Action, Reaction, Jackie Chan, & Gunpowder Milkshake

I often start workshops on story structure with the warning, “after this, you’ll never be able to go to the movies with non-writers again.” Lots of folks think I’m joking, but it’s essentially true: the three-act structure is the source code for an awful lot of TV and movies, and understanding its core beats means you can map out the bulk of a plot from a handful of details. 

For me, this resulted in a different kind of enjoyment, more focused on teasing out the how-and-why of creative choices and where things go wrong, but there are plenty of folks who don’t enjoy that. Like, for example, my beloved spouse, who was so irritated by my response to the first three episodes of Star Trek: Next Gen that we’ve basically agreed to watch nothing Trek-related together for the sake of our marriage. They love the TV show unconditionally, and I…um…let’s say “sit there marveling at just how far TV storytelling has come in the decades since.”

So, consider this a warning: the rest of this post is very much me meditating on a particular thing films and TV shows do, and once you know it, it’s impossible to unknow it. It’ll change the way you watch films and TV, affect some of your favourite action flicks, and potentially irritate people who watch things with you,

Still with me? Cool, then let’s talk about choreographing action. 

Back in June, we watched Gunpowder Milkshake for the first time. My beloved had been eager to see it at the movies, and we missed it because of the pandemic, so it became a birthday treat for them and, frankly, we both loved it. The colour schemes; the glorious B-Movie violence; the slow parade of every bad-ass female actor you’ve ever wanted to do more action movies; hyper-violent fairy princesses with guns; Carla Gugino with a battle axe! I’ve seen plenty of reviews which are down on the film, but it’s occupying a very specific niche for a very specific audience, and my beloved and I are of that audience.

Except, once again, the creator’s curse reared its ugly head in the heart of all those fight scenes, because I kept getting distracted by the creative choices made by the stunt team. For a film that was hailed as a female John Wick, it misses the one fundamental thing that made John Wick’s action so compelling.

In John Wick, the stunt crew kept action and reaction in the same frame, a technique that’s used in of Hong Kong cinema and one reason their action sequences are so interesting (also the reason Hong Kong action stars tend to lose something when they debut in US produced films with US-trained stunt teams). John Wick is famously a film pulled together by a stunt crew, focusing on the stuff they’re often not allowed to do on screen.

In Gunpowder Milkshake, the choice is made to split action and reaction in the more traditional American approach to stunts; they’re good, but stylistically different, and for the bulk of the film, whenever Karen Gillen’s Sam throws a punch, they’ll cut to another camera angel to showcase the reaction to the blow.  I’ve linked a video to Every Frame A Paintings video essay on Jackie Chan films, which touches upon the issue. 

The video essay is a fascinating piece that explains so much of why Chan films work, but unlike the bulk of the things I first learned from the Every Frame A Painting series, I’d already picked up the use of this trick via a deep dive into Pro Wrestling storytelling. Long-time producer for the WWF, JJ Dillon, once did an interview about the things he disliked about the current product, and the thing he mentioned was the decision to cut away at the moment of impact.

If you’d like to see what he’s talking about, consider this clip of John Cena’s debut match in the WWE. The action starts about two minutes in.

The entire sequence is about six minutes of showtime, of which two are wrestling, and about 80% of the moves hit in that two minutes see a quick cut to another camera angle. This is one of my favourite WWE matches ever, because it does an awful lot in those two minutes, but once you see that particular editing trick, it sticks with you. 

In fact, it uses almost as many cuts as this twenty-minute match from the wrestling company the first really captured my heart, Ring of Honor, which created a more compelling and believable match with a lower budget through the simple expedient of setting up the hard camera and pointing it at the ring.

Because the camera switches aren’t selling the seriousness of each move, the wrestlers have to convey how hard they’re hit, how much it hurts, and how they’re reacting with their own bodies and facial expression. There are camera switches deployed, but it’s done judiciously and to add detail, not as a default flourish.

Of course, there’s a flip side to this: because the camera switches aren’t doing some of the work, the wrestlers who aren’t as good tend to struggle, and the wrestlers have hit a little harder (in wrestling parlance, working stiff or snug) because you can’t rely on the camera covering your mistakes. In an industry that’s already taking a huge toll on the performers’ bodies, it’s a little more wear and tear, and it’s not forgiving to newcomers. 

But wrestling and film action rely upon chains of logic—the slow accumulation of action and reaction that escalates and leads to decisive moments that change the direction of the story, and ultimately lead to a climactic moment. And while there are ways to bridge that gap (see my prior writing about writing lessons from wrestling), you have to a) nail it, and b) your delivery using those bridges will feel a little hollow when lined up against someone who both nails it and strings the chain of action/reaction together in a more believable way. 

The intriguing thing about this particular technique is just how much it changes your viewing experience and understanding of where thigs go wrong. While it’s immediately obvious in action films, I watched the much-derided Max Payne film after learning about it for the first time, and it’s astonishing how much momentum that film loses by splitting action/reaction shots during its big mid-point reveal. 

On the plus side, I actually enjoy Max Payne because of that, but such is the creator’s curse. Once you learn how things are done, you’re constantly looking for ways they’re used…and how you (unhampered by budgets and production constraints) could improve things by doing it a different way and getting a stronger effect.