Bruce Lee became an iconic image of the seventies following the enormous world-wide success of just a handful of martial arts movies. His character did for the kung fu genre what Clint Eastwood did for the lone gunfighter archetype in the spaghetti westerns of the sixties. In “Fists of Fury” he plays a prodigy student of a Chinese martial arts school in pre-revolution Shanghai, a city with an international community. When he discovers that his teacher was killed by members of a rival Japanese martial arts school, he seeks vengeance, defying all the odds by single-handedly taking on an army of opponents. Elaborately choreographed fight sequences show-case Bruce Lee’s unique athletic abilities. There are allusions to the tensions existing between the different national communities.
Bruce Lee was born in Hong Kong, but moved to California as a child, growing up and developing his skills in the Bay Area. In the sixties he set up schools to teach his brand of martial arts in Oakland, established his reputation and ventured into a career in acting; he was the Green Hornet’s sidekick. It was not until returning to Hong Kong to star in a couple of low-budget action films, however, that he was catapulted to fame. With his untimely death in 1973 he achieved legendary status, his classic bare-chested fighting pose gracing posters as popular as the famous Che Guevera image. For decades thereafter, variations of East Asian martial arts would achieve notoriety and immense global popularity. Martial arts studios have sprung up in thousands of towns all over the world, validating yet another aspect of China’s cultural heritage.
edited by rjessel on 11/19/2012