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In fight scenes, the fighter usually defeats a swarm of opponents without getting hit or tired. The movie Old Boy didn't have that and in my opinion, was the most realistic fight scene ever. My question is how realistic was it to defeat multiple opponents in the movie.

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That it could happen is plausible as seen by the existence of real-life examples of one person defeating a mob. In general, this becomes less common without armor or weapons because all it takes is one lucky hit to create enough of an opening for others to swarm and pigpile you. Oh Dae-su has the benefit of a weapon. Weapons draw attention and make each individual a little more afraid to attack. He's also more than a little bit crazy, and each individual is likely to take that into account when they consider whether they, individually, will escape confronting him with life and limb intact, plus he's likely not feeling any pain until later. Add to that that the thugs probably are not trained fighters and are used to beating people up who don't fight back. Take all of this together, and you get a plausible situation for one man to survive the fight, albeit far from unscathed. If a handful of them had rushed him and pinned him down where he couldn't get leverage, they would have defeated him, but they were all seeking to minimize their individual risk and therefore they were defeated as a whole.

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  • What would happen if they were all trained professional fighters.
    – cameron
    Commented Oct 7, 2014 at 20:46
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    Or just determined? Pigpile. It requires an arc to use a weapon like a hammer effectively. Pin the arms and they can't get that swing. That many people, they would have just piled on. There are ways to fight multiple people like that, but it requires mobility enough to be able to prevent them attacking you all at once. That was not the case in the corridor. For that matter, anyone with something heavy could have started chucking it at him and he would have had no defence.
    – Macaco Branco
    Commented Oct 7, 2014 at 22:32
  • If someone was able to have the strength along with other factors to escape or still fight from a pigpile that would be awesome.
    – cameron
    Commented Oct 7, 2014 at 23:14
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    I have a sneaking suspicion that this answer was not what you were looking for... :-P
    – Macaco Branco
    Commented Oct 9, 2014 at 12:07
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    {nods} If the answer addresses your question and you're reasonably certain a better one isn't going to pop up, can you accept it? :) Gotta feed my rep-habit...
    – Macaco Branco
    Commented Oct 9, 2014 at 12:35

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