History ConservationOfNinjutsu / Film

** This one is justified, however, by 2 factors no less. Ip Man has been consistently portrayed as being extremely skilled, and his 'art' is "superior". These 2 factors stacked make Ip Man able to take on 10 people like it's nothing.
Also, previously Liu faced off against Ip and was taken down extremely easy, so it makes sense that Liu would not be able to handle 3 mooks.

** At the start of ''Film/XMenDaysOfFuturePast'' three Sentinals [[spoiler: pretty much make a total party kill]] with one only losing an arm. For the finale [[spoiler: even after bottle necking the ships with stormy weather and an exploding aircraft]] the remenant still destroy more Sentinals than at the start.

* The ''Franchise/{{Alien}}'' franchise invokes this trope. The [[Film/{{Alien}} first movie]] has a single xenomorph terrorizing a ship of miners and [[Film/{{Alien 3}} the third]] has one xenomorph menacing a prison colony. The [[Film/{{Aliens}} second movie]] and [[Film/AlienResurrection fourth movie]] have entire swarms of them that seem easier to kill. This is very easily justified by the fact that, given their settings, there logically were no guns or otherwise effective weaponry present in the first and third films.

* ''Film/TheWolverine'': [[spoiler:Shockingly averted as despite sending a whole army of ninjas for Logan to fight, he manages to kill two by surprise in the belief he was still weakened by Viper's device, only for Harada to immediatly fall back and use rope arrows to slow Logan down and highly poisonous arrows to knock him out.]]

* The ''Franchise/{{Alien}}'' franchise invokes this trope. The [[Film/{{Alien}} first movie]] has a single xenomorph terrorizing a ship of miners and [[Film/{{Alien 3}} the third]] has one xenomorph menacing a prison colony. The [[Film/{{Aliens}} second movie]] and [[Film/AlienResurrection fourth movie]] have entire swarms of them that seem easier to kill. This is very easily justified by the fact that there logically were no guns or otherwise effective weaponry in the first and third films, given their settings.

* The ''Franchise/{{Alien}}'' franchise invokes this trope. The [[Film/{{Alien}} first movie]] has a single xenomorph terrorizing a ship of miners and [[Film/{{Alien 3}} the third]] has one xenomorph menacing a prison colony. The [[Film/{{Aliens}} second movie]] and [[Film/AlienResurrection fourth movie]] have entire swarms of them that seem easier to kill (Justified somewhat by the fact that there weren't any guns or otherwise effective weaponry in the first and third films).

* In ''Film/StarshipTroopers'' the bugs are incredibly strong when there's just one or two of them in the screen. When the troopers are defending the fortress, they can just spray down hordes of the same bugs with the same rifles that didn't work before.

Then played straight at the end: twice. The Turtles kick butt against the horde of Foot soldiers, but then get their butts kicked by Shredder... who is then defeated when he angrily charges at Splinter (who at the time, seemed to be unarmed). But then, that was [[RetiredBadass Splinter]].

* ''Film/ResidentEvilAfterlife''. Numerous clones of Alice are used almost as cannon fodder whereas one is the epitome of ''BadAss''.

-->'''Gregorio''': I'll take the hundred on the right... Ingrid, you take the hundred on the left. Carmen, hundred center-left, Junie, center-right. [[TemptingFate It'll work. It'll work.]]
-->'''Juni''': There's five hundred, Dad. We need one more person. [[spoiler:(''Cue [[Creator/DannyTrejo Machete]] [[DynamicEntry bursting through a window]] to join them.'')]]

* ''SpiesLikeUs''. Subverted then played straight.

* ''Film/TheMatrix'' trilogy: In the famous Burly Brawl scene from ''Matrix: Reloaded'', Neo is able to manhandle (though not without some difficulty) dozens, if not [[TheAssimilator hundreds]], of Smith copies, yet in ''Matrix: Revolutions'', which takes place chronologically perhaps a day or so later, he is completely beaten by just a single Smith. Some theories argue that it's to be the one Smith with the power of the Oracle, which is why he can apparently see the future. And this little segment of dialogue, taken in the context of this trope, shows Smith to be quite GenreSavvy when the need calls for it.

