Favorite Scene Friday! Captain America: The Winter Soldier: Cap vs. The Winter Soldier

This concludes our month of fight themed FSFs! Thanks for tuning in!

This probably goes without saying, but beware spoilers for Captain America: The Winter Soldier. 

You can't really discuss fight scenes these days without including something from a superhero flick. This week, I'd like to (naturally) talk about one of my favorites - the brawl between Captain America and The Winter Soldier in the second installment in the saga of Steve Rogers.   

Paolo Rivera via ComingSoon and Birth.Movies.Death.

The action starts with the fallout from a chase scene where The Winter Soldier (TWS) got the drop on our heroes, ultimately launching Cap (Chris Evans) off the freeway and into a city bus. When we first see TWS he's on the hunt for Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson), who, along with Cap and Sam "The Falcon" Wilson (Anthony Mackie), is really screwing with his plans (well, not his plans, but we'll get to that later).

TWS easily tosses Black Widow after falling for her phone decoy trick and subsequent attack, but she's able to escape after shorting out his arm. It isn't long before he catches up again, however, but just when you think Black Widow's a goner, Cap shows up. And then it's on. 

Some highlights:

• The Winter Soldier punching Cap’s shield is surely one of the cooler moments from the entire franchise. 
• One thing I noticed is that, every gun that TWS uses in his fight with Cap was seen prominently earlier in the scene. In other words, they're not just window dressing, he actually uses all of his weapons.
• The knife portion of the fight really takes the whole thing up a notch. It's hard not to flinch as that thing's flying around.
• That goddamn Bucky reveal.

That's right, The Winter Soldier is actually Cap's childhood friend and war buddy Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan), who's been turned into a pawn for the bad guys. I remember when I saw this in the theater a few people in my group were shocked. It's something I knew already and kind of took for granted, but their reactions made it even better. It still gives me goosebumps. The whole Bucky/Winter Soldier thing is, if done true to the comics, setting up Bucky's time as an alternate Captain America. That's why he prominently holds the shield at one point. Alas, TWS doesn't really know his true identity ("Who the hell is Bucky?") having been brainwashed into a killing machine. Suffice to say, Cap's so shocked that his friend is The Winter Soldier, he has to get saved not once, but twice, first by The Falcon and then by Black Widow. Cap gets easily distracted when it comes to Bucky, as we saw earlier this summer in this film's follow up, Civil War. 

What's your favorite scene from Captain America: The Winter Soldier?

What's your favorite fight scene in a Marvel Cinematic Universe film?