.... with a Kato/Clouseu style kung-fu chop. I noticed Sean Connery's portrayal of Bond was also a master of this deadly blow for just 12" away.
It seemed ridiculous.
I can only think of two: the forger and the old-lady-landlady at the end. The forger gets clonked pretty hard and its slightly sped up and edited to make it look tougher.
However, I grant you the old lady's bop always looked pretty weedy to me. Maybe it was hard to thump her properly while balanced on one leg. I have to kid myself that he just knocked her out then strangled her or something afterwards.
In fairness to your observation, he didn't slide through the air in slow motion, making a mooing noise that turned to alarm when the old woman went to the fridge and out of the kicking line. Then again, if he had hid in her fridge then grabbed her throat when she opened it so she said, "Not now Chacal, you fool!", it would have livened it up a bit. So listen, Zinnemann: either do it Cato or don't do any of it at all.
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Free your mind and the rest will follow
However, I grant you the old lady's bop always looked pretty weedy to me.
That's true - how much would the audience want to see him smashing her head in?
Then again, they went for realism all the way along so why not then? We're back to the esteemed OP's point that it was perhaps a bit too Cato-ish!
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Free your mind and the rest will follow
Hmmm, did he not also chop the lady who owned the car and the secluded house in the country? Or did he strangle her? If it was the latter, why not use the quicker chop he has perfected rather than a slow strangulation? I'm thinking he strangled her when trying to visualise the scene.
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