Films of Fury: The Kung Fu Movie Book (4 page)

The Huang Fei-hong movies of the era made use of many of these possibilities, in addition to showcasing the subtler, but just as important, concept of “wu de
” — which
means “martial virtue.” As usual, Chinese action films concentrated on savage tales of vengeance, characterized by a plot that had rival martial arts schools in conflict with one another due to pride or greed. This tried-and-true plot is still being overused today, but the Huang Fei-hong movies introduced an honorable martial artist who sought to use kung fu for health and self-defense only. He was a chivalrous, considerate saint of a man who was always patient, humble, and eternally on the underdog’s side.

Wu Yixiao
, a Cantonese opera writer, scripted the first four films, but Wang Feng
is generally credited as being the main influence on the series, since he wrote, as well as directed, many of the most popular. But this was truly a partnership between the actors and the crew. Although choreographers Leung Wing-hang
and Yuen Siu-tin
were credited with the lion’s share of the series’ action scenes, Kwan was said to have choreographed most of his own battles with his main opponent, Shih Kien
(best known as the evil Han in 1973’s
Enter the Dragon
).
Together, they created believable bouts that remain the series’ high points. Almost every major modern kung fu director was influenced by, or actually worked on, these motion pictures.

The best of them, like
Huang Fei Hong Vied for the Firecrackers at Huadi
(1955) and
How Huang Fei Hong Vanquished the Twelve Lions
(1956), not only displayed fine martial arts but Huang’s wisdom, courage, restraint, morality, and intelligence as well. Although there were some other martial arts films during the 1950s and early 1960s, the Huang Fei-hong movies practically monopolized the market. By 1956, twenty-five of the year’s twenty-nine kung fu pictures starred this hero.

These films were in the cinemas practically every month, and there were some years when the only kung fu movies were the Huang Fei-hong ones. Just about the only other film series that was any kind of competition at all concerned the aforementioned Fan Shiyu (aka Fang Shih Yu aka Fong Sai-yuk
), an eighteenth-century, fiery-tempered master swordsman and bare-handed fighter who was trained at the Shaolin Temple. There were about sixteen films concerning this legendary young man over the same two decades the Huang movies reigned.

The reason why the genre didn’t flourish sooner is obvious. Just like the great dance movies of Fred Astaire
and Gene Kelly
, great kung fu is not easy to fake. It can, and has, been done, but it is rarely convincing unless the actor is also, not coincidentally, a good dancer. It takes years of dedication and discipline to perform kung fu well on-screen, no matter whether you are a martial arts student, a Peking Opera
alumnus, a gymnast, an acrobat, a dancer, or an actor. And if you don’t perform kung fu well it is painfully evident to the audience.

Still, the Hong Kong film industry wasn’t very artistic during the 1950s and 1960s. Seemingly, just about the only man who seemed to know what to do with a camera was King Hu — an epic filmmaker who toiled in Taiwan. He probably was the best action filmmaker China had ever seen, but far from the best moviemaker. This is not as fine a distinction as it might first appear. The “film” aspect of entertainment is technical. The “movie” is emotional. King Hu’s films, including his masterpiece,
A Touch of Zen
(1966), concentrate far more on character interaction and cinematic technique than on the niceties of the kung fu.

“I have no knowledge of kung fu whatsoever,” the director said in a 1989 interview. “My action scenes come from the stylized combat of Peking Opera
.” To Hu, kung fu was dance, and was treated as such.

There’s hardly any action in
A Touch of Zen
,
but plenty of mood and symbolism — not to mention three distinct endings — within its three-hour running time. Rumor has it that the studio was so impressed with the first ninety minutes, but so unhappy with its inconclusive ending, that they asked for a more fight-oriented finale. King Hu
showed what could be done cinematically with what the Chinese movie industry had to work with, but essentially his films were magnificent visual elaborations of legends and stage plays.

