IRON FISTS AND KUNG-FU KICKS

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Encyclopedic telling of Hong Kong's martial arts film industry, and its influence on popular culture (see Hip-Hop, Parkour, etc.).

This crucial anatomical documentary study of martial arts films comes with agendas in plain view. 

You won't find any mention of Sonny Chiba, or any other Japanese martial artists. No Karate; it's right there in the film's title.

Oh the racism.

Still, the movie isn't above doing advertising for a popular video platform you've probably heard of once or twice.

It is action-packed though.

Although "Iron Fists And Kung-Fu Kicks could stand to lose 12 or 15 minutes, it is a really fun and informative movie to watch.

Cheers to past co-host on LA GRANDE BOUFFE (THE BIG FEAST), Grady Hendrix, co-writer with Serge Ou, on "Iron Fists And Kung-Fu Kicks"!

Not Rated. 107 mins. 

THE LEGEND OF DRUNKEN MASTER — CLASSIC FILM PICK

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At the age of 40, Jackie Chan reached his pinnacle of virtuosity as an adept slapstick comedian, martial arts expert, fight choreographer, and stuntman actor with “The Legend of Drunken Master” (1994). This is the big bad mother of all martial arts movies. It is chockablock with Jackie Chan performing outrageous fight sequences, many involving large numbers of participants using various found objects as weapons.

Jackie Chan draws on the comic sensibilities of Harold Lloyd, Buster Keaton, and Charlie Chaplin in order to imbue his character with intellectual wit and grace of movement. The film’s 20-minute climax is one of the most athletic and dangerous martial arts sequences ever filmed. When Jackie Chan crawls across hot coals, that’s Jackie Chan doing the deadly stunt for real.

Large, heavy objects fall close to Jackie Chan’s frequently imbibing character. As we discover during the film’s closing outtakes, not all missed hitting him.

The film — not to be confused with Jackie Chan’s 1978 kung fu movie “Drunken Master” — is a broad comedy populated with archetypal characters of Chinese comic tradition. A theme-carrying subplot, involving the theft of Chinese cultural artifacts by a local mafia, identifies the film’s core of nationalist sovereignty beneath the wild physical action and screwball humor that explodes from the screen. The brutality of China’s social conditions is nonetheless implied by the film’s environment of violent crime.

Jackie plays Wong Fei-hung, loyal son of a strict father and a wily stepmother, Ling (Anita Mui), whose martial arts skills are equal to that of Fei-hung. Anita Mui’s hilarious performance is all the more silly because she plays Fei-hung’s stepmother when she is in fact nine years Jackie Chan’s junior. Ling runs a martial arts school where she teaches a style of kung fu known as “drunken boxing.” As the name implies, the technique involves the practitioner getting drunk, really very drunk.

Jackie Chan’s gravity defying execution of drunken boxing finds his character endowed with super powers in relation to how much booze he drinks. Fei-hung uses alcohol in direct ways as well, as when he lights a rival on fire by spitting alcohol at a flame.

The originality of the film’s many dynamic fight scenes sustains the action with escalating surprises. Fei-hung goes against a small army of men with a large piece of bamboo that he transforms from a truncheon into a slicing weapon. In another confrontation Fei-hung kicks dirt in an opponent’s face as an opening gambit using available resources. You’ve never seen a fighter attack another with a chin to the eye-socket before. Such is the wealth of martial arts knowledge woven into the film’s beautifully accomplished action set pieces.

The joy in Jackie Chan’s face is infectious. It’s clear in the outtakes that he was sitting on top of the world when performing stunts for one of the funniest and action-packed martial arts movies ever made. Jackie Chan’s physical ingenuity brings with it an enormous history as a naturally gifted storyteller whose development dates back to his life as a childhood actor.

Rated R. 102 mins. 

5 FINGERS OF DEATH — CLASSIC FILM PICK

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Before Bruce Lee’s “Enter the Dragon” set a new standard for the American public’s newfound obsession with martial arts movies in 1973, another, more traditional, Chinese Kung Fu movie had already set the stage for its success.

China’s legendary Shaw Brothers studio helped pave the way for Bruce Lee with a similar Warner Brothers distribution deal that placed “5 Fingers of Death” on grindhouse and drive-in screens across the country in the spring of that year.

The story contains elements from television’s “Kung Fu” series and even steals an iconic bar of unlicensed music from the “Ironside” courtroom series — which Quincy Jones composed. Listen for the “Psycho”-like horn screeches that accompany our hero’s use of the deadly Iron Fist technique that causes his fists to glow red.

Cool.

By the end of 1973, “5 Fingers of Death” was in regular double-feature rotation with “Enter the Dragon.” It was the perfect diamond-in-the-rough warm-up act.

If the film’s unforgettable title wasn’t enough to capture audience imaginations, the film itself paid off on its brutal promise of dynamic and outlandish violence. I saw the movie when I was a kid — my dad took me to see it on Christmas Eve — and the memory of watching a deadly villain rip out the eyeballs of his opponent before dropping the bloody orbs unceremoniously on the ground is forever etched in my memory. So too, obviously, is the mortal anguish that the destructive act had on its victim.

Martial arts actor Lo Lieh was already Asia’s first Kung Fu superstar after making a slew of action movies under the Shaw Brothers, dating back to 1965. In “5 Fingers” Lo plays Chi-Hao, a young Kung Fu student in love with his aging master’s daughter. A gang of Japanese thugs from an outlying martial arts school are looking to take over the region by taking out Chi-Hao’s master. Chi-Hao begins studying with another shifu in the secret technique of the Iron Fist. His training involves thrusting his hands repeatedly into hot gravel, and striking trees wrapped by a single strand of rope. Breaking tree limbs is also part of his regimen. An upcoming tournament looms.

An anti-Japanese ethos of explicit racism, no doubt informed by the then-recent occupation during World War II, runs through the storyline. Dung-Shun is the villainous leader of the Japanese mob that ambushes Chi-Hao and ties his arms around a tree before smashing his hands to bloody pulps. Chi-Hao’s disability only makes him train harder to prove his abilities in the upcoming tournament.

“5 Fingers of Death” includes a double climax that undermines its clichéd storyline. An air of magical-realism infuses Chi-Hao’s Iron Fist technique that he uses to settle the story’s final score. Included in Quentin Tarantino’s list of 12 favorite movies of all time, “5 Fingers of Death” is notable for its regular use of flying sidekicks to punctuate fight sequences that represent microcosmic battles against outside influences. They are literal fights to protect an ancient culture under constant attack.

Rated R. 98 mins.