History ConservationOfNinjutsu / Film

* In ''Film/{{Commando}}'', when [[Creator/ArnoldSchwarzenegger Ahnold]] comes across Arius after mowing down countless soldiers simply by [[MoreDakka pointing his gun in their general direction and firing]], his aim suddenly deteriorates into [[ImperialStormtrooperMarksmanshipAcademy that of the countless soldiers]] he just killed. Luckily for him, Arius's aim is just as bad, and after a few moments of the two firing at each other and missing while ''twenty feet from each other'', Arnie kills Arius.

* ''{{Film/Oldboy 2003}}''. On the very impressive one-take scene in the hall, the main character takes on countless mooks by himself aided only by a hammer. Sorta justified in that the main character spent over 10 years working out and practiced fighting, whereas the extent of practice the gangbangers he faced had was probably limited to intimidating people with weapons. And he didn't make it out unscathed.

* ''Film/StarTrek'' movie:

* ''Film/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.]]]]

* ''Film/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.

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

** Take the scene in ''Film/RevengeOfTheSith'' where Mace Windu and three other Jedi are attempting to arrest Palpatine. Palpatine instantly kills the first Jedi, then kills the second right after. The third Jedi survives for maybe five more seconds before also getting killed. Now that there is one more Jedi left, Mace manages to overpower Palpatine after a epic battle ([[TheChessmaster though he may have let him]]). [[Creator/SamuelLJackson Mace Windu is]], after all, {{Badass}} Incarnate.

** {{Justified}} in the case of certain styles of Lightsaber combat, such as Form 1 (Shi-Cho), which is geared towards fighting multiple opponents and battlefield situations, but does poorly in single combat against a trained opponent (unless said opponent is using the same style or similar, such as From 7 Juyo) because it emphasises sweeping offences at the expense of defence. Jedi Master Kit Fisto, for example, regularly cut through entire ''armies'' while fighting and was regarded as a master lightsaber combatant, but he was defeated by Asajj Ventress, a dangerous Sith assassin and Jedi killer, but one who was regularly bested by other high-level Jedi duellists such as Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker; on the flip side, Fisto had little issue fending off the even ''more'' dangerous Jedi killer General Grevious because the latter was MultiArmedAndDangerous...which meant, fighting Grevious was like fighting multiple opponents at once, exactly the sort of engagement Fisto was optimised to fight against.

* ''Film/StarTrekIntoDarkness'': Several squads of Klingons vs. four main characters. Three guesses who wins and the first two don't count.

* In ''TeenageMutantNinjaTurtles2014'', the four turtles and Splinter have no problem fighting off the numerous Foot soldiers but have significant trouble when it comes to fighting Shredder. Justified in that Shredder is far better trained and stronger than the average Foot soldier.

* ''Franchise/TheMatrix'' trilogy: This applies to Agents and other superpowered avatars of computer programs in the Matrix throughout the trilogy. Mostly {{justified}} in that whenever someone's facing a large group of them, that someone is Neo after unlocking his powers as the One.
** A single Agent coming after anyone is nigh-unstoppable. In ''Film/TheMatrixReloaded'', Neo faces three, and he beats them up easily. Later on, he's attacked by [[TheAssimilator dozens or hundreds of clones of ex-Agent Smith]] and tosses them around like rag dolls. In the FinalBattle in ''Film/TheMatrixRevolutions'', Neo fights just a single copy of Smith, who's somehow become at least as powerful as he.
*** Well look at it from the point of view of a computer programmer: if your computer is able to focus all of it's active processing power on a singular program, it works faster and much better than when it has to divide itself amongst numerous programs running all at once.
** When Neo and the others face the Merovingian's henchmen, just two of them go after Morpheus and Trinity and give them a lot of trouble, while Neo handles the rest. In addition to Neo being Neo, this is caused by the fact that those two are MadeOfAir.
** Seraph fights Neo alone and they seem evenly matched, with no particular explanation as to why Seraph would be so much more powerful than everyone else.

* In ''Film/ScottPilgrimVsTheWorld'' Scott has little trouble mopping the floor with Lucas Lee's(The second evil ex's)stunt team, while only being able to defeat Lee by goading him into doing an insanely dangerous stunt on his skateboard.

** Another ExpandedUniverse example: After the Brotherhood of Darkness imploded magnificently after Ruusan, Bane was left to rebuild the Sith. Instead of building a large army of Dark Side wielders, and dealing with the ChronicBackstabbingDisorder that came with it, he chose to take just ''one'' apprentice. Once the apprentice learned all they needed, they were to slay their master, take a new apprentice, and the cycle begins anew. Arguably, since the Sith lasted 1000 years under this idea, and it was the Sith dynasty that spawned Palpatine, it was the most successful. It's implied in the books that he got the idea from [[KnightsOfTheOldRepublic Revan's holocron]]. Not surprisingly, one of BioWare's writers was behind the Bane books.

* ''{{Film/Oldboy}}''. On the very impressive one-take scene in the hall, the main character takes on countless mooks by himself aided only by a hammer. Sorta justified in that the main character spent over 10 years working out and practiced fighting, whereas the extent of practice the gangbangers he faced had was probably limited to intimidating people with weapons. And he didn't make it out unscathed.

** A single Agent coming after anyone is nigh-unstoppable. In ''Reloaded'', Neo faces three, and he beats them up easily. Later on, he's attacked by [[TheAssimilator dozens or hundreds of clones of ex-Agent Smith]] and tosses them around like rag dolls. In the FinalBattle in ''Revolutions'', Neo fights just a single copy of Smith, who's somehow become at least as powerful as he.

* In ''Film/DawnOfTheDead'', Roger and Peter frequently punch out and knock back zombies with ease when facing them all at once. And then a lone zombie "disguised" as a mannequin catches Roger off guard and has to be dispatched without any ease at all.

