what are some good sword fighting movies?

[Lark]

What are some good swordfighting movies? There's Scaramoosh (spelling) and generally people figure there's a lot of it in Errol Flynn movies (that guy's autobiography is crazy) and there's all the usual GoT and LoTR movies that people usually think of but what about movies that really feature the fencing proper, the Three Muskateers is adventure rather than proper fencing and you're unlikely to see that anywhere but it seemed to be more popular when I was younger.

Rob Roy was largely about a single duel, which was pretty awesome too I thought.

 

[Tengri]

Western or eastern?

The Princess Bride is up there. Bob Anderson (the same guy that coordinated the Star Wars prequel sword fighting) was behind its fantastic scenes. Inigo vs Westley and later Inigo vs Count Rugen was like watching the spirit of Errol Flynn or Christopher Lee on stage again. Zatoichi, Hero, Fearless, 36th Chamber of Shaolin, Once Upon a Time in Little China, One-armed Swordsman, and Tai Chi Master are favorites and have some stunning choreography, too.

 

[Madboot]

Unfortunately there isn't a lot of realistic sword combat depicted in movies. When it comes to realistic western martial arts I would have to go with the movie Ironclad. It's not a great movie, but the fighting techniques are more authentic. If you're interested in Japanese swordsmanship, The 7 Samurai gets it basically right. Most sword on sword fights didn't involve the blades clashing against one another. This is actually really damaging the blades themselves, and swords were very expensive to make. This is why most European knights reached for a mace, flail, or war hammer, and the sword was more of a sidearm.