Romeo Must Die - X-RAY Head Kick

As with many formulaic fights, it usually starts out pretty even. The protagonist and antagonist exchange a couple well choreographed punches and kicks. Soon the villain gains the upper hand through some dirty trick and the hero proceeds to get his ass kicked. But on the verge of defeat, the good guy gets a sudden burst of adrenaline and defeats the evildoer. Well this fight is exactly like that, BUT! This one happens to have a pretty good movie death to end it.

An ode to Sonny Chiba in The Street Fighter perhaps? When Russell Wong gets his head kicked in, we get a computer generated image of his head and spinal column shattering. In The Street Fighter, After getting a bad guy on his knees, Sonny jumps and punches him directly on top of the head- the scene then cuts to an X-RAY VIEW of the dude's head getting bashed in. Two very similar and epic scenes.

The Street Fighter(1974)

Romeo Must Die(2000)

The Street Fighter - Sonny Chiba X-RAY Head Smash

The Street Fighter was the first movie in the States to be granted an 'X' certificate, as some scenes were pretty shocking for 1974. In this scene after Terry and Ratface's car is dropped off the bridge, Terry(Chiba) gets his revenge by beating the holy crap out of two guys. After getting one of them on his knees, he jumps and punches him directly on top of the head- the scene cuts to an X-RAY VIEW of the dude's head getting bashed in! Then it cuts back to the actual shot of the guy, who spews a mouthful of that wonderfully fake-looking Japanese stage blood.

As Christian Slater said in "True Romance" when asked if Sonny Chiba was the good guy- "Well, he's not so much the good guy as he is just a bad motherfucker."