Another name for "tour-de-force" could be "over-kill". I remember reading stories about King Arthur's knights, when one of them would hit his adversary on the helmet with his sword, and cleave him right down to his crotch.
To which wwh added in a PM, posted now with his permission:
"Cleave to the crotch" is "Like the Irish one about the hero saying he would lie down and bleed a while, and then get up and fight some more. That had to be written by some poet who never saw any combat at all. A man that has shed any appreciable amount of blood, particularly after heavy exertion, goesinto shock, and in the days when transfusion was impossible,was not likely to survive."
This Irish hero is a dainty and a malingerer next to Mel Gibson's "Christ" in "The Passion of the Christ", wwh.
I am not a student of the healing arts, but it was obvious, even to me, that no human being could have survived the scourging which Gibson's character received the day before he dragged a 200 pound cross halfway across the city en route to Calvary Hill.
Regarding the scourging: After 2 men nearly exhausted themselves flagellating the Christ character until he couldn't rise up to take more after heroic previous efforts, the two men began to work him over, first back and then front, with whips equipped with metal claws which tore flesh from his body and splattered blood in their faces.
Finally, they dragged him away leaving the public square looking like the floor of an abattoir, propped him up against a wall, and ministered to him with taunts and insults and phlegm pitched at high velocity.
While the sun was still high in the sky on the same day of the scourging, the Christ character was escorted, walking under his own power, for his final appearance before Pontius Pilate and the rabid crowd which was baying for his crucifixion.
The next day his ordeal began in earnest.
That any man could have survived a scourging of the type depicted, forget the stroll down the Via Dolorosa the next day, is more miraculous than anything else recorded in the bible, at least it makes the Resurrection look like a cakewalk.
Curious no movie reviewer I have seen or read has commented on this aspect of "shock".
Note: Previewed in advance with wwh who has assured me it would not offend because it is a movie review, not religious commentary.
