“Kamehameha” is a series of post where we examine various action scenes from movies, anime, and cartoons, to name a few. It’s name comes from one of the most famous special moves in Dragon Ball Z. We chose a DBZ reference because it’s the definition of an action show…minus the drawn out stare down filler.

Welcome to the second edition of “Kamehameha.”  Today’s article features one of my favorite fight scenes of all time, the chateaux scene from The Matrix Reloaded.  In this scene, we see Neo take on 6 of the Merovingian’s henchmen and completely destroy them.  A few things to note:

• At the very beginning when the goons attempt to shoot Neo, he uses his awesome bullet-stopping skill to which the Merovingian drops one of the funniest lines in the film: “Ok you have some skill.”
• To this day, I’m still confused about that Asian in the white’s gender (although I’m inclined to believe it’s a male).
• The first guy to be disposed of is Abel.  His partner Cain was shot in the head by Persephone in an earlier scene.  Cain and Abel play a prominent role in the video game Enter the Matrix (they’re pretty strong although Neo makes Abel look like a chump).
• The dude with the weird hair style, tattoo beard, and skin tight clothes has a habit of breaking stuff.  Just watch.
• There’s one part that really confuses me–at 2:40, you see the aforementioned dude climb the stairs to attack Neo.  However, when the camera changes at 2:41, you see Neo go into a 1-on-1 fight with the Asian in black (which is one of my favorite sequences in the fight), and the dude is nowhere to be seen.  Where exactly did he go?  By the time Neo started engaging in the 1-on-1 fight, the dude should have been there to join in.  Was he helping the dude with the ponytail up? Did he decide to take a water break?  When Neo kicks the Asian in black out of the way at 2:50, guess who’s there to engage Neo? The dude.  This is the only part that confuses me.  Are you saying it took 9 seconds for him to get in on the action even though he would have been able to join in right way? This is just a nit-picky point, and by no means does it lessen the entertainment.  I only noticed this after watching the scene a ton of times, so it’s big deal.  Just thought I’d point an interesting thing out.