Black Panther (2018)

Source: Marvel Studios: Blu-ray, 2018.

Year: 2018

Director: Ryan Coogler

Action Stars

Chadwick Boseman

Michael B. Jordan

Genre: Superhero film

Country: United States

Story Duration: 02:02:02

Act Duration:

1st Act: 00:32:34

2nd Act: 00:34:34

3rd Act: 00:30:29

4th Act: 00:24:25

Plot Turns:

1st: T’Challa’s regains powers

2nd: T’Challa discovers the truth 

3rd: T’Challa’s awakens from a coma

ASD Ratio: 32%

AAD Ratios:

1st Act: 36%

2nd Act: 36%

3rd Act: 11%

4th Act: 56%

Action Structure: 3124

Action Scenarios

Capture

Escape

Fall

Fight

Heist

Rescue

Pursuit

Speed

Total Action Moments: 18

1. Long take commences with Nakia’s narrative perspective.
2. A camera rigged on a cable then glides upward to Okoye’s position.
3. The camera then glides downwards to T’Challa’s narrative perspective.
4. Seamless combination with the pursuit scenario.
Action Structure

Notable Action Sequence: Casino Battle and Pursuit

Duration: 00:06:55

Act: 2nd

Action Scenarios:

Capture

Fight

Pursuit

Description: The second-longest action sequence of the film commences in a casino in Busan, South Korea, in which T’Challa (Chadwick Boseman), Nakia (Lupita Nyong’o) and Okoye (Danai Gurira) seek to capture Ulysses Klaue, a black-market arms dealer, who is due to meet up with Everett K. Ross (Martin Freeman) a CIA operative. The fight sequence contains an embedded long take that is one minute and four seconds in duration that connects Nakia, [Figure 1], Okoye [Figure 2], and T’ Challa [Figure 3], in different spaces in the casino. The long take has been noted as a trademark associated with Ryan Coogler’s cinematic style (Sharf, 2018), but it is a recurrent feature in the Marvel Cinematic Universe films and also appears in The Avengers (2012) and Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015) as a device that eschews cross-cutting and underscores team unity. The fight sequence then seamlessly segues into an automotive chase sequence [Figure 4], underscoring how the capture action form is a component of the pursuit scenario.

References: Sharf, Zack. 2018. “Ryan Coogler’s One-Take Action Scenes Are Becoming His Stunning Technical Trademark“, IndieWire. 19th February.

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