* In ''Film/RaidersOfTheLostArk'', Indy fairly easily takes out half a dozen Nazis on the truck transporting the Ark. But he nearly gets killed when there's just one Nazi left.
* When Indy faces multiple mooks in ''Film/TempleOfDoom'', he knocks each of them out in quick succession, but when a single mook tries to garrote him earlier in the film, it leads to a not-so-quick struggle.
* Both played straight and averted in ''IpMan'', where both the title hero and General Miura can throw down with multiple opponents with ease but Master Liu, who had been winning at the one-on-one Japanese-staged matches, tries to take on three at once and gets his ass handed to him. However, it should be noted that only heroes (and possibly sidekicks, girlfriends, scrappys, etc.) benefit from this trope. Liu was essentially a RedShirt.
* The formula is played straight ''and'' averted in ''{{Equilibrium}}''. In the final fight scenes, Preston is surrounded by six elite mooks and takes them down in about five seconds flat. There follows a duel with TheDragon ... well, kind of, since, averting the trope, TheDragon, who fought Preston to a draw in a sparring match earlier in the movie, [[spoiler:is taken down with three invisibly fast swipes, the last one of which ends with TheDragon's ''face getting sliced off''. And then comes the BigBad, who has more ninjutsu than any of his men combined, and who matches him gun for gun in the movie's final duel.]]

* The trope is played straight in any of ''TheKarateKid'' movies whenever Mr Miyagi gets involved in a fight. Three, four guys, one big Caucasian guy ... doesn't matter. Old guy always wins.
* Aragorn in the ''LordOfTheRings'' films faces dozens of orcs at a time throughout his adventures. The only time he seems to be having any difficulty is fighting one-on-one with the Uruk-hai leader and the troll.

* IronMan3: One Iron Man Suit? Badass. Several dozen AI controlled suits? Get torn through like tissue paper by mooks, though the casualty ratio is much more in the suits' favor. Justified for four reasons: 1.) JARVIS notes at the beginning that Tony is slapping the prototypes together without much testing or even sleep. Indeed, the MK 42 has malfunctions from flight to weapon systems. 2.) the mooks are super soldiers that can generate enough heat to melt the armors. 3.) The suits are all prototypes manufactured by Tony for various reasons, including construction, demolition, and heavy lifting. 4.) Forty suits are all being remote controlled by a single AI, rather than both Stark and JARVIS working together in a single suit.

* In ''Franchise/PiratesOfTheCaribbean: At World's End'', toward the end when [[spoiler:the pirates find themselves outnumbered and outgunned and standing off against the East India Company's hundreds strong fleet it turns out that the EIC only bothered to send one ship into combat -- Davy Jones's ship. The rest stood back and didn't bother joining in the battle. Of course, it kinda makes sense to send an extremely powerful and essentially immortal ship to do battle with a single pirate ship, especially if you can take the other ships alive when they surrender. saves lives, saves money, and it's just good business.]]

* ''NinjaAssassin'' plays with this trope a bit. Raizo needs about 2 minutes work to down the lone ninja sent to kill Mika, but when faced with dozens later, he mows through them as though they were blades of grass.
* ''ThirteenAssassins'' both justifiably invokes and averts this trope. The thirteen are almost all skilled samurai, who have either participated in real duels and battles or have been trained by those who have, whereas 99% of the small army they must face have no real experience. The outcome - [[spoiler: [[CrowningMomentOfAwesome they kill everyone,]] but nearly [[BittersweetEnding all of the group dies.]]]]
* In the Film/MegaMan film, the Blue Bomber gets into a confrontation with all six robot masters at once before the individual fights begin. Fighting the whole gang is no problem, but alone we get real fights. Especially noteworthy is [[ThatOneBoss Elec Man]] who [[spoiler: nearly kills Mega Man, until he gets [[BigDamnHeroes saved by Blues/Proto Man]].]]