But one of the most important reasons kung fu films did not flourish earlier is a fascinating sociological one. The Hong Kong Chinese had their hands full with surviving. After the turbulent dawn of the 20
th
century, they contended with the Boxer Rebellion, Japanese invasion, civil war, and World War
II. Once the Communists took over the mainland and the somewhat supercilious British took over Hong Kong, movies were the last thing on the breadwinners’ minds.

As far as 1950s Hong Kong society was concerned, the only people who had any free time would be spoiled housewives, and their hard-working husbands didn’t want them ogling handsome hunk heroes at the local cinema. So the local movie industry felt inclined to have women playing their male movie action heroes (which is something, considering that they hadn’t allowed women to even play women’s Peking Opera
roles for quite some time).

The result were cute, interesting, but hardly convincing tales of heroic chivalry that held back Hong Kong action cinema for nearly a decade, as the rest of the world produced stirring masterpieces. By the 1960s, the South China audience was finally ready for real kung fu action, and a few folk were ready to give it to them … with a vengeance.

Bruce Lee
is a registered trademark of Bruce Lee
Enterprises, LLC. The Bruce Lee
name, image, likeness, and all related indicia are intellectual property of Bruce Lee
Enterprises, LLC. All rights reserved. www.brucelee.com.

Picture identifications (clockwise from upper left):

Bruce Li in
Dynamo
; Jason Scott Lee
in
Dragon
: The Bruce Lee
Story
; Mike Stone
, James Coburn, Chuck Norris
and Bruce Lee
; Bruce Le in
Cobra
;
The Dragon Dies Hard
, Brandon Lee
in
The Crow
.

Bruce Lee
remains the man who has brought more people to kung fu in general, and kung fu films in particular, than anyone else in the world. He is personally responsible for introducing kung fu to the Western world, and for forging the modern kung fu film. Through his life, he did more to educate Americans to kung fu’s benefits than anyone. Through his death, he has done more to clarify its detriments. Through his legacy, he represents the full spectrum of kung fu’s physical possibilities, as well as its mental limitations.

It was his superlative martial arts ability and canny filmmaking knowledge that galvanized audiences everywhere. But it is also Bruce Lee
, simply by being deprived of the opportunity to mature, who set a trap for the kung fu film that it is still in the process of escaping. Everyone in the industry is compared to him, or forged himself in, and out, of his image. Decades after his untimely death, he remains a universally known cinematic icon. Simply put, without him, this book probably would not exist.

It started November 27, 1940, when Lee Jun-fan
was born to Lee Hoi-chuen
and his wife Grace in San Francisco. Since he was born in the United States, the hospital requested an Anglicized name. Supposedly, it was the supervising doctor, Mary Glover
, who suggested “Bruce.” He was born into a family that included two older girls, Agnes and Phoebe, and an older brother named Peter. Soon he had a younger brother as well, Robert. To his siblings, Bruce was better known by the name Lee Yuen-kam
(an adaptation of his birth name).

Their father was a well-known actor for Chinese audiences on both American coasts as well as in Hong Kong. Just three months after his birth, Bruce joined his father onstage, in a production of
Golden Gate Girl
.
When the family returned to Asia soon after, Bruce continued his thespian ways … while starting a few new distressing ones as well. He was a thin, small, and somewhat sickly child, prone to nightmares and sleepwalking. Compensation came in the form of energy. He always seemed to be moving, never satisfied with being still. Friends and family remember Bruce as an extremely positive, assured youth, and his assurance became brazen as he grew.

His progress was marked by appearances in Hong Kong movies, starting just after World War
II, when he was six years old. The director of one of his father’s films was impressed by Bruce’s attitude and cast him in a small role for
Birth of a Man
(1946)
,
which was also known by the title
The Beginning of a Boy.
Only a year later, Bruce was already starring in films such as
My
Son A-Chang
,
in which he played the title role of a street-smart kid trying to get ahead in the sweatshop world of Hong Kong. As was fairly common at that time, he was given a movie star name: Lung, or Siu Lung, which means “Dragon
” or “Little Dragon.”

