- Tyr Neilsen is the president of the Norwegian Glima Association and senior instructor at the Academy of Viking Martial Arts in Norway.
- He reacts to 11 fight scenes featuring axes and rates them based on their accuracy.
Neilsen looks at the realism of Viking battle-axes in "Vikings." He judges the realism of weapons in "The Old Guard," "Frontier," "Avengers: Endgame," and "Serenity."
Neilsen also looks at choreographed ax fights in "Snowpiercer," "John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum," "Bullet to the Head," "The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring," and "The Transporter."
Following is a transcript of the
- [Rollo yells]
Tyr Neilsen: Rollo's using a Viking battle-ax. You can turn, you can pull, and if it's used against an opponent's legs, it can be pulled up. There's lots and lots of tricks.
Hi, my name is Tyr Neilsen. I'm president of the Norwegian Glima Federation and a senior instructor at the Academy of Viking Martial Arts in Norway.
Today, we're going to be looking at ax-fight scenes in movies and TV.
"Frontier" (2016-2018)
There's different ways to hold a weapon in single hand. When you have two weapons, there's a different thought process. In this situation, I would use the ax with my lead hand, and maybe I would reverse grip with another weapon. If I preferred to use the knife, then I would hold the knife in my preferred hand and try and cut as much as I could with the ax. I'd follow up with the knife, either in a forward grip or a reverse grip, dual wielding.
He's using basic strikes. No sneaky techniques and no small, direct cuts. He's swinging with that intention. One of them could work. He only needs to connect with the guy's arm or wrist or fingers before you've created serious damage.
The way they engage is similar to glima techniques. You try and trap the hand that's being used against you. If it has a weapon, you try and trap the weapon or the arm, and you use that to control the balance of the opponent. Lots of different styles do similar things, and my father-in-law began to teach me glima techniques, which are based on the battlefield wrestling from the Viking age. These are passed down quite secretly, because Norway has been ruled by other nations and occupied by Germany in the second world war, so their means of fighting hands-on combat were held pretty close to the chest.
It goes into grappling, and the grappling was great. It was quite brutal, and I really enjoyed it. Seven out of 10.
Rating: 7/10
"Vikings" S1 E6 (2013)
It was a very tense and quite realistic ax fight. You want to control your opponent's weapon if possible, and by grabbing your opponent's weapon, especially near the ax head, you can use it against the opponent. This is my favorite Viking ax. The toe edge would have been a couple of centimeters higher and then come to a lethal point, and the heel would have also come down to a point, which would have been also lethal. And it would have been very, very sharp. This is a typical Viking ax. And then this is what they call the bearded ax, because this part of the ax, they call the beard. And it has an elongated beard, and you can grip it here and use it to shave or cut. And it can be deadly when you move into this grip. When you close up properly, you can use it as a knife when in close combat. There are many decorated Viking axes. Vikings like to decorate pretty much everything. On the haft, they would be protected with leather, nails, or wrapped in metal, and there's some examples from the sagas. This would protect the wooden haft from any attack. Not always, because it's wood. It would split. But it helps. It would be great if the producers got in contact with people who fight in the style that the people in the show were going to be fighting in, because there's a lot of information and techniques there. You can use that as a platform to make better choreography. This was very exciting, quite realistic, and a great starter for the whole show.
Rating: 5/10
"Vikings" S2 E1 (2014)
Rollo's using a Viking battle-ax, which is an incredibly dangerous weapon. The ax head goes through the shield. It can be a dangerous move. If the ax head gets stuck in the shield, it can be used against you. I have a Viking battle-ax, also called a Dane ax. And if you imagine my arm is a shield, you can hook over the top of the shield and pull it down, and you can do it really quickly. This is just a small ax head. You can turn, you can pull, and if it's used against an opponent's legs, it can be pulled up. You can push forward to open up the shield. There's lots and lots of tricks with this. And you can use the ax as a stick. You can use either this end or this end, or you can use it as a stick weapon here and then turn. It's made to be maneuvered around. If you start here, you can deceive a little and then send it out quite a long way. He uses it with technique, strength. Seven out of 10. I believe Rollo, and, the character from the show, I really wouldn't want to meet him in a fight.
