fight scenes this week, everyone and… Goodness.

This movie, you guys. It’s so funny, and infects the viewer with such a deep and pure joy that comes from the obvious fun everyone is having as they make it. It’s a modern rendition of an old-school Blaxploitation flick, with all the grainy film quality, weirdly ideological dialogue, funky animation sequences, blatant stereotypes, and sexy nonsense that the filmmakers obviously knew and loved well.

There were so many bonkers fight scenes I could have picked from this film for FCC, but this one has to be my favorite. Why? It’s all the incredibly set up technical jokes, from Michael Jai White kicking out a light fixture, to the hilarious outrage of one of the stunt fighters getting ‘hit’, which warrants his replacement immediately in an awkward cut. It’s masterfully done, and by the time you’re at the end of the whole movie, having fought off the likes of Fiendish Dr. Wu and even Richard Nixon himself, you emerge from the movie in a slightly hallucinogenic daze.

Besides the fights, a scene that stands out in cinematic comedy history is the gaggle of absolute genius comedians that play all the pimps in the big pimp council scene. They say that scene was mostly improvised, and seeing who they had in that cast? I believe it. It’s some of the funniest, most joyful shenaniganry you’ll ever see. I cherish the deleted bits they include in the credits and want so much to see an uncut version of what that whole scene must have been.

But let’s look right now at the kung fu (which also looks like it’s part 1970s karate, but ehh whatever) prowess of big, bad, Black Dynamite. Can you dig it? I know you can.