Even at the age of seven, Lee’s screen persona was strong. He was a clever, capable, but short-tempered little ruffian who specialized in the scowl, the pout, the stare, and the slow burn. This character served him on the streets as well. Ignoring the lessons of his films and his family, Lee, in his own words, “went looking for fights.” By the time he hit his teens, he was already well equipped to handle those fights. He was a natural dancer, becoming quite proficient in the cha-cha, and his natural grace lent itself to wing chun
, the physically economical, but extremely effective, martial art he decided to follow.

Created by a woman of the same name, wing chun was popularized by Yip Man, a venerable teacher who proved to the rest of the male-chauvinistic martial art world that the technique could more than hold its own against hung gar — then one of the most prevalent styles being taught in Hong Kong. The story goes that Bruce sought out Yip Man to start his kung fu journey, but even his esteemed sifu (teacher) could not quell Lee’s contentiousness. Some nights he would dance; other nights he would scour the streets for a fight. Often he would do both.

Lee read voraciously, and was notably near-sighted. He was known for practical jokes, which became serious if he was personally challenged by his victim. Often, it was no fun playing with Bruce Lee
; his desire to win seemed almost obsessive. Some said that even when he lost a street fight, he would find a way to make it seem as if he had won. Others said that he would return to the victor again and again, eventually winning by either learning enough or simply wearing down his opponents by attrition.

And all the time he exercised and trained — seemingly wanting not only to convince himself that he was the best, but to actually be the best. He rapidly became aware of the Chinese place in the post-war world, which cried out for a Chinese Superman. Bruce Lee
wanted to be that Chinese Superman. The tragedy of his ultimate fate was to be played out on a minor scale in the Hong Kong of 1959. The more famous Bruce Lee
became as a teenage movie actor, the more uncontrollable he became in real life.

Things came to a head with the premiere of his most successful film of that time,
The Orphan
(1959)
.
Although Wu Chu-fan
was the ostensible star (playing a teacher who lost his family in a Japanese air raid), Bruce all but stole the show as Ah Sam, an orphan who survived as a street thief. Again, all the acting skills that were to lead to his superstardom were well in evidence. Lee’s emotional intensity was compelling. He portrayed frustration beautifully, as on-screen schoolmates laughed at his lack of education, and his peers were embarrassed by his bad manners. When he finally fights back, threatening his teachers and fellows with a knife during class, it is a cathartic scene that Lee plays to the hilt.

Ah Sam returns to his gang, which masterminds the kidnapping of a rich man’s son, but Sam can’t forget the kindness of his teachers. He returns when Wu Chu-fan
, playing Ho See-kei, discovers that Ah Sam is his own long-lost son — separated from him in the aforementioned air raid. Repentant, Ah Sam leads the police to the gang’s hideout and single-handedly saves the kidnapped boy. The film concludes with Lee tearfully begging forgiveness from his father, teachers, schoolmates, and ancestors.

On-screen, Bruce Lee
begged forgiveness. Off-screen, he begged from no one and gave no quarter. Things were getting so difficult for his family that Bruce went back to America. The story goes that the Shaw Brothers
Studio — the most powerful movie company in Hong Kong (see next chapter) — offered him a contract … which his mother forbade him to take, all but banishing him to the United States, praying that education there would straighten him out. So, at the moment when Bruce Lee
was to gain his greatest success, he was forced to retreat.

The exile, self-imposed or not, had served its purpose. Bruce Lee
was a stranger in a strange land at the age of eighteen, forced to work all the harder to excel. At first he enrolled at the Edison Technical High School in Seattle, but moved on to the University of Washington. His energy did not lessen, but at least it was directed. Lee worked in restaurants for awhile, but soon began teaching kung fu, aka gong fu. Bruce’s wing chun
had been built on a foundation of taichi
(aka taiji, aka tai chi, aka tai chi-chuan), which had been taught to him by his father.

