The Evolution of Kung Fu cinema: a brief history

It all started with the influence of the popular japanese Zatoichi the Blind swordman films (1962) that Hong Kong studios tried to emulate. Most of the first films were swords films. A notable classic came in 1965 with "Come Drink With Me" which gave audiences the very first martial arts FEMALE star. Then in 1967 Jimmy Wang Yu starred in The One Armed Swordman which begat a series of films one more awesome than the prior one. On 1969 Wang Yu decided to make the very first Kung Fu film: The Chinese Boxer, which looks very laughable today, but at that time it was a real milestone Ironically Jimmy Wang Yu was not a kung Fu expert, but a black belt in Karate, but you can never tell by the choreography of his films. Knives were the craze at that time.Then the short-lived defuncted american tv series The Green Hornet began airing in Hong Kong and was a huge ratings hit. Audiences were clamoring for "Kato" to make a kung fu movie. Both Sir Run Run Shaw of Shaw Studios and rival Raymond Chow of Golden Harvest Studio began to search for the young actor who portrait Kato, Bruce Lee. Lee eventually accepted the better offer from Raymond Chow: $1 million for two movies. Run Run Shaw failed to see the potential Lee had and just offered a lifetime contract for almost the same amount. Since many other producers were after Lee trying to bribe him to get out of his contract with Golden Harvest, Raymond Chow panicked and moved the production of its young star's first film to a tiny poor village in Thailand. The script was being written as filming started. it was chaotic. But at the end, The Big Boss became a huge international hit. The success of that film prompted its makers to achieve more quality in their next project. the result was Fist of Fury aka The Chinese Connection, which broke all previous records established by The Big Boss and became one of THE most influential kung fu films ever. The phenomenom of Bruce Lee continued with Way of The Dragon and later with Enter The Dragon, the film that made martial arts films mainstream worldwide. During Lee's reigning years other notable films were made like King Boxer aka Five Fingers of Death which was also immensely popular. The golden age of kung fu cinema gave us stars such as Lo Lieh, David Chiang, Ti Lung, Angela Mao, Jimmy Wang Yu, Chen kuan Tai and Chen Sing among many others. After Lee's death came the awful phase of 'the next-Bruce Lee'. everybody was trying to fill Bruce Lee's shoes. All failed. We saw an avalanche of crappy exploitation films that almost killed the genre. From this period we can take note of a few worthy films and actors like Ron Van Clief in the Black Dragon films. Then came 'kung foolery': Jackie Chan & Samo Hung arrived and it changed the face of the genre dramatically. The comedy was good, but the stunts were great. Other actors that made it without turning into comedians were Gordon Liu in The 36 Chamber of Shaolin and Alexander Fu Sheng in his period films. In the 80's martial arts were mainstream again thanks to those awful good Ninja films and The Karate Kid movies. Then came Jan Claude Van Damme and Steven Seagal which became household names. During all this time a former six time karate champion was struggling to make a name for himself. It wasn't until Missing in Action that Chuck Norris achieved a true hit. While Norris and the other two enjoyed their relative success, the Hong Kong cinema continued evolving as well as other asian studios. Jet Li came and brought new exciting films like Fist of Legend among others. The fights became less fake and usually full contact was the common practice which resulted in awesome realistic fight scenes...and numerous visits to the ER with broken bones and other injuries. Recently we have seen a new generation of artists like Tony Jaa and veteran Donnie Yen in the IP MAN series emerge in the new world of exciting martial arts films.

 

You neglected to mention an integral component of that particular genre.

World Middleweight Karate Champion Jim Kelly made many blaxpoitation martial arts movies after Bruce's untimely death, including "Black Belt Jones" which was produced by the same cadre of people that made "Enter The Dragon."

Kelly and Bruce sparred on the set of ETD, and Kelly ALMOST beat him.

Good stuff, anyway.

Karl

 

It is a brief history of Kung Fu cinema. There is no way I could include everybody. I left out Kelly because his impact was small, but if you noticed I also left out Sonny Chiba who had a bigger and longer impact than Kelly, but my main focus was the HK kung Fu cinema. But your contribution is well received and appreciated. Every poster can add their own piece of info. That is the purpose of this thread.

Kelly & Lee did just an exchange of ideas on techniques and about the choreography of Kelly's fight scenes since Lee was the fight choreographer on ETD. They didn't spar per se. Kelly did mentioned that Lee threw a backhand at him which he blocked and Lee said, "You block my backhand! Man,nobody blocks my backhand!" Kelly stated, "He was just joking, you know. he wasn't serious".

 

LOL, where'd you get this BS from? I never heard that crap in my life. Kelly wasn't even that good of a martial artist. He was chosen more so because he was light skinned and good looking.

 

It is just one of those internet urban legends. Kelly had never even mentioned that they actually sparred, but that they exchanged techniques on sparring. In all the interviews I have read and listened to from Kelly, he always shows the utmost respect for Bruce Lee and even called him the greatest martial artist ever.

 

Kelly is a GREAT Martial Artist.

 

Kelly WAS a good karateka, but his main passion was always tennis. A few years after his movie career was over, he basically quit karate and devoted himself to tennis. These last few years he has been working as a tennis instructor.

 

Black Dynamite is a great movie, one of the best in this genre.

 

I also really enjoyed the Karate Kid trilogy, but the third movie wasn't quite as good as the first two. Pat Morita really knows the martial arts.

 

::

 

he'd whoop you, even now.