Rating: 7/10
"Vikings" S6 E8 (2020)
Viking boys, growing up, they get bored, as kids do, and they would start wrestling, fighting with weapons. Every one of them was quite good at throwing axes, throwing knives. When we're doing seminars, we're not instructing and we're hanging around, people throw their weapons, they throw their axes, they throw their knives. It's a very natural thing to do. I could throw the ax with pretty good accuracy. I don't know if I would cut the ropes first time, but I would imagine that that character could and would. And as he did, 10 out of 10, because he cut the ropes.
Rating: 10/10
"The Old Guard" (2020)
I don't know anybody who would swing a two-bladed or two-bit ax around their body like this. It would be too easy to cut off your own limb. It could get caught in material. It could rebound. It could be deflected. There's lots of things that can happen unexpectedly. I don't know the weight of the weapon, I don't know what type of material it's made out of, but if you're living 6,000 years, you've had a lot of practice. You're pretty much invulnerable. You could do this. If you're showing off, if you're building up the energy, the determination, might happen, but I wouldn't recommend it. And I think that this is based on the labrys, which is a ancient weapon from Crete, Greece. It was more of a ceremonial weapon than anything that they would use in battle. There's a lot of discourse about the pros and cons of this and what it was used for. In a sacred ceremony, it might've been used to sacrifice an animal, for example.
The choreography is interesting. Because she didn't cut off any limbs, she gets 10 out of 10.
Rating: 10/10
"John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum" (2019)
[laughing]
Hm. Well, I don't think anybody ever wants to be put in the position where they have to criticize a John Wick movie. It looks like they're using a woodsman's ax or something about this size. It weighs between 1 1/2, 2 pounds, it's really easy to swing around, and it's very lethal, especially in short distances and in a compact room, the way this is. I doubt that they're sharp.
If we believe the scene, this is an incredibly scary situation. He's doing really good techniques, blocking, powering, moving out of the way. I love it. You have to trap and lock it away. You have to make sure that you're not at the distance where you can easily be cut by it. Maybe get inside the weapon. In glima, there's an awful lot of techniques we use to intercept, to trap, to hold, to maneuver the opponent's body weight in such a way that they don't have the best stability so that they can use the weapon. I really can't find a fault or say if you did this it would be better, so 10 out of 10.
Rating: 10/10
"The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring" (2001)
He's using a long-hafted ax. He's going to have to do something to change the disadvantage of his height into an advantage, and this is a really good way of doing it. He can reach up high because he's using that weapon. I would suggest that he cuts more ankles and legs, because that's easier. And if your opponent can't walk, then they can't run after you or attack you. The way he's using the ax is an extension of his character, and he's trying to kill with every blow. He wants to show that he's powerful with every single stroke. The problem with swinging heavily every time is that you drain your energy, which is limited. You open yourself up if you bring it back in order to swing it forward.
So, this is a regular modern tomahawk ax. And instead of it being brought all the way back in order to go forward, that would be a move. And this is quite sharp. The tips are quite sharp. It's heavy enough. It's got this at the end, and that would be doing quite a lot of damage from here. And you don't really need to do much more than that, if you understand what you're attacking. And when you chuck it.... And the way he uses it, seven out of 10.
Rating: 7/10
"Snowpiercer" (2013)
Chris Evans sells this so well. He's a good actor who can sell action. He changes hands, he goes from single grip to double grip, he has good turns and good angles, he changes levels. A good fighter will try and create as much space around them as possible. Try and use opponents' shields, move around them in a way that they shield or block for you. The most difficult thing of all is to keep your balance. And then he does what he should do, which is attack the legs and try and get out of there as soon as possible. We don't play any defensive game on the ground. We don't fall; we're taught to land. And so no matter what happens, as you're going down, you're going down with the intention to land in a way that will enable you to move out of danger as quickly as possible. Nine out of 10.
