Action Scenes, or, Some Ninjas Came in the Window

When most people think of action scenes, they immediately go for the fast-paced ones with lots of drama and physical maneuvering, the kind one sees in action-adventure movies: fights, battles, hair-raising stunts, dramatic escapes, car chases, the final confrontation between the hero and the villain. But a lot more goes into an effective action scene than the physical action.

Not that the action isn’t important – it isn’t an action scene without it. And it is easy to define “action scene” pur...