* This trope is averted in basically every ZombieApocalypse movie ever made. A single zombie is usually slow, mostly mindless, and can be killed instantly with a swift blow to the head. They don't turn into a real threat unless there are hundreds of them roaming the streets. [[RuleOfDrama The part where they turn from a few single zombies to hordes usually happens offscreen]]. Works that actually try to portray the buildup, such as ''WorldWarZ'', usually have to resort to questionable plot devices. Such as the US military, of all people, not having enough MoreDakka and being completely demoralized by a single defeat.

* At various points in the Film/DollarsTrilogy, ClintEastwood effortlessly guns down three or more men with his trusty pistol. The only times where there is any doubt of him being successful is when he's only facing one or two opponents.

* At various points in the ManWithNoNameTrilogy, ClintEastwood effortlessly guns down three or more men with his trusty pistol. The only times where there is any doubt of him being successful is when he's only facing one or two opponents.

-->'''Juni''': There's five hundred, Dad. We need one more person. [[spoiler:(''Cue [[DannyTrejo Machete]] [[DynamicEntry bursting through a window]] to join them.'')]]

* In ''Film/FaceOff'' it seems that all FBI agents, cops, security staff, and special agents are inept at facing off against Castor Troy. Troy kills them by the dozens single handedly in the beginning until Sean Archer has a chance to face him one on one (for some reason the dozens of other agents stay out of the action). Troy reduces these agents to mere [[RedShirtArmy red shirts]] all throughout the film, when in reality they would be much better trained.

* Happens in every ''Zatoichi'' film. The smaller the group is, the bigger threat they are. Also in the group of useless mooks, there is one skilled samurai/ronin, who is the biggest challenge and poses the greatest threat.

** In ''Film/TheChroniclesOfRiddick'' Toombs attempts to invoke this by going after Riddick with a four man crew, but Riddick takes a very dim view of this, and dispatches them easily.

*** He comes with more people next time. [[spoiler: Just five. And Riddick allows himself to be captured.]]

* ''Film/{{Predator}}'', the sister franchise to ''Aliens'', plays with this trope. The first movie has a single Predator take down an entire platoon of BadAss soldiers. Even Creator/ArnoldSchwarzenegger himself barely escapes with his life. [[{{Predator 2}} The second]] likewise has a Predator take down drug lords, cops, and federal agents before getting killed by Danny Glover's character. He then finds himself [[OhCrap surrounded by Predators]] but seems confident about his chances against them. They don't attack so we don't see if this trope would have been averted or invoked. [[Film/{{Predators}} The third movie]] has three Predators hunting a group of various killers, soldiers, and criminals. [[KillEmAll Almost everyone in that movie gets killed]], whether they are human or Predator. Only one Predator is shown to be killed in one-on-one combat (a sword fight) and that results in the human dying as well.

** Related, the Trade Federation Droids only kill Jedi when there's a whole army of Jedi, as ''Film/AttackOfTheClones'' shows. ([[Film/ThePhantomMenace the Gungan army]] [[RedshirtArmy is a whole different matter]].) In the same sequence, Jango Fett pretty casualy shoots a Jedi and kills him but when it comes to fighting Mace Windu, he is much less fortunate.

* IronMan3: Iron mans Armour suffers from this. In TheAvengers movie he was able to go toe-to-toe with Thor for several minutes sith out his suite completely breaking down, while in this movie he has all of his suite models fighting Exstremis-inhanced humans; these armours go down after afew hits from them.

** Related, the Trade Federation Droids only kill Jedi when there's a whole army of Jedi, as ''Film/AttackOfTheClones'' shows. ([[Film/ThePhantomMenace the Gungan army]] [[RedshirtArmy is a whole different matter]].)