Films of Fury: The Kung Fu Movie Book (33 page)

Instead of the exotic, long-suffering, tragic, anti-heroic spies with “no place on earth and none in heaven (which they historically were),” ninja
were doomed to toil in cheap American exploitation films and lousy television shows as ludicrous superheroes and supervillains in black hooded pajamas who threw metal star-shaped darts like Frisbees. It was all because Cannon Films’ Monachem Golan
and Yoram Globus
rushed out
Enter the Ninja
(1981), dooming the American martial arts movie to more years of schlocky, derisive, but profitable abuse.

“It was originally a script I wrote called
Dance of Death,”
undefeated karate
champion Mike Stone
told me. Golan promised Stone the leading role, collected a crew, and sent everyone to the Philippines to start shooting. Three weeks later, according to Stone, he fired them all. “Golan brought in a completely new crew from Israel, save for the sound man. He brought in Franco Nero
to star and then rehired me, for more money, to stay on as action choreographer and stunt double.”

Golan’s rationale may have been that he didn’t like the way the film was coming out, but Stone had another point of view. “Apparently it’s just the way they are,” he explained, referring to Golan, who served as
Enter the Ninja
’s new director, and Yoram Globus
, the producer. “From what I hear that’s just their standard operating procedure.”

The procedure continued through patently absurd sequel after patently absurd sequel, cementing ninja
in the minds of non-Asian audiences as ludicrous, self-reverential tools. In fact, the concept of the ninja was such a joke by the end of the twentieth century, that the only major movies featuring them was a truncated series of bad kids films,
3 Ninjas
(1992-1998) and
Beverly Hills Ninja
(1997), one of the last movies starring
Saturday Night Live
alum Chris Farley
.

Supposedly, that was all going to change (again) with
Ninja
Assassin
(2009), a big budget, major studio release produced by the Wachowskis, who created
The Matrix
(1999) — which, itself, did much for the American kung fu genre. But the Wachowskis also created the disappointing
Matrix
sequels, as well as the honorable but ultimately ineffective
V for Vendetta
(2006) and
Speed Racer
(2008). Sadly
Ninja
Assassin
fell in the latter category. Rather than illuminate the fascinating true character of the self-tormenting specialists, they were made veritable super-zombies in the special effects-burdened fantasia.

Ironically, the ninja
movie as a viable genre disappeared almost as effectively and completely as the ancient assassin-spies themselves. But the insidious effect of Cannon Films on the development of American martial arts films was far from over. Just ask Chuck Norris
. When producers couldn’t get Bruce post-
Enter the Dragon
, some would take anything associated with him. And since Lee gave Norris such a great showcase in
Way of the Dragon
(and the two had reportedly worked together on
The Wrecking Crew
), Lo Wei
(the prolific Chinese filmmaker who proclaimed to all who would listen that he launched Bruce as well as Jackie) cast Norris as the beating, raping, robbing, and laughing villain of
Yellow Faced Tiger
(aka
Slaughter in San Francisco,
1973) — the film designed to introduce Don Wong Tao
as yet another “New Bruce Lee
.”

The film did little for Don, but served to inspire Chuck not to take the Hong Kong road. If he was going to be a movie star, he vowed to do it in his own country. Born in 1940 Oklahoma, he escaped a tough childhood by joining the Air Force. Once stationed in Korea, he discovered the joys of Tang Soo Do, another Korean martial art with roots in the Japanese occupation of the country, but also with a touch of Chinese flavor (the “tang” of the name supposedly referring to the Tang Dynasty). Once returning to the states, however, he excelled in karate
tournaments and opened a chain of popular karate schools.

Leaving the San Fran slaughter behind, he worked diligently to create his own movie path. He got his next shot at stardom thanks to the short-lived mini-craze for truckers and the rustic “language” on their in-cab citizen’s band (CB) radios — born of 1975’s best-selling
Convoy
song (and subsequent 1978 film of the same name directed by Sam Peckinpah
). He managed to get the lead role in
Breaker Breaker
(1977), an exploitation film written by a man best known as an editor (Terry Chambers
) and directed by a man best known for composing soundtracks (Don Hulette
). It was a mediocre movie, but was enough to get Chuck’s spinning back kick in the door. In this movie, as in almost all of its successors, many stuntmen would wait around just to get his cowboy boot in their faces.

Although his first movie came and went like a passing truck,
Good Guys Wear Black
(1978) got more attention. Director Ted Post
, who had helmed Clint Eastwood
’s
Hang ‘Em High
(1968) and
Magnum Force
(1973), wisely decided to make Chuck the “poor man’s Clint.” The tale of a political science professor (a role that fit Norris like a sleeping bag) who is revealed to be the leader of the elite Black Tiger Unit, benefited from an exceptional marketing campaign, anchored by the moment when Chuck does a flying kick through the windshield of a moving car.