Rating: 9/10
"Bullet to the Head" (2012)
If somebody has that much confidence and swings it around in such a way that it doesn't look like they're going to injure themselves at all and you do not know where the attack is going to come from, what happens is it's hard to see the angle of attack. Whichever way they begin the movement, there's many, many tells, from the neck, the shoulder, the bicep, the tricep, the elbow. There's lots and lots of tells. The way they move their feet, the way they move their head. But when that weapon is already in motion, you can't just attack or defend against that angle, because it can suddenly change. It's intimidating. Where you place your feet, when I look at technique, you can see what's happening just from the footwork. Footwork is a major part of any martial art. It's often neglected because it's not as exciting as twirling your weapon around in your hand, but being able to move at angles, move forward, move backwards, move as you change your height, it's so, so important. It's core. Balance is everything. They use their weapon to hook the opponent's weapon and control the opponent's weapon and the opponent's balance. If I can just show it here, the opponent's weapon, you go over the top, you can either pull and go forward or just go over the top and go forward. You don't need these big movements. So, over the weapon, force it in a direction away from you, and that's all you need. I felt it was really well done and it was scary and good technique. Eight out of 10.
Rating: 8/10
"Deadpool" (2016)
He leaves himself open because he is full of bravado, but it works really well because even though he opens himself up, he knows exactly what to do to close it up again and attacking you. In this scene, Ajax cuts through a good chunk of metal with his ax. It could happen, maybe. I haven't tried. These are dangerous weapons, and they can cut through quite a lot. I think this is based on a fireman's ax. I've never seen one which is completely metal. There's different rhythms in a fight, and you can change rhythm in a fight. Instead of getting dragged into a readable rhythm, you can break the rhythm. And then you change the dynamic of the fight by changing the speed of one weapon against another and getting them in unison or working apart. A delayed swing changes everything. I'd give this nine out of 10. I really enjoyed it.
Rating: 9/10
"The Transporter" (2002)
I've watched this with my son many times. We really enjoy this scene. The way he moves is impressive. If your opponent can move quickly, if they know how to use a weapon, that's a game changer. The fact that you can use an anonymous object as a weapon or as a counter to these weapons is smart. Maybe going in and smothering your opponent and trying to strip their weapon away would work. But you also have a second attacker coming in with another ax. There's no sure way that you come out of this alive, but as a scene, it's inventive. We do train against multiple attackers and multiple attackers with weapons. One of the basic principles that you have to understand is that you want to be able to control your opponents and use that opponent to control a second opponent. Use them as a shield, use their weapon as a counter-weapon or as a shield. I'd like to give this 10 out of 10.
Rating: 10/10
"Serenity" (2005)
I just thoroughly enjoyed it. It is always enjoyable to see somebody move the way she moves in this scene. I think this was one long take. She's elegant. She's determined. And when you're using weapons, they should be an extension of your body, and this scene really shows that part of a fight. I wouldn't recommend anyone fighting this way, but if you're a person with these capabilities and this is your style, then you can make it work for you. I would not do this. The style that I train and teach is about making the best decisions in the shortest possible time. I think she's using a fantasy weapon. I don't know what it's based on, but the Vikings had a similar type of ax where there's a long beard, which is used for carving or cutting. If it has a long tang, which means that the metal from the ax head goes all the way through the handle, then it could be really well balanced, light, sharp. Nine out of 10.
Rating: 9/10
"Avengers: Endgame" (2019)
Rating: 5/10
Even in a street fight, people can get caught up in thinking that this is a contest of strength, and they both push against each other. People can freeze. There's lots of things that can happen.