Polite Society’s big sister-on-sister fight was inspired by an ‘insanely violent’ horror film

polygon.com:

Teenage aspiring stuntwoman Ria (Priya Kansara), the star ofPolite Society, has a reasonable reaction when her family arranges a marriage between her beloved older sister Lena (Ritu Arya) and a smarmy man: Ria wants to thwart the engagement and beat the shit out of the guy.

That might seem like a hyperbolic response to growing pains, with Ria turning her fear of losing Lena into an excuse for Matrix-style combat. But Lena’s mysterious fiance Salim (Akshay Khanna) and his imposing mother Raheela (Nimra Bucha) do actually seem to be up to something nefarious, with Ria and her loyal friends as the only people who can save Lena from her doom. Director Nida Manzoor weaves all this into an action-packed comedy that’s as much about kicking ass as it is about grappling with big life changes.

One of the most brutal fights in the whole movie isn’t between Ria and her foes, but between Ria and her sister. The confrontation starts off as a simple sibling squabble, but eventually escalates into the sisters smashing each other into walls and completely through a door, which disintegrates under the impact. It’s chaotic, bloody, unapologetically brutal, and absolutely over the top. (Meanwhile, Ria and Lena’s parents, hanging out downstairs, simply sigh and tell them to clean up the rubble they create.)

“It was one of my favorite scenes to film,” Manzoor tells Polygon. “I found it incredibly cathartic to write everything with these two sisters.”

Random objects in Lena’s room become unexpected weapons in the fight, from a picture frame to a heated hair straightener. Lena’s childhood bedroom is just as much a part of the action of the scene as the two girls, something Manzoor felt was especially important.

“I was also inspired a lot by