The movie I chose to look at was D&D: Honour Among Thieves, a movie set in the universe of the popular tabletop role-playing game, Dungeons and Dragons. The film was released in March of 2023, and grossed $37 million from opening weekend. Since then, the film has earned $205 million worldwide. In this scene, Holga and Edgin, two of the main characters, are being brought up to be beheaded. This happens after their old friends, Forge and Sofina, betray them, and Sofina orders the guards to execute the pair. However, Holga figures out a plan to save both herself and Edgin, and we see a fight scene occur between Holga and the guards. Given that this scene occurs within the first thirty minutes of the film, the audience was likely able to assume that Holga and Edgin would escape, and the film would continue.
Looking closer at the mise-en-scene and choices that the film made, the scene starts as an aerial shot and we see the characters being brought up some stairs, with the camera turning to follow them. Then, during some dialogue between Holga and the main guard, the scene features many close-ups, showing the emotions of the characters as they talk. Holga is also talking to the guard about his weapon to distract from the brick she was trying to dig out of the ground. Once the guard finally goes to swing his axe, Helga grabs the stone brick, and defends against the attack. Then, during the fight scene, we see several invisible cuts between the scenes of Holga fighting the guards. The scene also appears to be shot with both a handheld camera and a Steadicam. The handheld camera appears to be used when getting close-ups of the characters fighting, and you can see the camera snap to follow the action of the guards getting hit. Meanwhile, the Steadicam is used in other shots where the camera is a bit further away from the action, and is used to zoom both in and out to follow the objects in this scene. The scene continues with shots from various different angles, most focused on Holga fighting the guards. Then, when the main guard wakes back up and goes to swing at Holga with his axe, Edgin is finally able to free himself from his ropes, and hits the guard with his instrument. The axe that the guard was holding is then shot forward, becoming the focus as it travels from a far depth of field into near. Holga catches the axe, and the two share a dialogue before they run off and the scene ends.
One key element of this scene comes from the fact that the main person fighting is Holga, while Edgin spends most of the scene trying to free himself. Within the world of D&D, Holga falls under the role of a barbarian, which is someone who excels in combat and is physically strong. Meanwhile, Edgin is a bard, someone who displays magical abilities by doing something artistic like playing an instrument. Another interesting element of this scene is how Holga does not use many weapons in this scene, and instead uses close quarter combat and unusual weapons to defend herself. Holga uses a stone brick from the floor, and she is able to hit the guards with enough force to cause sparks between her weapon and the guards helmet. She also takes on several men in this scene, as heard from the sound effects used for the guards. Then, after having her hands cut free from the ropes, she then starts attacking the guards by using a mix of punches, kicks and tosses in order to knock out the guards around her.
So, in the world of the movie, Holga getting into a fight or being the one to protect her friend is not surprising at all. However, in our world, seeing a woman fight in films used to be very rare; having a butch woman fight was unheard of. In many classic films, women were often portrayed as delicate and dainty. There was also a recurring theme where “female characters are either raped or killed, or both, in order to provide a motivation for the hero’s revenge.” However, this dynamic of women being repressed began to change over the years, and women began to have more and more presence in cinema. This is likely because of Hollywood shifting to make women appear more powerful in film. Over the years, with more feminist movements and calls for equal representation in media, it became important to be “a film that contained a number of positive images of women”. Within this film, Holga displays more masculine traits and does not fall into most classic film tropes. In fact, with her fighting the guards while Edgin is still trying to undo the ropes he tied up with, she would be breaking traditional roles of femininity shown in movies, as what usually happens is that the man fights and rescues the girl. Thus, by making Holga the main fighter in this film, it helped break those previous archetypes women were forced to display
Overall, this movie does a great job displaying several film techniques, such as invisible cuts and shots from a handheld camera, to make a captivating fight scene. The scene also breaks the common gender roles seen in a majority of movies, where instead of the man defending and engaging in violence, Holga is attacking and defending instead. In the end, this movie is a fun and whimsical movie, and is a great watch whether you know of Dungeons and Dragons or not.
Bibliography
Shuai, Ziwei. 2023. “The Evolution of Female Audiences’ Perception of Female Superheroes in
Films.” Women’s Studies 52 (8): 944–60. doi:10.1080/00497878.2023.2253948.
Tasker, Yvonne. Spectacular Bodies: Gender, Genre and the Action Cinema. Routledge. 1993.
https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203221846
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I am writing a critical piece on D&D off the table, into the Theaters. Generally, I agree with the statements made. The notice of the female role in this movie shifting expectations of normal gender roles through her violence is something I agree with. Recently since Hollywood has been giving action roles out noticeably more for women the real-world reaction from a movie like this isn’t as groundbreaking because its quite recent but their statement all made sense. I saw it lacked a bit on the actual screengrab and cuts in the scene described. The mise en scene topic lacked a bit of information about the actual look of the violence. It should include visual aspects of a scene not just what’s happening. As for the sources both are real and peer-reviewed, however, it’s not cited intext where the information was used. Information like where the release dates and money produced was also excluded. The image used made more sense after reading this. Quite blurry overall but is showing action. As mentioned previously the topic of visuals discussed a general recap of the violence and less the actual look of it so may be a weaker illustration of the violence this writer chose to discuss.