Taichi
is a greatly misunderstood style and is represented by the yin-yang symbol. Even though that symbol pictures two ever-swirling, interchanging sides, it seems as if the majority of students only learn one-half of the art — the internal, “dance-like” form. Although powerful enough to be effective, it’s like vacuuming the house with the cleaner unplugged. True taichi
is a balance of both internal, healing applications and external, martial applications. Combined with the practical effectiveness of wing chun
, Lee had much to build upon. He thought deeply about his skills and developed them further while attending the University of Washington. Lee’s exhaustive research led to his writing the insightful
Chinese Gung-Fu: The Philosophical Art of Self-Defense
in the early 1960s. But by 1964, the demons that had led him to the Hong Kong streets were now pointing him toward Hollywood.

1964 was a particularly important one in Lee’s life. He married Linda Emery
, moved to California, and met Ed Parker
, Chuck Norris
, Bob Wall
, and Mike Stone
. The latter quartet were all at the Ed Parker
International Karate Championships. “He did a demonstration there, and I won the grand championship in the heavyweight division,” Stone told me. “Afterward we went out for a Chinese dinner. We would work out together one day a week. I would work out with him one day, Chuck Norris
would work out with him another, and so would Joe Lewis
.” He had much to teach these martial arts champions. All their skills were Japanese in origin. Bruce opened the world of Chinese kung fu to them. It was as if men who had only known ice all their life were suddenly introduced to the benefits of water.

All three men would become influential in the American martial arts movie market, but it would be Bruce who created the market the other men would enter. The man who put Lee’s foot in the door was Ed Parker
. He had filmed Bruce’s performance at the internationals, and showed them to his student, Jay Sebring
, who, in turn, showed them to William Dozier
, who needed a “Kato
” for the show he was planning to produce in 1966. Dozier was riding high with the success of
Batman
(1966-1968)
,
a series that camped up Bob Kane’s famous comic-book character. The ABC-TV network wanted another silly superhero to follow on the “Caped Crusader’s” heels, and Dozier chose George W. Trendle
and Fran Striker’s
popular radio character — the somewhat generic masked master crime fighter known as
The Green Hornet
.

Behind the mask was Britt Reid, created by Trendle and Striker as the grandnephew of John Reid, better known as the Lone Ranger (also created by Striker and Trendle). Fortunately for Bruce Lee
, Dozier did not eliminate the character of Britt’s Asian manservant and chauffeur, Kato
(originally Japanese but made Korean in movie serials produced during World War
II). Kato piloted the Green Hornet’s heavily armed and high-octaned supercar, “The Black Beauty,” through battles against crime. Dozier wisely decided to downplay the camp aspects of the
Batman
show for his new baby, but the network had other ideas.

Much to Bruce’s satisfaction, he passed a now-famous screen test and was cast as Kato
— forever changing the character to Chinese.
The Green Hornet
(1966-1967) began production with high hopes and good intentions, but it soon became clear that ABC wanted a brightly colored, cutsie clone of the popular series it had already begun to beat into the ground. The only time the new show took off was when Bruce Lee
did. More than the Green Hornet’s guns (which shot gas and needles) and his armor-plated car, what sold the show to its young audience was Lee’s kung fu.

Whenever Kato
got out from behind the wheel and started kicking, the show started clicking. But as Mike Stone
noted, “They had to restrain Bruce as Kato, because there was a star.” That star was Van Williams
, made famous by two previous TV detective series:
Bourbon Street Beat
(1959-1960) and
Surfside Six
(1960-1962). Ironically, however, it was Williams who was Lee’s most vocal advocate.

“Both Bruce and I wanted Britt and Kato
to be more like partners,” Williams told me. But the network turned a deaf ear. Neither campy nor serious,
The Green Hornet
series was cancelled after only one season. But, by that time, Lee had developed his own form of kung fu — Jeet Kune Do
— the Way of the Intercepting Fist. What many saw as pure egoism was actually a time-honored tradition of personalizing kung fu to your own personality and physiology. Jeet kune do was only a name, as far as Bruce was concerned — a label which seemingly came to annoy him.