That film did well enough to ensure Chuck’s next film,
A Force of One
(1979), which he also got to choreograph. It was a grateful flashback to his karate
days, as he battles in a martial arts competition that serves as a front for drug pushers. In it, he fights Bill “Superfoot” Wallace
, to much the same tepid response as when Jackie Chan
fought Superfoot in
The Protector
.
Although not as exciting as his previous film,
A Force of One
was superior to anything else that could have been termed an American martial arts movie at the time. Although limited as an actor, Norris cared about the movies he made, and he was intent on creating a breakthrough film — something that would bring him to the attention of the major studios.

The Octagon
(1981) did it. With his wooden delivery and stolid screen presence, Norris seemed born to play a ninja
(whose job was not to be noticed). Here, he plays a nearly somnambulistic fighter who resists taking on a present-day ninja camp despite the fact that all his loved ones are dropping like flies. The climatic assault on the octagon-shaped ninja camp is a good one, reminiscent of the opening Vietnam War
sequence in G
ood Guys Wear Black
.
And, despite the fact that several protagonists die because Norris’ character refuses to take action through most of the film’s first half,
The Octagon
became his best-looking, and one of his best-loved, movies.

Following that, he reportedly wanted to do
The Destroyer
,
the satiric, male-action, paperback book series about Remo Williams
and Chiun, two masters of Sinanju — the Korean source of all the martial arts. But the authors, Warren Murphy
and Richard Sapir
, weren’t selling to Norris. No,
Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins
began and ended in 1985, when Fred Ward
and Joel Grey
played the roles in the uninspired first film in an aborted series.

“You could have made
Rambo
, instead you made
Dumbo
,” author Murphy told me he said to the film’s producer after leaving a screening.

Chuck Norris
made
The Destroyer
-esque
An Eye for an Eye
(1981), with Mako
as Chan, an Asian mentor to a martial artist taking revenge for the killing of his policewoman girlfriend. Even with fights choreographed by Chuck and his brother Aaron, the result was tired. But, as uninspired as it was, the “Eyes” finally brought Norris to the attention of a major studio.

Columbia Pictures wanted him to star in seemingly the worst script they could find:
Silent
Rage
(1982). Here Chuck plays a stiff but honorable small-town sheriff whose justifiable killing of an insane ax murderer is complicated when some scientists inexplicably bring the nutcase back to life as an unkillable monster.

While Chuck is breaking up a barroom brawl with his patented spin kick, the monster is running around town killing people in gruesome and gratuitous ways. Finally, Norris kicks the guy down a well and the film ends with a freeze frame of the monster struggling in the water, where he apparently is to this very day. Words cannot describe the pandering, moronic nature of this production. The only item of interest was that Chuck was playing a live man like a zombie while Brian Libby
, who portrayed the killer, was playing a zombie like a live man.

So much for Columbia. Next on Chuck’s studio tour was MGM/UA, which released
Forced Vengeance
in 1983. Originally titled
The Jade
Jungle
, it was “Clint-lite” by any name, directed by James Fargo, whose main claim to fame was helming the third
Dirty Harry
movie,
The Enforcer
(1976). Chuck then moved on to Orion, who secured Norris’ future with
Lone Wolf McQuade
(1984), which proclaimed to all the world that Norris actually
wanted
to be “Clint Lite.” The plot, ostensibly based on the real-life exploits of Texas Ranger “Lone Wolf” Gonzales, was really a patchwork of Eastwood’s
Dirty Harry
and “Man With No Name” spaghetti Westerns. Even the soundtrack was reminiscent of Ennio Morricone
’s brilliant music for Sergio Leone
’s trilogy (
A Fistful of Dollars
, A Few Dollars More
,
and
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
)
.

The final affront to martial arts movie fans was that David Carradine
played the villain. However, Carradine, who had been given Bruce Lee
’s role in both the
Kung Fu
television series and the awful film version of
The Silent
Flute
(1974), would only sign on if he was not seen beaten on-screen (so he was blown up off-screen instead). Norris was quoted as saying that Carradine was about as good a martial artist as he, Norris, was an actor. It was that self-deprecation/insecurity that would shape Norris’ showbiz life. Still, he always tried his best and was a conscientious worker and an honorable professional.

It was his inherent promise that attracted producer Raymond Wagner
. Wagner was working with a remarkable young man named Andy Davis
, whose only directing credit up until that time was a minor movie called
Stony Island
(1977). But they had a workable script called
Code of Silence
(1985), which Davis knew he could make great if it was filmed in his favorite city, Chicago. Surrounding Norris with veteran “Windy City” actors (and playing to his star’s monosyllabic strengths) Davis made Norris’ best movie — a crackling good, emotionally involving cop thriller; low on martial arts but high on stunts and solid dialogue (probably the most memorable of which had Chuck growling, “If I need any advice from you, I’ll beat it out of ya”).

Finally, after more than a decade, Chuck Norris
had made a good movie — one that he could have used as a foundation for a career that could’ve placed him alongside the action film greats. Ah, but there’s the rub. In the annals of action-film history, there have been some notable turning points. George Lazenby
quitting 007. Burt Reynolds
deciding to concentrate on increasingly stupid car-chase movies despite great reviews in serious dramas and romantic comedies. And then there was Chuck Norris
deciding to turn his back on
Code of Silence
to make down-and-dirty movies for Cannon Films.