* The assassins in {{Film/Hero}} effortlessly carve through thousands of palace guards in order to reach their target, the Emperor, who by himself is [[AuthorityEqualsAsskicking much tougher than his men]]. This being a {{Wuxia}} film, this is hardly surprising, as the assassins' abilities are the very model of a CharlesAtlasSuperpower.

* ''Film/SpiesLikeUs''. Subverted then played straight.
-->'''Fitzhume:''' ''(to an army of ninjas)'' This is my sister. You can all have her!
** The Rhombus' rating of Fitzhume and Millbarge after the encounter: "Pussies". He then ''takes them all out singlehandedly.''

* Very averted in the first ''Film/TeenageMutantNinjaTurtles'' movie. Raphael fights a horde of mooks alone... and is ''savagely'' beaten, thrown through a skylight (which itself averts SoftGlass), and spends the next quarter of the movie recovering. However, the aversion is fairly justified by the fact that TMNT has, is, and most likely will always be a show about ThePowerOfFriendship and teamwork. His brothers weren't there, and he was emotionally unstable. Hence, the turtle with a cracked shell.

* Both played straight and averted in ''Film/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.
** 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, Liu previously faced off against Ip and was taken down extremely easy, so it makes sense that Liu would not be able to handle 3 mooks.
* The formula is played straight ''and'' averted in ''Film/{{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 reason for the latter is the fact that [[spoiler:[=DuMont=] teaches GunFu at the academy and is implied to be Preston's teacher as well]].

** Subverted, in the major battles at the end of the last two movies, the heroes were eventually getting [[DeathOfAThousandCuts overrun]] by [[ZergRush orcs]], despite seemingly being able to kill dozens at a time. It is only with [[BigDamnHeroes the arrival of allies]] that the tide of the battles turn.

** Averted in the ''Comicbook/ArmyOfDarkness'' comics. Ash can easily beat one deadite and only has problems when there are several.

* ''Franchise/{{Predator}}'', the sister franchise to ''Alien'', plays with this trope. The [[Film/{{Predator}} first movie]] has a single Predator take down an entire platoon of {{Badass}} soldiers. Even Creator/ArnoldSchwarzenegger himself barely escapes with his life. [[Film/{{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.
* As expected, the ''Film/AlienVsPredator'' movies are all over the place. In the first one, a single xenomorph kills two Predators in the span of a few minutes. The final Predator survives almost the entire movie, killing many xenomorphs along the way. The second movie only features one Predator who kills several xenomorphs.
* 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 ''Film/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.

* Averted in ''Film/TheAvengers''. The team can easily beat 2 or 3 aliens but as more and more of them pass through a portal leading to our dimension, the Avengers gradually get overrun by sheer numbers until they find a way to close it.

* ''Film/XMen'':
** ''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.]]
** At the start of ''Film/XMenDaysOfFuturePast'' three Sentinels [[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 remnant still destroy more Sentinels than at the start.
*** Justified in that the mutants have doubled their numbers in the finale, [[spoiler:and Storm and Magneto have area-effect attacks that the Sentinels can't easily adapt to.]]
* Averted in ''Film/PitchBlack''; Riddick can kill one creature just fine, but two of them damn near kill him (though he managed to slaughter both despite his injuries).

* ''Film/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.

* ''Franchise/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.
-->'''Neo:''' It ends tonight.\\
'''Smith:''' I know it does; I've seen it. I know how it ends. That's why the rest of me are gonna sit back and enjoy the show, because we already know that [[TheOnlyOneAllowedToDefeatYou I'm the one that beats you.]]

* Ash only fights one deadite at a time in the first two ''Franchise/EvilDead'' films. He ends up getting thrown into a lot of shelves when facing a single one. But once he has to fight a whole army of deadites in ''Army of Darkness'', he conveniently gets a sword and starts slashing them up left and right.
** He also took a serious [[TookALevelInBadass level in badass]] near the end of ''Evil Dead 2''. As can be seen in the theatrical ending to ''Army of Darkness'', single deadites aren't much a problem for him anymore either.
** Averted in the comics. Ash can easily beat one deadite and only has problems when there are several.

* Very averted in the first ''Film/TeenageMutantNinjaTurtles'' movie. Raphael fights a horde of mooks alone... and is ''savagely'' beaten, thrown through a skylight (which itself averts SoftGlass), and spends the next quarter of the movie recovering. However, the aversion is fairly justified by the fact that TMNT has, is, and most likely will always be a show about ThePowerOfFriendship and teamwork. His brothers weren't there, and he was emotionally unstable. Hence, the turtle with a cracked shell.\\
\\

** At the start of ''FilmXMenDaysOfFuturePast'' three Sentinels [[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 remnant still destroy more Sentinels than at the start.

** At the start of ''Film/XMenDaysOfFuturePast'' three Sentinels [[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 remnant still destroy more Sentinels than at the start.
*** Justified in that the mutants have doubled their numbers in the finale, [[spoiler: and Storm and Magneto have area-effect attacks that the Sentinels can't easily adapt to.]]

* ''{{Film/Oldboy}}''. On the very impressive one-take scene in the hall, the main character takes on countless mooks by himself aided only by a hammer. Sorta justified in that the main character spent over 10 years working out and practiced fighting, whereas the extent of practice the gangbangers he faced had was probably limited to intimidating people with weapons.

* ''Film/Oldboy''. On the very impressive one-take scene in the hall, the main character takes on countless mooks by himself aided only by a hammer. Sorta justified in that the main character spent over 10 years working out and practiced fighting, whereas the extent of practice the gangbangers he faced had was probably limited to intimidating people with weapons.